Originally Posted by bribro

My friend mentioned that he got the Select to Sapphire Preferred conversion letter last week. Seems like FT member DrMilano got the conversion letter as well. You said you tried to convert your Select card to JPMR and got denied? Strange. I wonder if your card has some weird internal coding.

I didn't receive the conversion letter from Select to CSR from Chase, as I was proactive and requested a product change to the JPMR after reading the forums.

I have found that AmEx concierge is best when sending an e-mail as you don't have to wait on hold and they will get back to you within 8 hrs. Have used the concierge for bizarre requests such as where to watch NFL games when traveling overseas. It is the same concierge agents for both Platinum and Centurion cards as I was sent a confirmation recently thanking me for my Centurion status, but I'm Platinum. Could always flash the JPMR card at the restaurant manager and see if you could get a table that way. Have seen the Centurion flashed at packed clubs in SoBe before to skip the line and I have successfully flashed my AmEx Platinum at Armani Privè in the past.

I find that the international conversation rates are better with AmEx than JPMorgan cards as with ApplePay/installed respective bank apps I have real time conversion when shopping overseas. I plan on keeping both AmEx Platinum and JPMR.

It's a little absurd to say that the JPMR is "not even a good [let alone great] perks card," especially when compared to the AmEx Platinum card. Everyone is different, but I find the perks for the JPMR to be much more useful. $300 annual credit automatically applied against any travel spend vs. $200 annual credit against specific charges from a single airline you have to manually select. Primary CDW on car rentals vs. secondary coverage (unless you pay a fee). PP Select with free guest privileges vs. PP Select without guest privileges (unless you pay a fee). And JPMR insurance coverage seems to be superior to AmEx Platinum across the board. Plat doesn't even offer trip delay or baggage delay coverage.

The AmEx Centurion lounges are nice by domestic standards, but the footprint is obviously limited and the lounge locations tend to be out of the way in my experience. I'm sure some people out there enjoy getting to the airport a couple of hours early to eat some decent "free" food, but I generally try to spend as little time as possible in any domestic airport, no matter how nice the lounge is. Personally, I'd take the lounge access that comes with JPMR over AmEx Plat any day, since it is objectively superior when traveling internationally.

FHR and bottom/mid-tier Marriott/SPG/Hilton status is nice, but not very useful to people that already have top-tier hotel status (the target audience of "premium" credit card users).

I haven't found the AmEx concierge to be all that useful lately. The last time I tried to use the AmEx concierge, they kept me on hold for literally 30+ minutes, and they have little to no pull at high-end restaurants these days. I'm not saying the Visa Infinite concierge is necessarily better; I just find credit card concierge services in general to be of little value.

I'm hoping the rumors about additional benefits coming to the AmEx Plat card are true, otherwise I'm closing it down next month when my AF comes due.