re: Credit Card Rewards and Points Discussion

I have Plat and Gold.

Wait for 100k Plat and 60k Gold offers and you'll clean up. Though when I got Plat it had the 10x gas and groceries. Don't forget, Gold is 4x groceries too.

Plat fee is a bit absurd, and the credits are a damn coupon book now.

Anyway, I'll drop plat when fee jumps to $700 but if your company is covering stuff Amex MR isn't a bad haul of points to have. The airline partners like ANA create some nice options (for now) that UR has lost with devaluations of their partner airlines.

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I'll drop plat when fee jumps to $700

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So I just hit my one year anniversary with my Platinum and my $695 fee should hit any day now. I got the 100k bonus and still sitting on about 65k points.

Trying to decide what to do. Leaning toward downgrading to Amex Green to preserve the points ($150 annual fee). Another option is to transfer the points to a travel partner and close the card, but I don’t want to piss off Amex. And I can’t see just keeping the card another year at that steep fee..

Any thoughts? What would you do?

ETA: I don’t want to downgrade to gold because then I would be ineligible for a bonus on that in the future.

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So I read that as you don't have the $250 fee on the gold. Am I wrong?

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I think they is for Gold Card AUs. I don't think you can add yourself a card in your name as a fee free Gold under your Plat.

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Yeah, the fee is ridiculous, but can't think of a better card. The 5x points on air and hotel will prob equal out to 80-100k pts a year

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Trip protection isn't as good as some other things, but that's not your problem if the company is paying for it.

Remember you only get 5x hotels with Plat if you book through Amex travel.

Like I said, MR are great but Amex is a real PITA with everything. It's always a scheme or hoop.

The Venture X is new hot card on market and has a great SUB. Gets most of the benefits of the premium cards at half the AF. That may be a good place to start while the bonus is still 100K + $200 travel credit which may not last forever.


CSR is still great for your circumstance as well and would be the no brainer pick 2 months ago. You'll get the premium benefits lounges etc of the reserve, and you'll get 3x on dining all travel (even Uber etc) without having to use any portals. The UR are much simpler to use than Amex MR for beginners. You can get the Freedom cards or Ink cards and combine all your points to Sapphire as well. The portal at 1.5x is a decent return and they have easy to use transfer partners with United, SW & Hyatt that doesn't require a bunch of hoops or understanding of alliances. Sign up is just OK.


Amex MR are good to have but more complicated and I really only suggest them for more advanced points users once you've reached a good bank of UR and are looking to do a ton of int'l biz class. That said, the sign up bonuses on the Amex's now are great. It wouldn't be unreasonable to sign up for 2 or 3 of the above for the sign up bonuses which it sounds like you could easily hit and won't come out of your pocket and then decide which you want to keep long term.

The "gold card" the Platinum gives you is essentially useless other than being an authorized user card to give the wife. It does get its own Amex Offers and login that can occasionally be good deals but certainly not worth it in and of itself.

@Phitiger Before cancelling you can chat with Amex once the AF hits and ask for a retention offer, they have been very generous and would probably convince you to keep it. If not it would not be an issue to transfer out your points, Amex won't get "mad." Can transfer to British Airways for use on domestic AA flights, although speculative transfers without a redemption in mind are always a risk. Downgrade to green is OK option.

Question, how good is Amex about squashing prior platinum card owners from new deals?

Have a 150k pt offer for new card holder but has the “you can’t have previously had card” language.

On the other hand in my acct for my gold that has 75k bonus to change cards and be credited the annual fee paid to the gold. Nothing about prior platinum in this offer.

Trying to decide whether to try the new holder deal for 150 or just take the guaranteed 75k plus 250 credit for fee.

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Any out there that lean "politically conservative"?

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fricking hell

I've been pretty lazy/ignorant using my business CC over the years, just taking the cash rewards with my Ink card.

No doubt, could be getting more with a different card, or by using the rewards differently. Wide open to suggestions if you care to share the knowledge.

Need a business card that I can have myself and 3 employees on, spend 6-12k a month on fuel, repairs, etc.

I've been traveling more (non-business), usually fly Southwest.

Suggestions?

I'm sure it's been discussed with with 500+ pages, but what is the best strategy with the yearly fees for some of these cards? Obviously you don't need all of the credit cards that offer these great rewards, do you just cancel after the first year once you've earned the rewards? Do they let you sign back up at a later time and re-earn the rewards? I know AMEX has issues with that type of thing.

So basically what is best practice on signing up for these cards for the rewards and dealing with the yearly fees?

Love Amex gold but trying to decide what airline to go all in with. Anyone do an Amex gold plus airline credit card combo they like?