robchow

The stated annual fee (AF) is $250 with $120 dining credit and $100 airline fee credit; let say I value both at face value for this question: are there other benefits than earning points to offset the effective $30 AF ($250-120-100)? I am trying to determine (in 2-player mode) if wife and I should each keep the card or keep one card and make the other authorized user (AU). The other assumption is that we won't reach the $25K groceries cap (cuz we eat out often). If we do go over grocery cap, then each having their own card would be ideal?

Maybe I already answered by own question (keep separate cards or keep one with AU) based on the last two sentences?

Thoughts?

Statman

You are not wrong. Chase's travel interruption insurance only covers pre-paid expenses. Therefore, if your trip is interrupted due to a covered event and you can't use the rest of your original tickets, Chase will reimburse you the remaining value of those unused tickets.

However, and the big kicker is that any new tickets you purchase to get you back home are on you. Like you mentioned, any last minute tickets are going to cost a fortune and Chase doesn't cover that.

What about just changing your original tickets to get you back home?

In that case, the Chase travel interruption insurance will only cover the change fee. Chase does not pay for the fare difference from the change and you'll still be stuck paying a huge walk up fare up charge.

holyPockets

I'd like to relate my personal experience with trying to determine which transactions earn 4x MR points and which do not. The prescribed use of the beta Preview New Version proved to be, upon actual statement closing, wholly inaccurate. The Preview New Version indicated that a number of grocery and restaurant purchases were not earning 4x MR points. When my statement finally closed, the usual Statements & Activity view added a column which placed 2x and 4x icons next to transactions earning those multipliers.

In short, do not panic if the Preview New Version is showing incorrect multipliers. My transactions all earned what I expected them to earn.

Statman

I would keep separate cards just for the fact that if you do so, each of you can pick the color card of your choice.

My wife is an authorized user ("AU") on my card and she wanted to get the rose gold card. Both the primary card and the AU card must be the same color so I had to take one for the team and get a rose gold card as well.

I would have happily paid the effective annual fee of $30 just to avoid plonking down a rose gold card, but happy wife, happy life right?

Kagehitokiri

heh, likely many in same boat as us, i have an AU female family member

rose gold only offered for 3 months, some said its permanent once gotten

have they started doing the bonuses more slowly than in past?

krazykanuck

I want to get mine in Rose Gold because pics of it in the flesh indicate it isn't that pink, and also it'll probably be a decent conversation starter with the ladies. I can use all the help I can get, even if it is from an inanimate payment device

Explorer789

Correct. I just received a AU card (ironically, I'm still waiting for my primary card) and it looks more bronze than pink, but certainly not like the images shown on amex website or iphone rose gold. I guess their marketing team wanted to make sure people wouldn't be offput if it was pinker.

twkidM3

Do you have screenshot?

RumPatrol

For the CSR, I think it is 6 and for the CSP it is 12 (or anything requiring an overnight stay) I also believe the baggage delay insurance is 6 hours for both. Both CSR and CSP have a $500 cap per ticket, which is supposed to cover lodging, meal and any items you needed to purchase like a change of clothes, toiletries, etc. In practice, I can't think of many situations where you'd have a delay of less than 12 hours, more than 6, but not overnight that would require lodging or spare items to be purchased.

That's what I thought. Weird how that never gets mentioned. To me, unless your trip is being interrupted at the very beginning, the biggest expense you're going to incur is getting yourself home or wherever you need to be. I've had three trips in my life where I had no choice but to abandon the trip early and get somewhere else, one for work (was able to expense it), two for family emergencies. In all three situations, I only lost a few hundred in pre-paid expenses but I had to pay absurd fare differences to change my ticket or, in the case of needing to get halfway around the world the next day, a whole new one way ticket. That was a painful credit card statement.

Chase's various travel insurances really are great and I do wish Amex matched them, but I also think the benefit of insurances like that for any card are vastly overstated. I personally would never let the amount or type of insurance a credit card offered be a deciding factor. It is so easy to get really good third party travel insurance on a trip by trip basis from any one of like 50 sources that it just isn't something that moves the needle a ton for me. Careful planning goes a long way as well. If I had a huge family and small kids and a family vacation meant $5K in airfare and two hotel rooms for a week, I'd probably change my tune very quickly though.

twkidM3

Hmm. My experience with Chase United Explorer card back in March 2016? I believe that's when there was a major snowstorm during mid March. We booked flights and hotels using that credit card. Our flight was cancelled on Sunday. Being United 1k member, they rebooked us the next day without issues and no additional fees. I had to add additional night at our existing hotel. When I got back, I filed a claim for the additional night hotel, uber for that day we were stuck, dinner, and uber to the airport. We were reimbursed around ~$550 for the interruption.

krazykanuck

I agree. I mean don't get me wrong I put award taxes and fees on my Ritz card for the insurance and the negligible points earning, but any paid fares go on my Amex Plat. Yes I'm giving up the trip protections but the chances I'll need them are so slim that it doesn't really matter to me. I've flown ~65 segments over 110k miles this year and only once have I been in a situation where I could use trip interruption benefits and the airline offered to cover lodging because it was their fault.

Explorer789

This is what I was thinking as well and you confirmed it. I am just waiting for the first statement to close in a couple of weeks, because that's the one that really matters and not the rest of the website. If it was not showing correctly on the statement, then there would be cause for concern that the points are not being correctly tallied.

xooz

I assume the $120 credit for "restaurants" is for the primary cardholder only? My son could probably make use of that but I would be unlikely to go out of my way to frequent the pitiful list of participating restaurants. If my son as a AU could get the $10/mo credit, that might make me consider it.

gengar

If it works like other AMEX credits, AUs are eligible for the credit but still only one credit per account.

EDIT: Explicitly in the benefit T&Cs on the food benefit:

holyPockets