Count me as one who is going the CSR over AMEX Plat direction.

Unfortunately CSR, AMEX Plat, and Citi Prestige all hit at the same time so I had to make some decisions.

Citi Prestige: Easy keep for me - have earned 3-4x the annual fee since getting it in 4th night free. Anticipate the same this year. Working towards a big SQ Suites redemption so don't mind the change in AA redemption value since I need to get the final 30k SQ from somewhere. Will see if they give me a retention bonus but last year they gave me an extra 4x on all travel right before we booked our big travel for this past winter and spring so it was a particularly profitable year for TYPs.

AMEX Plat: Really went back and forth on this one. It comes down to the fact that most of the time when I travel right now it's with my girlfriend and so we can only access a lounge together when there is a Centurion lounge (or PP but that's achievable with the other two). On the rare occasion where I'm traveling by myself it has been nice to get free DL SC access but that doesn't offset $450 (grandfathered in for one more year). Uber is nice and we've used it every month since we've been traveling but that slows down this fall and living in suburbia means it's not something I often need. I also got burned earlier this year when we had travel disruptions and baggage delays that would've been covered by the Citi Prestige / CSR but were not covered because I used my AMEX Plat (in a bid to get the 5x). The out of pocket expense from that directly led me to stop using my AMEX Plat for flights - I'd rather give up the 2x and have the protection.

CSR: Effectively $150, appreciate the 1.5 CPP option, primary rental insurance, other travel insurance, and I'm pretty locked into the Chase ecosystem. Tahiti is on the horizon and the 1.5 CPP is a nice fallback if we can't make anything work on the award side (which is possible given how difficult it is to find award seats to Tahiti). It also pairs nicely with the CFU - especially since we do most of our shopping at Costco (so 1.5% on the CFU transferred over to the CSR) and the Chase Freedom. I know I could replicate this ecosystem in some respects with AMEX EDP + AMEX Plat but Costco doesn't take AMEX and I just use the AMEX Surpass for non-Costco groceries to get the 6x and guarantee Hilton Gold in years I don't requalify