When is $0.015 not really $0.015? When the portal prices are inflated:
First, I call BS on there being a difference. That poster seems to be using a very small sample size and isn't actually comparing to Expedia (read their previous posts) except in one instance when they were comparing pretax costs at a hotel, they should get the after tax prices and compare.
Second, if there is a 10% discount we're still at 0.0136 cents per point compared to Amex at half of that.
Originally Posted by
krazykanuck
That's a bittt hyperbolic. An hour? How long did your post take?
Amex cards, and I'd say the MR ecosystem, are a bit more effort and require more knowledge to optimize than Chase cards and the UR system. I'm not going to disagree with you on that, but I'd say that there is a lot of potential value upside in the Amex corner. The benefits and credits are more YMMV when it comes to easily getting value out of them, there is no easy travel portal or cash back, and some of the transfer partners need a bit of thinking, but depending on your travel and spending habits can be a better value.
I'm flying r/t from the US to Asia in biz later this month on EVA, ANA, and back Asiana for 95k MR points. You can't do that with UR transfer partners. You just can't. You find the Gold card to be a hassle, I find it to be a Gold Mine of MR points. To each their own... and I say that as somebody with as many Chase cards as Amex cards
I totally agree that there's a lot of upside with Amex on the travel partners, but that's all they have going for them as far as MR goes. If you're not maximizing the value of your points on a transpacific flight in an upper cabin, you're really losing. You have to spend in certain ways (through their portal for hotels), make sure to use your food or uber credit each month, and then redeem your points for those tickets, otherwise it's a bad deal.