I'm not as much of an expert as some on the FT Boards, but in my mind AMEX Starpoints DOES make AMEX MR irrelevant. The only drawbacks I can see are:

1) Starpoints AMEX has a 20 day grace period whereas you can stretch a regular AMEX to the max 30 days.

2) You cannot change the billing cycle date on Starpoints AMEX like on regular AMEX, you have to take what they give you. This makes it inconvenient if you try to plan it around a pay or reimbursement date.

3) Theoretically on a regular AMEX you have no preset spending limit, whereas on The Starpoints card you have a definite limit you cannot exceed (they set my limit lower that lower than I'd like, but they'll let me charge whatever I like on Regular AMEX -- go figure!)

4) My wife says the Gold AMEX looks cool, while the Starpoints AMEX looks geeky!

But anyway, as soon as I get all my MR points tranferred over I'll be getting rid of the Gold AMEX.


Mac

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Via con Dios!