American Express Membership Rewards - SPG AMEX or Asiana AMEX?

I am planning to apply one of these two as my primary AMEX card and found much valuable information here. Thanks FTers!

As 1P on UA, I usually accumulate EQM by purchasing *A tickets on the first half of a year for requalification. And I redeem the miles accumulated for award tickets of me and my family in the second half of the year.

I still have another questions in my mind as follows:

1. I checked SPG's website of air ticket redemption this morning. I saw booking classes are not XF/XC/XY. For example, I saw L on UA and K on NW. I know the 20K+5K bonus transfer is great, but sometimes EQM is more valuable to me. Are these award tickets redeemed directly from the SPG website eligible for EQM accrual and elite-status bonus?

2. Can I call the airlines directly for itinerary change after ticket redemption is done?

3. Is there any fee coming with the air ticket redemption on SPG's website?

4. Is there any fee coming with the booking of Asiana or *A award redemption?

5. How's availability of seats (both Asiana and *A redemption from Asiana) in general?

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

...checked SPG's website of air ticket redemption this morning. I saw booking classes are not XF/XC/XY....

To be sure I understand correctly, you are considering using the SPG American Express card to earn one Starpoint per dollar which you would then redeem using the SPG Flights option...

http://www.spgflights.com/travel/arc.cfm?tab=a&EM=VTY_SPG_FLIGHTS

With this redemption method the value of the Starpoints is $0.014 or less. Airlines will generaly see these bookings the same as any other purchased tickets and you should earn miles, EQM, etc.

See here...

http://www.spgflights.com/images_w/plg01/nav/starwoodLoyalty/FAQ.html#atf2a

However, if you are intersted in redeeming credit card points for purchased tickets you would probably achieve a much greater return using (for example) Citi's Thank You network. Thank You points are worth $0.01 each when redeemed for airline tickets (they use Expedia as the travel agency), BUT there are several Thank You network credit cards which earn more than one point per dollar which means you can achieve a greater reward per dollar of spending.

See here...

https://www.thankyou.com/helpTopic.jspx?itemId=10012&topic=Travel%2BRewards

https://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/filter1Search.do?constituent=CONSUMER&attrs=CC_TY_REWARDS&x=57&y=13

SPG Flights is not a good redemption option. Consider transferring your SPG points to miles at 1:1.25 in most programs (not UA or CO) when transferring in blocks of 20k.

The OZ Amex is great in that it earns 2 miles per dollar on all spend. The OZ award chart is expensive in some cases.

Which one is a better option for you depends on what rewards you're looking for.

E.g. OZ requires 80k miles for business class roundtrips under 10k miles total and allows 2 stopovers in each direction. So, I see you're from BOS. Say you wanted to fly business class to Frankfurt, London, Zurich, Rome, and Munich then home... BOS-FRA-LHR-ZRH-FCO-MUC.. that would be permissable for 80k miles, stopping over in each city. And that would be only $40k in spend!

Longer trips get progressively much more expensive though so if you lived on the West Coast US, wanted to travel to Asia, or had your sights set on South Africa or Australia it would be a much less attractive award chart even with the 2 miles per dollar.

OZ does have taxes/surcharges. OZ does not block awards being offered by its partners.

thanks a lot for your advice.

My redemption pattern is about (1) 4 or 5 Region 1 transcon/trans-boarder round trips (5K-7K travel miles per RT) and (2) 1 or 2 US(East coast)-North Asia (15K-16K travel miles per RT). I might have some last-minute travel in (1), which I usually redeem tickets instead of purchase to avoid the high last-minute fares. Using OZ miles on AC/US flights would give more flexibility. Traveling on *A carriers would be more convenient for me as *G. In addition, another family member is 3P on UA.

BTW, I'd like to have better use of the coin program for point/mileage. ;)

However, if you are intersted in redeeming credit card points for purchased tickets you would probably achieve a much greater return using (for example) Citi's Thank You network. Thank You points are worth $0.01 each when redeemed for airline tickets (they use Expedia as the travel agency), BUT there are several Thank You network credit cards which earn more than one point per dollar which means you can achieve a greater reward per dollar of spending.
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Expedia generaly charges the same price for tickets as airlines (no booking fee), however on tickets on points THERE IS a booking fee (in points) of $5-10 per ticket. So, its not 1:1. Also, you can not use airline coupons, certificates, website specials etc.

...on tickets on points THERE IS a booking fee (in points) of $5-10 per ticket...

It appears Expedia is currently assessing an $8.00 (800 points) booking fee. This is still better value than SPG Flights which adds a $15.00 booking fee as disclosed here...

http://www.spgflights.com/images_w/plg01/nav/starwoodLoyalty/FAQ.html#atf2a

Added to the base fare are applicable taxes and fees, which includes a $15.00 USD booking fee, so the final cost used to convert to Starpoints is the cost the airlines load into the Worldspan GDS plus the taxes and booking fees.

Quick update. My application to SPG AMEX was declined in 60 seconds....
With credit scores >>>>>750, I couldn't figure out how the application evaluating system worked.

I would expect a card with a $2000 limit that they won't let you get an increase on until 2 months, at 2 months you are only allowed to triple your CL so that $6000.

How do I know this, it's happening to me right now.

I wrote about this on another thread. Had a $50K limit on a SPG card, cancelled since I was doing all my spending on the BofA Asiana Amex and Schwab Visa, that you are also wanting. I didn't want to pay the annual fee on a card I wasn't even using. Applied for the Hilton card 5 months later, still perfect credit. Bam.. they just don't want my business.

As for the Asiana Amex, all services like the extended warranty and purchase protection are handled through another company, not AMEX since its issued by BofA. That's probably my biggest complaint about it. Also, BofA has also been very stingy with credit lines too, not as bad as AMEX but if you have other BofA cards or FIA cards, same company, expect to reallocated credit from them to get the card. Those .......s don't even tell you that they will do that, just the next day I log into my BofA account and all my credit cards are gone, they reallocated and cancelled my cards when I opened my FIA Schwab card.

Quick update. My application to SPG AMEX was declined in 60 seconds....
With credit scores >>>>>750, I couldn't figure out how the application evaluating system worked.