I'm resurrecting this topic now that Amex has raised the annual fee and added (mostly useless) benefits for their Platinum card, following Chase's lead.
Any new thoughts on Amex Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve, or others?
My husband, has an Amex platinum and the card pays for itself, if you travel and go out for dinner! The $400 resy credit, will be used, the saks $100, the $600 hotel, the $120 uber, the $300 for media related items - will all be used! The lounge access, etc. do I like the increase in the card price, not really, but the changes will be used by us.
Yes, used by us Saks is a challenge but I just used my six monthly one, two pairs of underwear, almost $50. Another time, four basic juice glasses, $50. We don’t use all the Uber…Just last week used it going out for dinner so we could both enjoy a glass of wine, New York Times online. Definitely use all the hotel benefits
However, you can’t purchase gift cards. I tried. You also get 75.00 off LuLu Lemon every quarter in case you’re interested when you make a purchase with the AmEx card.
Thanks for the info, all. In case you aren't aware, Charles Schwab has a deal (for both Amex cards) where they will rebate some money on the annual fee, based on your acct balance. Have a 10M+ acct value and they actually pay you to get the Platinum card.
The thing I don't like about it at the moment, my opinion may change, is jumping through a bunch of hoops to get my money's worth, and shopping places I normally don't (eg., Saks, lululemon, etc.) and buying stuff I don't need, just to get my money's worth. I think I'd prefer a simpler card with a flat percentage back. We'll see...
I would prefer a simpler card. The Chase Reserve gives you a lot of points for travel, but you have to make the arrangments with them, not your travel agent.
British - better than booking directly with the airlines? Also, if there are flight issues (cancellations, delays, etc.) you have to work it out with th TA and not the airline directly. That's why I prefer to book directly with the airline.
@BKMD - I have my TA make my flight reservations direct with the airline. If I need to change anything, either of us can make the changes.
That's different than if you go through one of those companies like Travelocity or a ticket aggregator. If you do that, you have to go back to them. The airline will not make changes for you.
Chase United Club Card is simple. You have to use United Airlines to make it most worthwhile since the main benefit (for me at least) is United Club membership.
If you regularly travel with Tauck or other high end tour operators, the new Sapphire Reserve is worth it if you are willing to book through Chase Travel. AMEX only offers reward multipliers on hotels and airlines. Sapphire Reserve offers 8x points on flights, hotels and tours (including Tauck) when booked through Chase Travel. This gives you effectively 8% cash back on your Tauck tours. If you use the points to book certain airlines, they double it, giving you the equivalent of 16% cash back on your tour purchase. $10,000 per person per year travel insurance is included if you use the card. So, for you and your spouse, you get $20,000 free travel insurance, even if just one of you is a cardholder. Also, car rental insurance that is primary. so, you don't have to hassle with making a claim on your regular auto policy. Many other features, but the rewards for booking tours through Chase are the deciding factor for me.
There are lots of videos on YouTube comparing cards. Here's one comparing the new Sapphire Reserve card to the new AMEX platinum.
I booked Australia and New Zealand through AMEX travel, when the flights were canceled, the AMEX travel agent stayed on the phone with me just about all night until new flights could be booked.
AXP all the way for its ability to get you last minute Broadway tickets when the line circles around the theatre,find you a room at a specific hotel on a sepecif night( Great America Salt Lake City and the Bridges at Osaka) when the hotel said everything is sold out but best of all when a tour company(It should remain nameless) did not get you off their waitlist, they can find a superior company to customize the same itinitery for you in shorter than 7 days' time and putting you at the Penthouse floor at the Artist!
After spending a little time this weekend going through the options, I think I'm going to downgrade my CSR to a Chase Freedom Unlimited card. This is a no annual fee, cashback card. They offer 5% back on travel booked with Chase Travel, 3% on restaurants and 1.5% on everything else (while CSR is only 1% back in the everything else category). No fee. No hoops to jump through. No "I need to buy/use stuff I don't really need or want to get my money back."
Looking at the numbers, if you book one Tauck trip costing 10K thru Chase Travel, you get the equivalent of $800 dollars back, which just about covers the annual fee of the CSR, or with a CFU, you get $500 back free and clear of any overhead. Yes, the CSR points may be worth more if you use the points to convert to FF miles and book a flight with them, but as I said, I don't like jumping through hoops, and my experiences using FF miles have almost always involved compromising the flight booking in some way (layover vs non-stop, long layover, inconvenient timing, etc.)
