correct. I use it for the perks and where it makes sense for travel. I just don't use it much for daily spend because I can get better value with other cards.

These 3 perks are essentially cash for me, as I would use them regardless.

$400 Resy
$300 Digital Entertainment
$200 Travel credit

That pays for the annual fee.

The other perks: $600 travel discount, $300 Lululemon, $200 Uber credits, lounge access, etc. are the upside for me. The Amex FHR perks are great for hotels as well. I wouldn't value them @ 100% but they are nice to have.

Now, as I mentioned, they made the $200 travel credit harder to use when they stopped coding United Travel Bank purchases as "incidentals". That doesn't affect me until next year, so I'll take a look at my usage and see if it's worth using again.

My experience with 3rd party lounges is this…

1. Capital One
2. Chase Sapphire
3. Amex Centurion*
.
.
.
99. Priority Pass

* There are many Centurion lounges, and I haven't been in most, but the C1 and Chase I've been in both beat the Centurions I've been to. That being said, Amex has the major advantage of having so many still-good lounges sprinkled all over the place. And they're all infinitely better than priority pass.

Priority Pass lounges are generally **** in the US, but I've been to a few decent ones internationally.

Consequently, I would never pay Priority Pass membership, but it can come in handy

The only Priority Pass lounge I visit is the one in the Cabo airport and it's great.

Ducks4brkfast said:

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The only Priority Pass lounge I visit is the one in the Cabo airport and it's great.

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that is an awesome lounge. And that huge open foo court area that you walk through to get to it is always so effijn packed!

The Denver priority pass used to just be a $30 credit or whatever at a random restaurant. So it was good for a free meal, but crap if you're looking for a quiet comfortable spot.
They took away access to these food credit types with the Marriott Amex though several years ago though.

Yeah, I miss the food credit perk. Worked well at IAH.

Figured that was a big cash drain so I wasn't surprised they scrapped it.

Diggity said:

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Yeah, I miss the food credit perk. Worked well at IAH.

Figured that was a big cash drain so I wasn't surprised they scrapped it.

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they still have it, just not select card issuers.

https://thepointsguy.com/airline/priority-pass-adds-new-restaurant-us/

Quote:

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However, Priority Pass memberships provided as a perk by other credit card companies, such as Chase and Citi, continue to offer access to most non-lounge Priority Pass experiences. The top currently available picks for cards that offer Priority Pass Select membership that includes restaurant access and other non-lounge airport experiences are the Chase Sapphire Reserve (ending June 30), UBS Visa Infinite Credit Card and Capital One Venture X Business (only for eligible existing cardholders, not for new applicants).

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Right. Should have clarified.

They just ended it for 99.9% of their customer base

oh, I assumed all those cards had a likely equal share.. didn't know amex was most of it.

Amex and Chase Sapphire were definitely the big chunk.

I'm finding the centurion lounge annoying as of late. Always a wait it seems and jam packed to the maximum.

$30,000 Millionaire said:

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I'm finding the centurion lounge annoying as of late. Always a wait it seems and jam packed to the maximum.

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The Amex app will let you check in ahead of time and add your name to the wait list if there's a wait. I check in on the app right before I go through airport security and I typically won't have to wait at all once I reach the lounge.

What's the wait for? The united club gets crowded but I've never had to wait for anything. Genuinely just curious.

MAS444 said:

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What's the wait for? The united club gets crowded but I've never had to wait for anything. Genuinely just curious.

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they get to capacity.
I've had to wait for united club at den. It was before they finished the remodel of the big one.
During that time they were rarely letting one time club pass people in.

Texag5324 said:

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$30,000 Millionaire said:

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I'm finding the centurion lounge annoying as of late. Always a wait it seems and jam packed to the maximum.

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The Amex app will let you check in ahead of time and add your name to the wait list if there's a wait. I check in on the app right before I go through airport security and I typically won't have to wait at all once I reach the lounge.

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They can drop you from the list if you check in too early and you don't get there in time once your name is called.

Damn - I've never had to wait at the United Club. It's been crowded...but never a wait. That would suck.

Diggity said:

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The other perks: $600 travel discount, $300 Lululemon, $200 Uber credits, lounge access, etc. are the upside for me. The Amex FHR perks are great for hotels as well. I wouldn't value them @ 100% but they are nice to have.

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FYI you can use the Uber credits on Uber Eats as well (it took me awhile to figure that out). Just order for pickup and you can avoid most of the fees.

Jeeper79 said:

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Texag5324 said:

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$30,000 Millionaire said:

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I'm finding the centurion lounge annoying as of late. Always a wait it seems and jam packed to the maximum.

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The Amex app will let you check in ahead of time and add your name to the wait list if there's a wait. I check in on the app right before I go through airport security and I typically won't have to wait at all once I reach the lounge.

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They can drop you from the list if you check in too early and you don't get there in time once your name is called.

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Yes that's why you check in right before you get in the security line.

I just added a United quest card. The travel bank credit shows on my United account but it isn't showing the cardmember award pricing, it only shows the premier pricing. United is telling me it can take 5 weeks for the cardmember pricing to be reflected?! Anyone have more recent data points? I know this program just changed but that seems insane. Trying to decide if I want to wait or just pay cash.

AMEX gold -- 4x at restaurants + grocery
CSP @ other
Amazon card
AMEX Plat Business

those are main
i have several others that i dont use much
citi AA for AA status/lounges
united for status/lounges
AMEX aspire for status/hiltons

OasisMan said:

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AMEX gold -- 4x at restaurants + grocery
CSP @ other
Amazon card
AMEX Plat Business

those are main
i have several others that i dont use much
citi AA for AA status/lounges
united for status/lounges
AMEX aspire for status/hiltons

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This is a very good card that I don't think most people outside of hobbyists even know exists. I kind of hated Hilton until I got this card. The annual fee is steep, but I feel like it's easier to pay for itself than a lot of other premium cards between the free night, resort credit, and diamond status which grants $30+ food credits per night. As long as you're actually traveling at least one nice trip per year, this one is worth checking out.

