gooselee

Wading into this thread as I'm considering adding CSR to my wallet. But I already have Amex Platinum and DL Reserve.

The DL card gets me SkyClub access and the free companion cert, which more than pays for itself each year even without the MQM boosts. (I also have a DL Platinum solely for the coach companion cert). Amex Platinum w/additional card is okay value for me with PP, status bumps, Uber/airline fee, etc. Actually has gotten more valuable as my travel has dropped from very heavy to moderate - I spread my hotels/cars around enough that I no longer earn status, but the Amex allows me to still be a free agent and at least have some benefits.

Really considering CSR to move dining and non-flight travel to. Primary car insurance and other travel protections seem nice, too, but am I correct that I wouldn't actually get stuff like trip delay and baggage insurance since my flights would stay with Amex for 5x? It would still be valuable when we book vacation packages/tours and such, I guess. Or sacrifice 2x points to "buy" the better insurance when it matters.

I'm still trying to talk myself into spending $1895/year in annual fees (must add Mrs. Lee to all cards).

As a related note - has anyone swapped their Amex Plat for the CSR? What's the best landing spot to downgrade the Amex but retain your MR until ready to spend/transfer them?

mia

Is the Delta Reserve's Skyclub access more valuable than the Platinum Card's Skyclub access?

gooselee

No, unless you count the fact that you save 5 seconds per visit because you aren't required to swipe when entering with the Reserve (since it's hard-coded to your DL account). As a hard value, the end result is they are exactly duplicate.

But if you discount the SkyClub access, I still feel like I receive value from the DL Reserve via companion cert and MQM bonuses - I realize I presented it opposite in my prior post...probably should have said it only takes 2 of the 3 benefits for me to get good value.

Mike B

Mike B

mia

Note that you cannot downgrade Platinum (charge card) to Everyday (credit card), you must apply for Everyday .

bgriff

mia

Correct, but the post to which I was replying gave the impression that Blue Business Plus offered no protections. The benefit is the same for all cards except Platinum and Centurion (and maybe the $450 Delta/Hilton cards) which have higher caps and broader coverage (e.g. including "lost"items.)

bgriff

Justifying Amex Platinum and DL Reserve together is tough, although I know that's not the question you asked specifically. Though it sounds like you're clearly happy with the DL Reserve on its own merits, so the question then is really do you value the 5x points on the Platinum plus the Centurion lounge access and a handful of other things like hotel and rental car status enough to justify the Platinum. Not hard to imagine you could get there.

CSR beyond that depends on how much travel and dining spend you have (beyond what would already be claimed by other cards -- Amex Platinum might still claim airfare, and if you have any hotel-branded cards those might still claim some hotel spend, among other considerations).

CSR insurance benefits would only matter if you put the relevant spend on the CSR, so the CSR airline insurance benefits would have no value if you keep using the Amex Plat. (Amex Plat does come with some flight insurance benefits, particularly around lost luggage, anyway.) And really, for most of your flights are there any where you're going to say "That flight is clearly risky enough that I'll forgo the 2x points!". The one case where you might actively choose the CSR is that the Amex Plat lost luggage insurance is not valid on award tickets, whereas the CSR insurance is still available as long as you charge the taxes and fees to the CSR, so I make a point to pay award ticket fees on the CSR, and use the Amex Platinum for booking paid tickets.

The CSR does also more or less offer the same car rental status benefits as the Amex Platinum, so that piece wouldn't change much. Main losses if you dropped the Amex Platinum would be Centurion Lounge access (you can buy in at $50/person/visit, though at that rate it doesn't take many visits to justify the Platinum card) and the hotel status benefits. There are a variety of hotel-branded cards that can fill in or even improve upon some of the hotel status offerings, though at an additional cost of course. (We will also start to get some hints tomorrow as to whether the SPG/Marriott status offered by the Amex Platinum is likely to continue to be worth anything or not; there's also a chance it goes away entirely though we probably wouldn't find that out for a while.)

JHake10

I'm a Marriott Lifetime Platinum (we'll see if that gets gutted with tomorrow, April 16, announcement), so I don't use hotel transfer much. However, the shining star for me with UR is Korean Airlines. They seem to have great first class availability whenever I'm looking.

The $50/visit price assuming you had any AMEX card was discontinued to curb the crowding issue.

honores41

I used to have both and I cancelled chase one.

yugi

I'm in minority here. I have CSR, Amex Plat, Biz Plat, Altitude Reserve, Prestige and CNB Crystal. I like CSR for travel and dining, Prestige for 4th night, Altitude for 4.5% on all in-person and in-app transactions via Samsung Pay, Crystal for $250 airline reimbursement per card user. Annual fees for me:
CSR: $150
Prestige: $100
CNB Crystal (net positive)
Altitude Reserve: $75
Biz Plat: $250 (or more)
Plat: $150
I'm definitely cancelling Biz Plat. Very hard to use 35% back benefit, and the airline reimbursement, where airline must be the same. This is a total PITA. I was on a fence on keeping Platinum, because of $150 effective AF, 5x on airfare and MPX. I never used FHR (too expensive), but I used 4th night on Prestige quite a bit. I was at Centurion lounge only once, but I used PP pretty often. After 5x on MPX stopped working, I'm planning to cancel it. I don't pay that much on airfare, will use CSR for that instead. I will keep Prestige, CSR, Altitude and Crystal. I'm definitely keeping CSR as it has 1.5cpp for travel and is my only transfer option for UR points. I like Altitude with Samsung Pay a lot, especially after you can redeem at 1.5cpp without using US Bank's horrible OTA (via real time rewards). I will probably keep Prestige until I run out of TYPs, and it's only $100.