Following up on CSR vs. Amex Platinum, if you tend to use points as cashback in the form of a statement credit, CSR is the better deal as CSR's points are worth 1 cent each. Amex's points are only worth 0.6 cents each as cashback.
Not trying to convince anyone of anything, but just following up on my original post as it related to my preferences. Thanks again for all the input.
Recently was a party to someone having to cut short a trip dealing with CSR while on a trip to Turkey . Due to the length of the bus trip and the person’s booming voice, everyone on the tour was witness to his dismay; he was pretty miserable. It took hours and hours and hours on the phone for him to change his airline and hotel reservations through CSR. As a rule, we book our own travel and purchase travel insurance. It is a lot easier than trying to get satisfaction through a third party. We like the Amex. The lounges are a really great bonus if you travel a lot and have one in your area. After 2 years, I have yet to figure out how to get a Saks credit. 😂🤷🏻♀️ We finally were able to use points to get business class tickets….. it takes a while. We like the Uber credit. We use it for trips to the airport and media credit pays for Sirius XM and WSJ. It is painful to pay, but I am glad we have it and would have a hard time giving up the centurion lounges. The Priority pass lounges ( also Amex perk) are Ok, but not as good. BTW- Turkey is magical. Tauck needs to start going there. What are they waiting for?
A few days ago, we had to cancel a tour with just four days to go before our vacation. We booked through Amex travel and it was three flights each way, no real way of doing it any other way. The flights were two Qatar air and 1 Kenyan airlines. The cost for both was $13,000 plus. We did not insure the flights. We made one call to Amex, it was answered immediately and they canceled all the flights for us for just $600 each. I thought that was pretty good!
Mother Of Poodles:,To get the Saks credit: Log on to your Amex. account. Look under Benefits and register. There are many benefits and perks to choose from. It also changes often.
Comments
My husband, has an Amex platinum and the card pays for itself, if you travel and go out for dinner! The $400 resy credit, will be used, the saks $100, the $600 hotel, the $120 uber, the $300 for media related items - will all be used! The lounge access, etc. do I like the increase in the card price, not really, but the changes will be used by us.
Yes, used by us Saks is a challenge but I just used my six monthly one, two pairs of underwear, almost $50. Another time, four basic juice glasses, $50. We don’t use all the Uber…Just last week used it going out for dinner so we could both enjoy a glass of wine, New York Times online. Definitely use all the hotel benefits
British - Is Saks an online purchase?
Yes, it is
However, you can’t purchase gift cards. I tried. You also get 75.00 off LuLu Lemon every quarter in case you’re interested when you make a purchase with the AmEx card.
Thanks for the info, all. In case you aren't aware, Charles Schwab has a deal (for both Amex cards) where they will rebate some money on the annual fee, based on your acct balance. Have a 10M+ acct value and they actually pay you to get the Platinum card.
The thing I don't like about it at the moment, my opinion may change, is jumping through a bunch of hoops to get my money's worth, and shopping places I normally don't (eg., Saks, lululemon, etc.) and buying stuff I don't need, just to get my money's worth. I think I'd prefer a simpler card with a flat percentage back. We'll see...
Personally, I like the Chase United Club card.
I would prefer a simpler card. The Chase Reserve gives you a lot of points for travel, but you have to make the arrangments with them, not your travel agent.
So far, we have always had great deals on flights using Amex travel.
British - better than booking directly with the airlines? Also, if there are flight issues (cancellations, delays, etc.) you have to work it out with th TA and not the airline directly. That's why I prefer to book directly with the airline.
@BKMD - I have my TA make my flight reservations direct with the airline. If I need to change anything, either of us can make the changes.
That's different than if you go through one of those companies like Travelocity or a ticket aggregator. If you do that, you have to go back to them. The airline will not make changes for you.
We have had a couple of issues and Amex has been right there for us.
Chase United Club Card is simple. You have to use United Airlines to make it most worthwhile since the main benefit (for me at least) is United Club membership.
