Originally Posted by
PiperAtGatesofDawn
The SBI AI card at launch was fantastic.*G (almost) for free. Huge mileage accruals & bonuses. Today it's very very average unless you're booking a lot of your own IND-US/EU flights. Meaningful status on airlines are now a thing of the past. I don't think there's a US3 and possibly even a ME3 that's offering any meaningful upfront status.They do offer accelerated earnings and fee waivers though.
But as you say "ETIHAD rates are horrendous and YQ is disgusting" so why would you want to build status with them? Go with SBI-AI where you'll get only horrendous rates and no YQ. Plus the entire *A at your disposable unlike the extremely limited Etihad Partners network.
Amex Plat reward rates are extremely crappy too. I'm not sure what is the value in taking an Amex Plat @ ~70k where you get a miserable reward rate and don't even make back your fees. ICICI Diamante (or whatever) and Emeralde suffer from the same abysmally poor reward rates and no benefits to cover for the upfront fees.
I disagree with you completely. Amex @70k gives u 100k MR points. Now if u can get someone to refer you for the plat charge, u get another 10k extra points plus they get 25k MR points. So @110k points - convert this into Marriott at 1:1, book 2 nights at a category 8 property (think AL MAHA Dubai that retails @ $1500/night). So u are paying around $1k and getting $3k worth.
Obviously your goal behind getting any card should be towards a particular objective. Plus, the plat charge has a 15x offer on all international/domestic hotel bookings- it effectively gives back 37.5% of your booking cost back through points - with no limits (unlike the legendary smartbuy offer)
So it all depends. if you have a lot of international travel, the amex plat would be the best card followed by prestige