josephstern

Biz Plat makes your MR worth at least 1.5c. That's really the only reason I keep it. Once I burn down that pile, I'll cut it also.

J.Edward

Have the AX Plat, Schwab Plat, Biz Plat, and Sapphire Reserve.

As many others mentioned before me, I find the CSR my go-to card for dining and generic travel with Chase's broad and generous 3X earning categories. UR redemptions are for travel (simple 1.5x via the clunky functional UR portal) and transfers to Chase's partners - mainly Hyatt and UA. Also of note is while I earn nowhere near as many points as I used to with UA, Chase's instant transfer to MileagePlus allows me to treat my UA account as a functional ZBA. Not that it matters to this thread, but the CSR is also the card I recommend to others when asked for advice due to the ease and simplicity of the program.

Turning to AX, I regularly charge - although nowhere near those of what other posters report for their own habits - transactions in excess of $5k and find the 50% bonus to be worthwhile. While I do not anticipate reaching the $1M threshold this year, there is a chance I might and FWIW my spend for such $5k+ transactions is larger than last year. The point here is 50% bonus remains material for my own spending patterns and worth ~200k +/- MR for me this year. Reflecting on how front-cabin fares have dropped materially over the last few years, I regularly find myself AMEX purchasing discounted first/business fares, thereby making it far easier to take advantage of the pay-all-up-front-and-get-35%-back-after-the-fact rebate. This means in practice I use the 35% rebate to go after front-cabin tickets with AX, and use UR points for all other air travel and hotels. As with the 50% bonus for $5k+ transactions, I do not anticipate maxing out the benefit but would guess the net rebate this year will be around ~300k +/- MR. Both of these benefits, as well as the 10 gogo-passes AX throws in - are unique to the business Platinum card and justify the $450 (-$200) annual fee for me.

My vanilla AX Plat was my first credit card and I keep it open for the longevity of the account (25+ years). I should note I do switch between products as appropriate and a few years ago, prior to the 5x airline and Uber benefit, this card was a rarely used green card. At $550, this is probably the least needed card considering the Biz Plat and Schwab Plat, however, AX keeps offering sweeteners not to downgrade when I ask. No idea what they'll offer this year, but since I plan on keeping the account open my logic boils down to: $95 green annual fee for nothing or $550 (- $200 fee rebate) (-$200 UBER) = net $150, meaning there's only a $55 delta between Plat and Green.

Finally, I also carry the co-branded AX Schwab Plat card. If AX allowed me to change my old vanilla Plat account into a Schwab, I would have opted for that but as they did not I was required to apply for a new account...and new welcome bonus! The super-power of the Schwab card is the $0.0125 redemption value to Schwab and the potential for $100/$200 off your annual fee, based upon your assets held by Schwab. While I do not have $250,000 with Schwab, let alone $1,000,000, it is something worth noting about the card. The "Invest with Rewards" however remains key as it allows me to go after whatever purchase I want at a far better rate than any AX offers for an after the fact statement credit I am aware of. Cash is always king and the only published rebate to top 1.25 is the 1.50 (via the 35% - thanks mia) point rebate for qualified travel bought through MR points with the Biz plat. I'll leave the question of value ($0.0125 in cash vs. ~$0.015 in qualified travel) to you, dear reader, but would note a $0.10 discount for the flexibility of cash strikes me as very reasonable, and perhaps even preferable.

The tl;dr for AX is the program is more complex than Chase's UR but offers those who are willing to learn the nuances greater rewards for their efforts than the simpler one-size-fits-all UR. As I have family in IAH/SFO/DEN, the Centurion lounges are a big plus, and with DEN coming online in 2019, this is a unique benefit relevant to me Chase cannot match. Out the door, my annual fees to AX are in excess of $1,600 (also have the SPG card) and start to approach $2k when bringing Chase into the picture. However, considering the bonus points earned through their various products and the travel value realized, I am pleased with the results and feel it is money well spent. I also realize everyone's circumstances are unique and this may not be true for others.

99% of the time I would agree with you, particularly if one has status with the hotel. The one exception to me is Las Vegas where one can score FHR rates $100 - $180 during low times with $100+ F&B credits. Assuming LAS is a destination one was already planning on going and assuming demand was low, this is a sweet spot for FHR.

mia

Check your arithmetic: a 35% rebate is about the same as a 50% bonus. The 35% rebate on airfare works out to $0.0154 per point.