i agree. amex has the worst customer service of any of the major players, and they will not back you up if you have a dispute.

i have personally been very pleased with the Citi AAdvantage program. It has a higher annual fee, but you get what you pay for.

The only caveat is that you may wish to use a different card when travelling overseas as Citi tacks an additional 1% onto the 1% "conversion fee" charged by VISA/MC (so does BofA, Chase, etc. - and Amex has really bad exchange rates and "fees"). Capital One does not add any additional conversion fees.