American Express Membership Rewards - Switch from SPG Amex to?

I've had the SPG Amex for several years (largely because of FT recommendations). I was recently billed a $45 membership fee (which I don't remember every seeing before), and so I'm considering switching to something else.

I put about $5k/month on the SPG, about $2k/month on an Amex Biz Plat, and about $3k/month on my wife's Continental PC MC. I've used the SPG points only twice - for a hotel in New Orleans last New Year's Eve, and to top up my mother's Co miles so she could get a ticket somewhere.

I fly about 75k miles on Continental each year, 10k on AA and 10k on Delta. I most frequently stay in Hiltons, then Marriotts, then Best Westerns (whatever is closest to/recommended by the clients).

Is this still the best card for me, or are there others to consider?

Thanks

If what you are looking for is a card without an annual fee, go with the Hilton Honors AMEX. SPG is still a terrific card, but if you are trying to consolidate points and you usually stay at Hiltons, that may be your best bet.

The annual fee went up on the SPG AMEX from $30 to $45 so that's why you may not remember seeing that amount.

At $45 the SPG AMEX can still be a good value based on your spending because of the mileage bonus especially.

I alternate my spending mainly between the SPG Amex and the Hilton Amex by using each when the points have the most value [i.e. Hilton at restaurants, grocery, Hiltons, etc. & SPG almost everywhere else.] I have had good results from using both over the past few years for reward stays and airline travel.

I switched all my spending away from Amex SPG since the SPG hotel reward devaluation. My current favourite is the Citi Amex Platinum card. I'll keep that one for 12 months and then review my options.

https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/cardDetail.do?screenID=927

My backup card right now is an Citi AA MasterCard since international award availability has been just excellent for me and the phone reps are awesome compared to UA's ICC.

Give Amex a call. If you are spending 5k/month they will comp the 45$ if you threaten to cancel. The Hilton Amex doesn't offer the same bang for the buck as the SPG amex.

I switched all my spending away from Amex SPG since the SPG hotel reward devaluation. My current favourite is the Citi Amex Platinum card. I'll keep that one for 12 months and then review my options.

https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/cardDetail.do?screenID=927



Has anybody done a real side-by-side on the Citi-Amex to compare benefits? (# of points for a free room, # of points for a flight etc, availability, etc ?)

Has anybody done a real side-by-side on the Citi-Amex to compare benefits? (# of points for a free room, # of points for a flight etc, availability, etc ?)

Well, I value starpoints around 2.5 cents, sometimes a little more. The Citi-Amex is 3% when redeeming for gift cards but up to 6% when redeeming for coach flights (it's up to 9% for premium class). For gas/groceries/pharmacy it's more like 5/10/15, for the first 12 months. It works for me.

The Citi-Amex is limited to 150K points per calendar year however. No such cap with the Amex SPG.

The Hilton Amex doesn't offer the same bang for the buck as the SPG amex.Unless you're an SPG Platinum member who gets a great deal of benefit from 2 SPG points/dollar at Starwood properties, I would not agree with this at all. I believe the HHonors card is a slightly better deal (especially since it still has the everyday bonus), but wouldn't argue someone claiming they are roughly equal, but can not work it out to where the SPG card is that much better than HHonors, especially when you factor in AXON (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=423069), GLON/GLONP (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=603818), and ALON/ALONP (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=132284) awards you can get from HHonors. Personally I have both cards in my arsenal and they each have their purpose ... my primary card right now though is the AMEX Citi Platinum (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=721401), I really like the flexibility of those airline awards, you would want a card that offers the fixed point option though, such as the Cit PremierPass Card that I always see ads for here on FT.

SPG AmEx has been my primary card for much of the last 8 years, but the Citi Platinum AmEx (at least for one year) has replaced almost my entire arsenal of cards.

I'm HHonors Gold and SPG dirt, but I still get more value out of the SPG AmEx than the Hilton AmEx. If Hilton ever had a respectable supply of PointSavers rates, my calculations would change. However, with easy availability of regular award rates and cash & points rates, points earned on SPG AmEx have been far more valuable in my experience.

I'm HHonors Gold and SPG dirt, but I still get more value out of the SPG AmEx than the Hilton AmEx. If Hilton ever had a respectable supply of PointSavers rates, my calculations would change. However, with easy availability of regular award rates and cash & points rates, points earned on SPG AmEx have been far more valuable in my experience.

