NoahVail: Thanks for the TPL info.
PPS-What do you think about the CIBC Aerogold Card, compared to the Royal Bank Avion Gold card, and compared to its predecessor, the Royal Bank Canadian Plus Gold card?
Up until April 24, 2000, the Amex Platinum card simply blew everything else out of the water. Because of that I only carried the basic non-fee, non-points-accumulating Royal Visa and HKBC M/C, for those exceptionally rare times when I couldn't use Amex. But in one stroke all that disappeared.
For the last year I've been collecting "orphan" points, hoping Amex would come up with something better than economy class awards on a "charter" airline. The CP benefits pretty much disappeared, and the annual fee is going up yet again. They've got until May to come up with something, or I'm outta here. (I'll keep a basic green card, just to hold the points until I can figure out what to do with them.)
I've just received solicitation letters from both Visa and D/C. The Visa offer looks positively lame compared to the D/C. But a few days (nights actually) ago, I called the number on the D/C letter, and asked these same questions. I was promised a fax and/or a phone call the next day. So far I've received neither which doesn't speak well for D/C.
Amex seemed to offer essentially all of the above benefits (although they might be slightly different flavours) and then some. And notwithstanding some reports of poor customer service were always good with me. Even when Royal Bank tele-banking messed up, they waived the deliquency assesment. And when I broke the plastic cover on the passenger side outside mirror on a rented Opel in Germany, (CAD$900+!!!) Amex took care of it with one call. No deductible, no personal auto insurance involved. The problem just "went away."
These are still great benefits, but it appears that other cards offers similar, for less money, and now with better airline benefits.