Originally Posted by
thepointsguy
I did a search and didn't see this anywhere- I got an email from Continental yesterday hawking free lounge access. When I opened it, there was a reminder about Continental leaving Amex Membership Rewards in September and then a a targeted offer to get the Presidential Plus card with no annual fee ($395) for the first year.
While I personally won't take advantage of this offer because I have sufficient lounge access with Amex Plat/ Delta Diamond, I thought it was a very generous offer. If there were bonus points, I might have actually thought about it, but I'd rather use my Chase credit card apps for more lucrative cards like BA, Hyatt and Sapphire Preferred.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting that they are very aggressively going after Amex customers- to the tune of waiving $395 annual fees, which you rarely see. I have a picture of the offer on my
site- if you are thinking about getting a Pres Plus card, you may want to ask if you'd be eligilbe for this offer. I'm sure making up a story that you have an Amex Plat and want to switch to Chase may help your cause
I was one of the first to get this card (got one of the original surveys that shaped the program design). The big deal about this card was that it would be exclusive (which I didn't really care that much about) and that it would come with a higher level of service and benefits. Now, they're literally giving the card away and I'm no longer getting the waived fee that I was supposed to as a Presidential Plat.
The other benefits, including flex miles (not useful to me as I'll be >100k EQM anyway), fee free bags, blue carpet access, etc. don't help if you're already Elite (or Platinum in the case of the flex miles). I'm not sure I would use the hotel deals, since there are often better rates through other sources. The bonus miles are useful if you need them. The alternative is pay directly for the PresClub membership and get a cash back card. Depending on your flight and airport patterns, if you're not going to use the Club that often and travel alone, it might be better to pay per use of the Club.
I do use the card overseas, and there are no foreign exchange charges, so that does have value I wouldn't get with other cards that charge 3%, for example.