American Express Membership Rewards - Plat AmEx vs Airline club membership

Hi There,

I have been reading the posts for a long time but very seldom contribute because there are so many knowledge posters out there like Mia. After reading a lot of posts regarding Plt AmEx card. I decide I really need to ask my question. I am thinking about dumping my President Club membership with CO and get the Plt card instead.

Here are some negatives:

1. Plt card costs about $100 more.
2. Plt access to club seem very limiting to me. I won’t get lounge access in CDG or AMS which I need about once or twice year. With PC membership, I can get into any NW, KLM, AF, DL club around the world regardless which airline I fly with. I swore off AA decades ago. So far have been successful in avoiding them.

Here is a positive:
I get 4 companion tickets a year. I had terrible luck using Citi’s 2-4-1. I am a little skeptical about the 2-4-1 even after reading all the successes. With IAH as my home city and I always want non-stop whenever possible, it pretty much limits me to CO. Of course 50% EQM will kill any deal with marginal savings for me. So how realistic is it for me to save $100 per trip or $400 per year?

I am really interested in your opinion and success stories for IAH flyers. It comes across to me that I am saving $300 a year but I have to give up some comfort at the airport. I must be missing some other benefits. Of course there are points, but I get points with citi PPE also.

If you expect the 2-4-1 to cover the cost of the annual fee completely you might be disappointed. You'll be more disappointed if you skip the 2-4-1 for the 50% EQMs.

The CO PC membership does not get you access to all AF lounges; there are actually very few international destinations that allow PC access. The NW WC membership is better for that.

My experience on the 2-4-1 has been very positive flying CO and NW out of NYC. I saved $200+ each time and got my CO miles both times. I can't speak to value out of IAH.

I think the plat card ia worth it as long as you use the benefits. You just need to find a few benfits to make the difference of price worth it. I am still trying to find all the benefits but have found some useful. Not sure if this is applicable to you but you can get three additional cards for 175 total. This gives three other people access to the benefits including the lounges. The FHR program may save you some good money also. The 2-4-1 has not worked for me yet but I am still trying, there is a lot of time left until the year end.

If you use the 2-4-1 International Biz/First offering, it can pay for the card for years after just one flight.....

Plat card is more expensive than a single lounge membership. But if you want access to both NW/CO/DL *and* AA it's a good deal. Do note, though, that if you're flying say NW out of Houston that you can't use the CO Presidents Cliub there. You must be flying the airline same-day on the airline whose lounge it is.

The 4 domestic companion tickets a year are a bit of a hassle to use but a value.

The concierge is Circles, which is somewhat better than VIPdesk that many Visa Signature products and Diners Club use.

And there are a whole lot of other little bennies along the way, I find my Plat card to be a very worthwhile travel tool.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

If you use the 2-4-1 International Biz/First offering, it can pay for the card for years after just one flight.....

This is one of the most frequently disputed claims of the IAP deal. It only works that way if you need to buy full fare tix for your international travel. If you can deal with the restrictions and whatnot on discounted J/F seats you can very often get 2 for less than the full F/J fare.

There are a lot of other benefits to consider (gleff named a lot of them) that make the card different from a lounge membership. There are the "other" amex lounges to consider as well, depending on where you fly. Apparently there are a bunch in the mid-east, as well as MEX, IST and a few other places.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will look into NW. It might give me the most flexibility for lounge access. gleff was correct about the limited AF lounge access at CDG. I had to use my Plt card. Now that I am no longer plt, I need a better lounge access card.

I don't value international 2-4-1 too much sbm12 reasoned. I was hoping domestic 2-4-1 can justify it. Thanks again sbm12 for you insight.

FWIW, Platinum card annual fees qualify as fully deductible business expenses. Airline club memberships do not.

Of course 50% EQM will kill any deal with marginal savings for me.

I've just today received my Platinum card and been wondering the same about EQM's. I too fly out of IAH and use CO almost exclusively. My guess is that on the domestic 2-4-1 the fare class for the card member will be one that doesnt get impacted by 50% EQM's (i.e. NOT classes Q, I, S, W, T, X, L). Maybe somebody can confirm?

I've just today received my Platinum card and been wondering the same about EQM's. I too fly out of IAH and use CO almost exclusively. My guess is that on the domestic 2-4-1 the fare class for the card member will be one that doesnt get impacted by 50% EQM's (i.e. NOT classes Q, I, S, W, T, X, L). Maybe somebody can confirm?

I think API (Amex's provider for the 2-for-1 domestic coach tickets) will book into the most discounted bucket available. For example, i have two 2-for-1 reservations pending and one is booked into U both ways and the other into I/W. When I was booking with them, I had the continental site open to give them the flight numbers that I wanted and they booked into the same bucket that I was able to from the website. In my cases, they pay (it says the payment method is a check) whatever the fare would be on the website: say 2 x $325 plus tax, and the CO.com receipt will say the amount paid was 650+tax, while they seem to charge about $75-$100 more than the fare for one, say approx $400 + tax in this case. I have not tried asking them to book into a specific fare bucket, but I would imagine they would be opposed as it would be a greater outlay on their part. Perhaps you could wait until only the 100% EQM-buckets are available to book into and try calling then. Of course you run the risk of their not being able to book anymore into any bucket. Fine line indeed. But both tickets in my case have the FF numbers assigned to them and will earn miles and EQM, if in the applicable bucket. I’m sure some others will have experience with this too.

I've just today received my Platinum card and been wondering the same about EQM's. I too fly out of IAH and use CO almost exclusively. My guess is that on the domestic 2-4-1 the fare class for the card member will be one that doesnt get impacted by 50% EQM's (i.e. NOT classes Q, I, S, W, T, X, L). Maybe somebody can confirm?

My most recent booking of the API 2-4-1 on CO is booked in N on the outbound and W on the return. They don't look at fare classes and I've never asked them to move one around for me, but I can't imagine that they would. In my case both my wife and I will settle for the 50% EQMs on that one segment in exchange for the $250 savings. You can buy a lot of EQMs with that much money :)

The $75-100 more than one ticket thing is based on the taxes for the second ticket (~$20-40, depending on how many connections and which airports you transit) plus the per ticket booking fee.

My past trip was on DL and credited to CO and booked in L/U/T so I got the 50% EQMs. Again, not a huge sacrifice for the $200+ savings.