Originally Posted by
emma dog
You’re assuming other consumers share your insight and understanding of the value prop. I’d speculate that DL and Amex knows pax either spend “everything” or “nothing” on their cards, and the number of people dialing in their spend are few are a small minority. I’d contend that the $75k waiver is based on a slightly aspirational goal meant to increase spend but also sufficient to cover cost and cut out the “abusers” who visit the clubs a lot while sock drawering their cards.
It isn’t in DLs or Amex’s interest to reward spend that would have happened otherwise without significant increase in use by the groups that wouldn’t have spent on the card.
My guess is that a lot of higher-spend customers have either two or three cards in the mix - at least one non-Amex (there are still places that don't take Amex), and at least one with a different bank. Generally "a Visa, a Mastercard, and an Amex" covers you (and the Amex is really optional), but the diversity is insurance against a card randomly getting locked because of travel (or a vendor not taking all cards). That's what I was taught, at least.
If you forced me to strip down, I'd probably have the DL Reserve (Amex), the CSR, the Hyatt card (both Visa), and the Amtrak card (MC). Almost all travel is going to CSR (because Amex's TI is crap), but then DL is bidding against the others for "normal" spend, and Hyatt and Amtrak are better uses for that after a certain point.