Thank you very much. I will indeed reconsider this. I am moving to Orange County area. Once I arrive, I will see if folks there fly Delta/NWA often. I am under impression they do AA/UA and I will need to join them on flights. I'll be doing mainly SNA/NYC flying. Some SNA/DCA for which I think Delta/NWA would be a decent option. At worst case it will allow a backdoor into a different airline alliance program. I haven't had any affiliated credit card before.. only have the regular Amex gold card right now.
Originally Posted by
mooper
I know you said you aren't focusing on Delta, but for your current $75K spend, that would get you the best bang for your buck in terms of EQMs. $60K spend on a Delta Reserve card gets you 30K EQMs (and another 10K the first year only, for 40K total, if you haven't had any of the Amex Delta cards before), plus the signup bonus RDMs and 30K bonus RDMs when you hit the 60K, amongst other perks (lounge access, free companion cert, status level tiebreaker, etc.) Hefty annual fee involved, but well worth what you get for it. I assume you aren't leaning towards Delta because they might not serve your home airport well or at all, but if thats not the case, then maybe a reason to reconsider.
Another thing about the Amex DL cards is that they come in various flavors, allowing you to effectively avoid the "cap" you mentioned by obtaining several and distributing your spending amongst them. Though you have to spend $220K annually in total to do it, you can get 100K annual EQMs for it.