Got an 150K Membership Rewards bonus offer from Amex Plat which seems to be highest they currently offer. Currently rolling with the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR) and the benefits have gotten pretty lackluster lately (Grubhub+, Peloton, etc). Is the $695 annual fee worth it for you all?
Worth it if your main airport has a centurion lounge and you’re a bougie 🅱️ like me. People mock it as a coupon book but some of the coupons are actually pretty nice, e.g. got some great clothes at Scoth & Scoda and platinum randomly had a deal to give $35 in credit
Lol coupon book. If I have to pay $695 I probably don’t care about these deals and points. What a waste of time
Yep, it’s definitely not for everyone, you have to find the value in it. I keep a sheet of all the benefits I’ve received through the year and I only keep it for the next year if it totals to $1000 or more
At minimum it's worth it to pay for it for a year to get the 150k signup bonus. See if you can stack it with the resy restaurant signup bonus too
Get it for the bonus points then downgrade to a no fee card.
You can't do that, I think you can only downgrade their charge cards to Gold or Green.
Oh that’s lame. It’s probably not worth it for $700 unless you can cancel after getting the points and before you pay a second annual fee.
I get enough out of it to justify it and like Amex for offering a card driven by fees rather than attempting to manipulate people into going into debt.
What do you mean?
I mean that Amex charge cards (green/gold/platinum) all basically expect monthly payment in full. They’ve tried to introduce pay later features that are opt-in, but the original use case is as a charge card, not a credit card. Amex makes money on my platinum because I pay yearly fee and transaction fees are charged to merchants. They do not make money by hoping some percentage of their platinum cardholders fall into high-APR credit card debt, as you cannot be “in debt” to Amex (via their charge card lineup) without torpedoing your relationship with them. I don’t have issues with credit card debt these days but when I was younger fell into it a bit, and now that I’m older I prefer paying for things where I’m clearly the customer and not the mark. Same with paying for software that people may expect should be free, but in return for paying there are no ads or sale of your data. So the perks of Amex platinum definitely save me $100s a year, but I haven’t been tracking if I break even or win or fall short. But the benefits I do get + the business model itself make me fine with the cost. Also, they are very good about customer support if you need to charge back, that’s why I always viewed them favorably as well. You can’t put a direct price on that but it is clear that you are in fact the customer, and not a commodified interest-payer.
Delta lounge access is too good for me to pass up
Yup.. that's $545 right there
Priority pass lounges in the US are mostly crap, having centurion and delta lounges is a huge plus.
You may as well try it for the first year just for the points alone. If you don't already have AMEX and decide to leave the card next year, make sure you spend your MR points because they go away if you don't have an active AMEX account. I got the 150k 10x restaurants deal and I've been liking it a lot so far.
I can refer you and share half my referral bonus with you. Also, if you have amex corporate card you get 150$ off the annual fee
Op wont get 150k through referral…
They will
Not worth the time and effort to keep track of their coupons. I also don’t have the time to go to the airport 2 hours early just to sit in the lounge for like 5 dollars worth of free snacks and drinks.
It literally takes 2 mins to navigate through their Offers page. And credits add up enough to offset the annual fees.
Time is more valuable.
The cost is well offset for the first year if you are diligent about getting through the coupons. Do it again next year with the charles schwab plat, and cash out the points through them (just over 1c/p)
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Yes it is worth every penny if you are able to use them properly. Also don’t redeem those MR points for some shitty Apple gift cards.
How do you get more than 1:1 value ratio? Transfer?
Flights usually