We're not saying it "can't possibly be improved", we're saying it's just economically naive for people to say "if only the credit were easier to use" without thinking about the economics. My guess is Amex probably spends maybe $50 or less per member on the $200 credit. If the credit were easy to use, sure cardholders would be happier, but that would mean Amex would have to cut their other services back by $150 per member. What's funny to me is people don't seem to take this into account. Every time I see someone saying "I wish the credit were like Chase's travel credit" without even mentioning that this would skyrocket the cost to Amex of the credit, and therefore require cutbacks in other areas, I just have to laugh. Same thing goes for the Uber credit where people frequently complain it's too much of a hassle to remember to use the credit every month. Yes, but if it were a lump sum, it would have to be smaller in overall value. This DOESN'T MEAN the credits shouldn't be changed, but it's just astonishing that people don't seem to realize that changing the credits they way they want would have to mean changing either the value of the credit or cutting back in other services, etc.

One thing that is certainly true is that because most major airlines have removed change fees for many flights (which was one of the last straightforward ways to use the airline credit), Amex is going to have to change the credit or replace it with something else. On my business platinum I would often change my work flights frequently enough that I was almost certain to use up the $200 credit "normally". On my personal platinum I used one of the other methods which still works to get the value of the credit. But flight changes are free in the vast majority of cases now, so Amex is going to have to do something post-COVID even if they don't totally ditch the credit for something else.