If you regularly travel with Tauck or other high end tour operators, the new Sapphire Reserve is worth it if you are willing to book through Chase Travel. AMEX only offers reward multipliers on hotels and airlines. Sapphire Reserve offers 8x points on flights, hotels and tours (including Tauck) when booked through Chase Travel. This gives you effectively 8% cash back on your Tauck tours. If you use the points to book certain airlines, they double it, giving you the equivalent of 16% cash back on your tour purchase. $10,000 per person per year travel insurance is included if you use the card. So, for you and your spouse, you get $20,000 free travel insurance, even if just one of you is a cardholder. Also, car rental insurance that is primary. so, you don't have to hassle with making a claim on your regular auto policy. Many other features, but the rewards for booking tours through Chase are the deciding factor for me.
There are lots of videos on YouTube comparing cards. Here's one comparing the new Sapphire Reserve card to the new AMEX platinum.
https://youtu.be/UEHdVJJiiZw?si=A_qVMhGFDacWJ3Ac
He prefers the AMEX, but he doesn't travel on tours and I'm not sure he's comparing to the new AMEX card.
If you don't have a premium card yet, both cards are offering huge sign-up bonuses right now.
I booked Australia and New Zealand through AMEX travel, when the flights were canceled, the AMEX travel agent stayed on the phone with me just about all night until new flights could be booked.
AXP all the way for its ability to get you last minute Broadway tickets when the line circles around the theatre,find you a room at a specific hotel on a sepecif night( Great America Salt Lake City and the Bridges at Osaka) when the hotel said everything is sold out but best of all when a tour company(It should remain nameless) did not get you off their waitlist, they can find a superior company to customize the same itinitery for you in shorter than 7 days' time and putting you at the Penthouse floor at the Artist!
After spending a little time this weekend going through the options, I think I'm going to downgrade my CSR to a Chase Freedom Unlimited card. This is a no annual fee, cashback card. They offer 5% back on travel booked with Chase Travel, 3% on restaurants and 1.5% on everything else (while CSR is only 1% back in the everything else category). No fee. No hoops to jump through. No "I need to buy/use stuff I don't really need or want to get my money back."
Looking at the numbers, if you book one Tauck trip costing 10K thru Chase Travel, you get the equivalent of $800 dollars back, which just about covers the annual fee of the CSR, or with a CFU, you get $500 back free and clear of any overhead. Yes, the CSR points may be worth more if you use the points to convert to FF miles and book a flight with them, but as I said, I don't like jumping through hoops, and my experiences using FF miles have almost always involved compromising the flight booking in some way (layover vs non-stop, long layover, inconvenient timing, etc.)
Following up on CSR vs. Amex Platinum, if you tend to use points as cashback in the form of a statement credit, CSR is the better deal as CSR's points are worth 1 cent each. Amex's points are only worth 0.6 cents each as cashback.
Not trying to convince anyone of anything, but just following up on my original post as it related to my preferences. Thanks again for all the input.
There is something out there for everyone.........................
BKMD- Don't forget you also get $300 credit on your first travel purchase with the CSR card (and all the other benefits). Whatever works for you.
Recently was a party to someone having to cut short a trip dealing with CSR while on a trip to Turkey . Due to the length of the bus trip and the person’s booming voice, everyone on the tour was witness to his dismay; he was pretty miserable. It took hours and hours and hours on the phone for him to change his airline and hotel reservations through CSR. As a rule, we book our own travel and purchase travel insurance. It is a lot easier than trying to get satisfaction through a third party. We like the Amex. The lounges are a really great bonus if you travel a lot and have one in your area. After 2 years, I have yet to figure out how to get a Saks credit. 😂🤷🏻♀️ We finally were able to use points to get business class tickets….. it takes a while. We like the Uber credit. We use it for trips to the airport and media credit pays for Sirius XM and WSJ. It is painful to pay, but I am glad we have it and would have a hard time giving up the centurion lounges. The Priority pass lounges ( also Amex perk) are Ok, but not as good. BTW- Turkey is magical. Tauck needs to start going there. What are they waiting for?
A few days ago, we had to cancel a tour with just four days to go before our vacation. We booked through Amex travel and it was three flights each way, no real way of doing it any other way. The flights were two Qatar air and 1 Kenyan airlines. The cost for both was $13,000 plus. We did not insure the flights. We made one call to Amex, it was answered immediately and they canceled all the flights for us for just $600 each. I thought that was pretty good!
Mother Of Poodles:,To get the Saks credit: Log on to your Amex. account. Look under Benefits and register. There are many benefits and perks to choose from. It also changes often.
Also a $75 quarterly credit on Lululmon purchases. I think this is new.
Nancy: I already used it.