I have a lot of premium cards.

Amex and Chase waive annual fees for active duty military and their dependents, so for the last year and a half my wife and I have been churning their premium cards. Between us we have 2 CSRs, 3 Amex Platinums, 4 Hilton Aspires, a couple Southwest cards (to get the companion pass and to churn points), and several others. The benefits are absurd.

The Platinums and the Aspires are the big winners, with the credits and annual free night certificates. The 4 Aspires mean we can vacation at the most elite resort properties in the world and walk in with $800 in hotel credits to blow on food, excursions, or whatever else they can charge to the room.

The 3 Platinums cover 3 streaming services, $1,200 in free dining annually at Resy restaurants, and $900 per year in Lululemon clothes. The Platinums and Aspires alone translate to $1,400 in airfare per year, plus another $600 from the CSRs. There are other little things too, like $45/month in UberEats credits.

I'm somewhat frugal, generally, but it does encourage us to live large now and then and stay at the Waldorf instead of a Home2suites.

How do two people get 3 AMEX platinums and 4 Aspires? It sounds like you broke the code.

YouBet said:

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How do two people get 3 AMEX platinums and 4 Aspires? It sounds like you broke the code.

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You can get a Green or Gold, and after holding it for a year you can upgrade to a Platinum, even if you already have one. They usually give you a points bonus for doing it too. You can do the same thing with lower tier Hilton cards to upgrade to an Aspire. I believe you can also upgrade Chase's ultimate rewards cards to Sapphires, although I haven't tried it. Amex also releases offers periodically with no lifetime language, where you can get a card and the bonus even if you have the card currently. They are offering such a deal currently on the Aspire:

https://dannydealguru.com/hilton-nll-offers/

It probably isn't worth it to most people if you are paying annual fees though.

AgLaw02 said:

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YouBet said:

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How do two people get 3 AMEX platinums and 4 Aspires? It sounds like you broke the code.

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You can get a Green or Gold, and after holding it for a year you can upgrade to a Platinum, even if you already have one. They usually give you a points bonus for doing it too. You can do the same thing with lower tier Hilton cards to upgrade to an Aspire. I believe you can also upgrade Chase's ultimate rewards cards to Sapphires, although I haven't tried it. Amex also releases offers periodically with no lifetime language, where you can get a card and the bonus even if you have the card currently. They are offering such a deal currently on the Aspire:

https://dannydealguru.com/hilton-nll-offers/

It probably isn't worth it to most people if you are paying annual fees though.

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Holy crap I didn't know there was a NLL sign up for Aspire. Just got one for my wife!

I generally don't like signing up for hotel cards in spring since the free night often comes in too late for booking summer vacation but this was too good to pass up.

YouBet said:

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Uh, that Hilton Honors AMEX Surpass card might be the best deal on the market. I think I'm getting that just to have it. $150 fee for 12x Hilton, 6x food and gas, and 3x everything else? That's incredible.

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Aspire is a good card to hold. Surpass is a good card to spend on. My wife now has both.

Hilton Surpass is especially good if you can meet the $15k annual spend to get the free night. Hilton free nights don't have a dollar cap.

(Remember that Hilton points are only worth about .5 cents when you go to redeem them, though. So redemptions are in line with other reward cards offering 1.5/3x cash back.)

Jeeper79 said:

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YouBet said:

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Uh, that Hilton Honors AMEX Surpass card might be the best deal on the market. I think I'm getting that just to have it. $150 fee for 12x Hilton, 6x food and gas, and 3x everything else? That's incredible.

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Aspire is a good card to hold. Surpass is a good card to spend on. My wife now has both.

(Remember that Hilton points are only worth about .5 cents when you go to redeem them, though. So redemptions are in line with other reward cards offering 1.5/3x cash back.)

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Ah, good catch there so (duh) the points you get with spend are Hilton points, only.

Fidelity Signature Rewards and Discover. Keep a Capital One online bank account for direct deposits, but keep everything in Fidelity accounts. All bills auto-pay. No Capital One cards.

Fidelity for 2% cash back on whatever Discover is not giving 5%
Discover for 5% on whatever the quarter includes

Discover is 5% for restaurants and Home improvement stores through June. They send an email every quarter to show what gets 5%. No fees for either card.

Have my college Mastercard earning 1% at the moment. Dates back 22 years so no way I'll give it up for life. Looking for a second card potentially once I figure out where are money goes now in a house of 6.

Used to have the Barclays travel card (2% plus .5% if points spent go to travel). Also had a Citi 2% back card and NFM card. Cancelled all 3 in 2024. Just too much to handle with newborns.

Don't travel much with the kids.
Don't buy stuff at NFM anymore.
Citi cancelled $5k worth of points for my mom when my dad died. They shared a card but dad was primary. So eff Citi.

I'm likely changing soon. I travel through IAH routinely for work, snd dine frequently. Thoughts?
Current:
-Amex Gold
-Wells Fargo Active Cash
-Amazon Prime Rewards

Proposed:
-Amex platty
-Fidelity Rewards
-Amazon Prime Rewards

suburban cowboy said:

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I'm likely changing soon. I travel through IAH routinely for work, snd dine frequently. Thoughts?
Current:
-Amex Gold
-Wells Fargo Active Cash
-Amazon Prime Rewards

Proposed:
-Amex platty
-Fidelity Rewards
-Amazon Prime Rewards

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Whats your primary airline?