Another approach would be to keep the Premier Rewards Gold card for spending, and try a Platinum card for a year strictly for benefits. The cost ($450 + $175) is exactly same as a pair of Platinum cards but you would earn more Membership Rewards points by continuing to use the Premier Rewards Gold card.
Yeah, I get it. That might be the way to go. I guess it just irks me that AMEX would treat spouses diffeently in this day by only giving the platinum card to one of them and treating the other like a second class citizen (not that the gold card is second class). It's the principle! (They don't seem to do this in other countries. The offers I have seen from Europe usually have teh same benefits and similar cost but the spouse gets a card free.)
Just reading between the lines - the platinum seems to be aimed at the frequent business traveler while the gold is more for others with moderate spending that preferto get points as reward rather than other perks. What about the class of people that are well off, spend, and like some perks and access to specials etc...but don't travel as much for various reasons and don't care as much about points. Seems like a different version of the platinum might be of interest. Even though I have played the point game to great benefit over the years I would be happy not getting points and getting some of teh other platinum benefits instead.
Nice if you meet the requirements. How many times per month might you fly AA, CO or DL/NW?
Not enough to justify joining for a fee anymore. I fly only about 8-10 times a year now compared to almost that much a month 3 years ago. I know about priority pass and various other programs. It would be a nice perk with the platinum mostly when flying international. But since we usually fly biz class we get in then anyway. And to be honest I don't miss the flying, just the perks when I do travel.
On a separate note, I am trying to find a better way to get to Hawaii - United is just getting too annoying recently. But flying out of Tucson gives us few reasonable options - With AA we'd have to fly 3 hours in the wrong direction to DFW. DL might be an option with a change in SLC. CO doesn't go we need to. We can drive to Phx but that is not fun. So, living in the backwoods has become challenging! But if DL pans out we might be flying with them more and that might make access to their lounges more valuable to us.
Just out of curiosity, do you know if the mainland-Hawaii flights are treated as international to get the companion ticket? I know HI is part of the US - but it is treated differently in many ways - Marriott etc put the HI properties in teh international business segment for example and the fare structure for Hawaii on airlines is more like an international structure. If those tickets were eligible for teh companion ticket that would make all the difference@
I guess it is all just wait and see how things play out.