pinniped, well, guess starwood nailed both of us. I am as much embarrassed for friends and business associates I have convinced to use and focus their spend effort to this card...as for myself. If it weren't for the (one) remaining airline partner I can use, spg would have even sunk deeper in the pit for me. I am fairly certain I won't spend much effort to stay PLAT w/ starwood for 2008; earned it the hard way for 2007 (matress run fall, 2006, to make the 2007 PLAT) but have lost my taste for starwood at this point. Like many other - because of their devaluation I am radically shifting my spend over to:
Sams Club Discover (true 2% cash-back rebate, non-1099 reportable (since its considered a rebate), caps only at $1MM total spend (just short of $20K cash back because the 2% tiers up and begins at $10K to be very accurate). Let me be the first to say Discover is a major pain to use, , especially for high-volume spend, and then GE/Discover is even worse in terms of customer service (GE/Discover is behind the Sams Card) and is sadly about 15yrs behind the times relative to other credit cards for some archaic policies I have run into, but over time I will build my credit lines to support the volume I am trying to shift. Again, technically, the 2% kicks in after the first 10K and then stays at a true 2% no matter the purchase (ie none of these drugstores, grocerstore, gas charges only) category.
Link below is the thread I started on the Sams Club Discover card in Feb, 2006. Little did I ever figure this would be my #1 go to affinity card in exactly a year.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...+club+discover
Now, spg/amex comes in second, and USAA's Eagle Points program (modeled after Cap One's program) is third.
Airline-only cards are absolutely sitting on the shelf for me (and I have UA, Continental, several AA, SWA, and US Air cards) now and collecting dust. I, like you, use them only when teaser rate promos come around (which of course does not earn airmiles). Why get boxed in with near-worthless airline-only miles and let the airlines play games w/ miles worse than or equal to what starwood just did via their fiendish capacity controls (AA's milesaaver brought this to light for me a couple of years ago). I am starting to conclude that starwood *does in fact* have de facto capacity controls now emplaced via their unreasonably high redemption rates. Clever implementation since they can plausibly deny that cap controls are in place...but who among us mortals has over 100K starpoints per night for some of their properties ? I call this a de facto capacity control.
My AMEX CENT card, because it feeds into the moribund and near-comatose Membership Rewards program, is now at risk of being downgraded back to GOLD because of the watered-down partners and getting worse by the minute perk package. One surreal thread in the AMEX folder attemps to highlight difference between AMEX PLAT and AMEX CENTURION...and it is laughable how much AMEX has let the CENT perk package slip.
So, 2007 will be an interesting year. Oh, how the mighty have fallen (spg amex) and I am still trying to figure out what/who steps up.
I do admit so some monthly spend on my AMEX/HHONORs card, though I have had a high-end Hilton stay on points in years.