Originally Posted by
dagnyt
Honestly, I'm looking at going the completely opposite direction and ditching the Amex Platinum. Yeah Plat's it's got a lot of benefits--but how accessible are those benefits? Not very.
Airport lounge access works, but that international 2 for 1 ticket thing is an widely acknowledged boondoggle, their hotel program isn't great unless you want to stay in certain types of places and when I've tried to use it, I've found their concierge service to be pretty pointless. As for getting back bag check/incidental fees. I never fly anything but Delta and so don't have to pay them anyway.
The GE free reimbursement will be nice when they add it, but again, not worth it, given the card's hefty pricetag. So I'm taking the MQM, the Skyclub access and the better status and feeling good about it.
There are lots of Plat benefits - some very accessible and useful on a regular basis, others less so.
Lounge access works, and gets you into more clubs than the Reserve, especially with the upcoming priority pass addition.
Recurring MQMs. Clear reserve benefit. Upgrade priority, difficult to quantify benefit.
Fee waiver - I agree it does lose some value when you don't encounter many fees. Still some potential usefulness.
Free Global entry - useful, but not really recurring
Car Rental - useful for securing upgrades if you haven't rented enough with eg. National previously.
SPG Gold status, for whatever you value that at
Free Tripit Pro - I've found it a useful app.
Private Jets - I use this one every day (or not...)
There's plenty of "accessible" benefits along with plenty of complete pie in the sky benefits. The club access is the biggest one, and MQM vs. the misc benefits of the Plat is the tradeoff.