Delta members: CC Options

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Delta Platinum Card

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You want skymiles and free bags

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reserve

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You are chasing Diamond and you want sky club access

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AMEX Platinum

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You spend a lot and want flexability


To be honest, no idea which card is right for you. It does not sound like you fly enough to get any real benefit with the reserve card. The platinum card is fine if you want to earn miles. The AMEX platinum is great, but will you offset the $895 annual fee?

AMEX Platinum benefits are so heavily tilted towards travel. If you're not traveling a lot for work, expensing flights ... I don't believe it is worth it. The AMEX Gold would probably be much better if you were to move away from the Delta Platinum.

Amex business has probably the best travel rewards of any card. 35% back on booked delta flights is hard to beat

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Should I trade in my Delta Platinum Card for the AMEX Platinum or upgrade to the reserve?

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You and I have similar Travel scenarios. I switched last year from Amex Delta Platinum to Chase Sapphire Reserve as my primary card for business expenses and recently added Chase Sapphire preferred for my personal expenses because it only has $100 annual fee and a 100,000 point bonus.

Before you decide to switch make sure you compare miles/points for the given expenses. If I recall correctly Delta Reserve and Amex Platinum has limited miles escalators compared to Delta Platinum or Delta Gold. The true benefit of Reserve is club access and potential first class companion, but I have found the companion fare to be extremely restrictive with its availability. I would imagine first class would be even worse. I have achieved Gold Medallion with Delta but haven't found any advantages other than free checked bags and priority check in at the counter.

In my opinion the chase options give you more flexibility and options to use your points. You earn points at a higher rate and you can transfer them to most major airlines, hotels, or use directly through booking via Chase travel. For example last month I was able to fly direct to Baltimore from MSY for free via SW using points instead of Delta who didn't have a direct flight. If I wanted to fly Delta I could transferred the points to Delta on a 1:1 ratio and booked using miles.

I am going on vacation next week in Europe and paid for most my hotels with points. At one of the hotels I will get $100 property credit (free dinner). I wasn't close to having enough points to get airfare to Europe via Delta but was able to use money that would have gone towards hotels to upgrade my seat class.

There is website pointsguy or something similar that has several comparison blogs that you can use to determine which card brings the most value to you.

MSY so a lot of flights through Atlanta
Revolving balance is because everything is pretty much on the card, cell phone, car note, etc so something is always coming out and I make a payment a month. Usually never a large balance but always a balance since everything is different days.

Flying 3-5 flights varies as an international trip is usually mixed in every other year (but we try for yearly)

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Revolving balance

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etc so something is always coming out and I make a payment a month.

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Set it up to autopay the full balance and avoid that interest bawwww

I live in Atlanta and we have the Amex platinum. We use pretty much all the benefits every year and only stay with platinum vs Delta reserve for points flexibility even though we only ever use them for Delta miles.

We both fly enough to have the lounge access be worth it. The good thing about platinum is you get all the Amex clubs and Priority Pass lounges too. There have been times I’ve skipped the sky club because it’s too crowded or there’s a wait and used the Amex clubs instead.