I'm SPG & Hhonors Gold and SPGs points have been more valuable so far for redemption as well as transfer to my FFPs.

Personally I prefer SPG, both Citi and HHonors but may be getting something wrong. I put about $100K on my *wood card a month, but rarely at Hotels or airlines. I love cashing these in for premium properties like the W or resorts outside the US. Of course the 25% bump in airmiles doesn't hurt either.

Sometimes when iIhave been trying to put up my entire family for multiple night stays (and the total # of points get to be signifdicant), I have noticed that the Hilton properties have required twice as many points as the equivalent *wood property. If accumulating MR points and converting (which I know we don't do lightly) at least, *wood gets the nod. I am not sure on the earning rate of the HHilton card though.

I switched to Hilton AMEX when Starwood increased redemption levels for so many properties last year. I still have an SPG AMEX, but only use it when I'm staying at a Starwood property.

Personally I prefer SPG, both Citi and HHonors but may be getting something wrong. I put about $100K on my *wood card a month, but rarely at Hotels or airlines. I love cashing these in for premium properties like the W or resorts outside the US. Of course the 25% bump in airmiles doesn't hurt either. If I were putting that much through a month I would take the SPG over HHonors too given the two choices, but I would actually use my Diners Club card instead because of the greater flexibility in hotel partners, it opens up Hyatt in particular, as well as Marriott, Hilton, and SPG with a single card. Admittedly the earning rate is less than a card dedicated to those programs (though Hyatt does not have a card), but the flexibility would be more important to me at that level of spend.
Sometimes when iIhave been trying to put up my entire family for multiple night stays (and the total # of points get to be signifdicant), I have noticed that the Hilton properties have required twice as many points as the equivalent *wood property. If accumulating MR points and converting (which I know we don't do lightly) at least, *wood gets the nod. I am not sure on the earning rate of the HHilton card though.The HHonors card earns at 3 points/dollar (plus still has everyday spend bonus of an additonal 2 points/dollar at grocery stores, drugstores, gas stations, USPS, and cell phone providers), so if the points for similar hotels is only twice as much, the HHonors card would be the better option. As another reference point for the value you earn 2 SPG points/dollar at Starwood hotels but 10 HHonors points/dollar at Hilton hotels, so the difference becomes greater for actual hotel stays, though I think it equalizes a bit with credit card bonuses and elite bonuses, moving closer to the 1:3 ratio of the credit cards themselves.

My current favourite is the Citi Amex Platinum card. I'll keep that one for 12 months and then review my options.

https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/cardDetail.do?screenID=927

It's difficult to assess how good this program is when there is no grid that tells you how many ThankYou points you'd need to say, book a RT flight to Hawaii. The website simply says, "Eligible cardmembers can also use our fixed flights air travel option -- only 25,000 points needed to fly anywhere in the continental U.S. and Alaska." No word on what airlines participate, if there are black out dates, etc.

Also I see that the bonus miles on supermarkets, etc., ends after 24 months. That's a bummer.

It's difficult to assess how good this program is when there is no grid that tells you how many ThankYou points you'd need to say, book a RT flight to Hawaii. The website simply says, "Eligible cardmembers can also use our fixed flights air travel option -- only 25,000 points needed to fly anywhere in the continental U.S. and Alaska." No word on what airlines participate, if there are black out dates, etc. You're not actually eligible for fixed point redemption with just the AMEX Platinum card, you'd need another card, but there are some good options with no annual fee that get you bonus points too, such as the Premier Pass card I see advertised for here on FT all the time.

The fixed point option is not well advertised, but you can probably find everything you need to know about how it works now in this thread (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=709483). There are no blackout dates, no advance purchase requirements, you can get them on any airline you choose, and the tickets are basically paid tickets so you earn miles on them.

If I were putting that much through a month I would take the SPG over HHonors too given the two choices, but I would actually use my Diners Club card instead.


Agreed that the major drawback is the limited number of hotel partners (and recently I am actually getting to appreciate hotel rewards much more). Limited being somewhat of an understatement since it is only one chain. ;-)

However, I have used Diners before and quit because of the limited amount of establishments accepting it. Now that they use the MC network this is taken away, but the stigma remains... (The larger issue is actually me cycling cards all the time.)

