Originally Posted by ftweb
One thing I'm still unsure of is Miles/Points. It seems to me that even for premium travel Chairman is better, since you get the airline points, too. But I changed it to "depends" because I want to be as objective as possible.
My big thing here is that you obviously can't combine TY points with existing airlines miles like you can with Amex MR points... So that makes MR (and SPG) even more valuable for premium travel for me. Also, I wouldn't count on continuing to get miles on award travel in the future (especially on a Citi-issued ticket where they can be certain it's award travel and not just a really cheap fare.) There have been rumors of some sort of airline transfer coming about in the Chairman Card thread in this forum. Since Citi DOES own Diners Club which offers this feature, it seems feasible. If they give me that ability, I'm guessing my Amexes will suddenly start seeing very, very little usage.
Also, the fact that you apparently are defaulted to flying on AA makes this less lucrative for me as I'm currently reasonably loyal to Delta and have most of my miles going that way... I also don't charge enough to get premium tickets with TY points from scratch reasonably soon, whereas I have enough scattered miles and MR/SPG points to make that more feasible. And mileage upgrades are important to me too.
But I do agree that for many people, the TY program travel benefits are definitely better.