Originally Posted by
sethMCOflyer
First, I call BS on there being a difference. ... 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.
I see complaints all the time on reddit and here of people complaining that the Chase travel portal shows inflated prices vs. the actual expedia website. Personally I don't book through the Chase portal, so I don't really care, but I wouldn't count on getting the best price 100% of the time. Here is
one and
two links, just from the past few weeks.
As for Amex, I only use my MR for intl J/F. I pretty much only use my Plat card for airfare. I only use my Gold card for dining and grocery stores. Their game, their rules, but that doesn't mean I can't play by them and take advantage.
Plus I live in NYC where seemingly every restaurant is on Grubhub/seamless, and I walk past a Shake Shack on my way home, so it's not like using the $10 credit a month is hard.