To combat this I have used the MR > Hawaiian > Hilton a few times (before it died), recently partipated in the MR 50% bonus transfer option to HH. I also have a few hundred K points stashed with Marriott, so I am relatively well covered when there is no *wood hotel around. (I even have 125K languishing with Choice after they bottled up the WN transfer option following the AGR transfer scheme. Might be useful if I ever take to the highways...)

My bigger issue is actually that for various reasons, I also accumulate points with MR, and as we well know, these are sort of useless...

Not really, IMO, if you're after airline awards.. MR transfers 1:1 to Delta but 3:1 to SPG...SPG is 1:1 to AA...so I split my spending between Amex PLAT and SPG, since I use Delta and AA most often.

It's difficult to assess how good this program is when there is no grid that tells you how many ThankYou points you'd need to say, book a RT flight to Hawaii. The website simply says, "Eligible cardmembers can also use our fixed flights air travel option -- only 25,000 points needed to fly anywhere in the continental U.S. and Alaska." No word on what airlines participate, if there are black out dates, etc.

What we need is a megasite that converts currencies based on what airline or hotel award one is after. Beckles linked the Webflyer conversion engine in a thread I read a while ago, but it'd be nice to have one based on, say, geography (which CC is best based on travel to X destination, given Y airline/hotel availability, for example...)

MR transfers 1:1 to Delta but 3:1 to SPG...SPG is 1:1 to AA...so I split my spending between Amex PLAT and SPG, since I use Delta and AA most often.

Since you get a 25% bonus when transferring 20k miles+, wouldn't SPG make the most sense for both Delta/AA?

Since you get a 25% bonus when transferring 20k miles+, wouldn't SPG make the most sense for both Delta/AA?

I don't think the SPG offers double points for gas, grocery stores, etc. I know Delta AMEX does.

Limited being somewhat of an understatement since it is only one chain. ;-)

SPG points can be converted to Priority Club (Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn) and to Hilton HHonors through American Airlines.

$20,000 spend
= 20,000 Starpoints
= 25,000 AAdvantage Miles
= 50,000 Hilton HHonors points
-OR-
= 20,000 Priority Club points

Transfers limited to 150,000 miles per year (combined). $25 fee.

SPG points can be converted to Priority Club (Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn) and to Hilton HHonors through American Airlines.


Thanks MIA, I had no idea!
The point limit is with AA, I take it? (And is it for all hotel transfers, all transfers or just combined for these two?) How about the $25 fee, is that per transfer so it makes sense to do all at once?

I don't think the SPG offers double points for gas, grocery stores, etc. I believe they used to, but the benefit was dropped a few years ago. Delta and HHonors both offer the "Everyday" bonus still (double for Delta, 5 points/dollar instead of 3 points/dollar for HHonors).

The point limit is with AA...

Sorry, I neglected to include links to the AA pages which explain these "Non-Air" redemptions...

https://commerce.points.com/landing/

https://commerce.points.com/static/aadvantage/landing/rates.html

The partners are...

Alamo® Car Rentals
Avis Rent A Car
Budget Rent A Car
Diners Club® Points
Hilton HHonors® Points
Intercontinental® Hotel stays - including Intercontinental® Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza® Hotels and Resorts, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood® Suites, Holiday Inn® and Holiday Inn Express®
Marriott® Certificates
National® Car Rentals
Priority Club® Points
Samsonite®

Only Diners, Hilton, and Priority Club allow points transfers, all others are certificates. AA allows 150,000 per calendar year from any combination of these partners, but (for example) Diners Club will accept only 50,000. $25 is a per transaction fee.

Obviously 2.5 HHonors points per dollar is not as valuable as earning 3-5 points with the HHonors card, but this does give an SPG cardholder flexibility to redeem at Hilton at reasonable rates, while transferring from HHonors to any other program would be unattractive.

Well, I value starpoints around 2.5 cents, sometimes a little more. The Citi-Amex is 3% when redeeming for gift cards but up to 6% when redeeming for coach flights (it's up to 9% for premium class). For gas/groceries/pharmacy it's more like 5/10/15, for the first 12 months. It works for me.

The Citi-Amex is limited to 150K points per calendar year however. No such cap with the Amex SPG.

small point, but it's actually for the first 2 years.
free for the first 12 months.

Thanks again Mia!