Originally Posted by
WasKnown
The brilliant is indeed a good vehicle for status. The problem is that many people here are either lifetime Titanium/Platinum or were going to hit status anyway. The marginal +10 EQN benefit is material but it is intrinsically niche. If it’s the difference maker for someone, it is extremely powerful. If you’re a frequent traveler (as many people on this forum are) that did not need the extra EQNs, they are almost irrelevant. Conversely, the current Hilton Aspire makes sense even without valuing Diamond status. If you don’t value Platinum status/EQNs, anyone with access to both the Ritz Carlton Card and Brilliant has little reason to choose the Brilliant.
Agree with the point on the card making p2 Ritz Carlton certificates more valuable? Are you getting 8 85K FNCs a year?
WRT Priority Pass: The Brilliant priority pass is definitely a weaker version of the benefit. On the other hand, the Ritz Card offers the best priority pass in the game right now: full lounge AND restaurant access alongside unlimited guests (ymmv). It is also so powerful that the Ritz Card enables you to issue free authorized user cards that both benefit from superior Visa Infinite travel insurances AND have the best priority pass.
I love the Ritz Card so much which means it’s likely to be nerfed soon.
lots of agreement here. But I am in a weird spot with trying to get value on the Ritz. Since I have AA status, I find the Ritz airline credit hard to use. And we almost always have a CSR which gets us a good PP. Even if we didn’t have that, we usually go to Admirals clubs as a first choice anyway. This makes that second 85k cert with the Ritz feel pretty pricy so once the airline ticket program ended, we downgraded the Ritz and stayed that way. But if I’m missing something on getting more value at the Ritz, I sure would like to work a fix into my system.