Originally Posted by
SirWilliam
I have new job where I don't travel and where I have much less time for personal travel than before. My biggest expense is food. I travel internationally for vacation twice a year usually business or first class and then domestically maybe 5 or 6 times a year mostly coach. I am not loyal to any airline or hotel chain. I fly Alaska the most domestically followed by United. I would like to get a card with decent travel perks (lounge access at SFO and SEA would be nice) that is good at earning easy to use miles. I just dumped the Amex Platinum because I don't think I can use the benefits enough to justify the annual fee anymore. In the past I could justify the fee with the Fine Hotels and Resorts resort credits but now I am not sure. I never was able to use the $200 airline credit.
My current wallet is the following cards:
Amex Gold (4x points on US dining and supermarkets...just downgraded from Platinum)
Uber Visa (4% on dining)
Fidelity Investment Rewards Visa (2% cash back on everything)
If anyone has recommendations please let me know. I was thinking of going with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I unfortunately wont get the sign up bonus on that one.
Well, I don't know if this will work for you, but please at least evaluate it, because it may cost you "nothing":
If you can take one flight every year or two on American, then you can use the Amex airline credit for AA e-gift cards reliably: AA allows up to 8 gift cards per flights purchase. See here for details:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...s-aa-only.html
(Gift cards don't work with AS or UA for Amex airline credits, and with DL they're way more limited.)
With that in mind, the
Amex Hilton Aspire card gives you top level status at Hilton Honors properties (so you'll never pay for a breakfast there again), gives you a $250 airline credit each calendar year (so you can get 2 of those the first card year), plus up to a $250 resort credit if you stay at Hilton family resorts on a special list, plus an annual weekend free night certificate that's uncapped. Now it starts with a $450 annual fee, but subtract that $250 airline credit (which as I said is easy-as-pie if you use AA), and you're already down to $200 "net" annual fee. Then even if you can't use the resort credit (which would get you down below $0 "net" annual fee by itself), if you use the annual free weekend night cert in an expensive-enough city, you could easily get over $200 in value from it (remember, you're not charged taxes on free night cert redemptions, so compare to hotel rates
including tax), and if so you've got the
"net" annual fee down to or
below $0.
(Plus if you stay at least some at Hilton properties with restaurants, the free breakfast as an HH Diamond elite has some tangible value. At some properties, mostly overseas, it'll even give you hotel lounge access.)
And the Amex Hilton Aspire card comes with
Priority Pass lounges free for you and one guest with unlimited visits. Just be careful at Alaska airports, Alaska is blocking Priority Pass access at some of its lounges at certain hours due to crowding issues, I don't know if that is permanent or just temporary.
And how can you beat top level status in a hotel plus airport lounge access for about $0 (or less) annually? And it doesn't matter how much or little you use the card, other than to get those $250 credits, it's already paid for itself. But you can put most of your spending on other cards if you wish, you don't lose benefits on the Aspire by spending little on it. (It makes sense to at least use it for Hilton Honors hotel stays, of course.)
Now, it doesn't give you airline miles, but since it costs you "nothing", you can get yet other cards for airline miles (or use your existing cashback card) if you wish for most other purchases.