I read the card was design by our Millennial generation in AMEX headquarters. They seem to have hit some areas well and not others.
AMEX team should have taken a page from Chase Sapphire Reserve and make the card a metal card.
The monthly bonus should continue for charter members so there isn't a need to churn. If that is unaffordable, then provide something like half the bonus year 1 monthly bonus after 1st year to make churning less attractive option.
The insurance package is good, especially the out of province medical. Assuming the travel medical terms are as strong as the AMEX gold card, it hit the spot.
The value proposition relies on AMEX holding on to the relationship of merged SPG/Marriott program. Chase has exclusive rights with Marriott and Marriott bought Starwood (not the other way around). The merged SPG/Marriott program is expected to start in 2018. So if AMEX loses SPG, this card's value proposition just drops drastically.
As for the SPG earning value, compared to the SPG AMEX it boil down to this. Groceries/food/resturants vs hotel spending vs everything else.
Colbalt on Groceries/food/resturants earn more than SPG AMEX by 1.5 SPG points/$1 spend
SPG / Mariott hotels stays, SPG AMEX earns more than Colbalt by 2:1.
Transport and such, SPG AMEX and Colbalt earns the same SPG points.
Everything else, SPG AMEX doubles what Colbalt earns.
For those spending over 40,000, the SPG AMEX gives a free weekend night at a SPG hotel.
So it looks like for a typical millennial spender.... Colbalt make sense for spending under $30,000/year - $2500/month. Spending over $30,000, then the SPG AMEX extra benefits starts to kick in - like Gold Status at $30,000 spend and free night at $40,000 spend.
The more we spend each month, the amount of money spent on food/restaurants will become proportionally less I believe. We can only eat so much but a new iphone cost $1000 a pop and plane tickets are at $1000 too. Concert Tickets, Cirque du soleil or movie tickets...etc are all "everything else" category that yields no Cobalt bonus. I think that is the weak point of this card.
Last edited by yeunganson; Sep 27, 2017 at 10:22 am