dhuey

Adelphos

Happy

Marriott Gold is useless since the final merger of Aug 2018 just in case you dont know about it. HH Gold can be had with $95 only. 2018 and 2019 are the years we concentrate on Marriott after earning the Titanium. The past 14 months we have only used HH property twice - a Hampton at JFK and a Hilton LAX - status meant nothing in those 2 stays even though it would get us into the pathetic Hilton LAX lounge which I dont think anybody would feel miss out if not having access.

As for the benefits of the Plat card, like benefits of all other cards, it depends on each individual's travel pattern and needs as well as life style, for the most part to determine whether those benefits are worth it or easy to use. AMEX designed its benefits indeed making the usage of them require additional efforts.

Personally we have very hard time to use the airline credits as we hardly need to pay any airline fees so those GCs just piling up as dead money given we also hardly buy domestic flights either. We dont use Uber, nor shop at Saks. In the past 3 years we only flew DL r/t once and there is no DL lounge at either airport to begin with. International long hauls always on business awards therefore lounge access is given. The airlines tickets we need to buy are almost all intra-EU, intra-Asia, intra-Australia tickets - they are often quite cheap (else Avios or UA miles would work better). Also Chase UR portal redemption when it works, gives better value at 1pt to 1.4c (never get the 1.5 as advertised due to the padding Expeda/Chase have done). That further reduces the Plat card's 5x earning on airline tickets purchases. PP has been useful for international airports where we fly intra-EU, intra-Asia or intra-Australia in coach. You would not realize there are some PP contract lounges at some 2nd and 3rd tiers EU airports that make life a little easier. Lots of restaurants in Australian airports and we will take them everyday over QF lounges, unless you want the free cheap unlimited alcoholic drinks at the QF lounges... For that the CSR works just fine, while now Plat cuts the benefit.

So the Pat card boils down to us is the hardly mentioned and nobody wants to need to use it, Med Evac coverage which CSR also provided but with a 100K cap last I read. It is cheaper to buy insurance outright instead. Therefore when CSR came along we have stopped carrying the Plat card for over 3 years by now and counting. We have not missed the Plat card for once. But that does not mean the same for those who can use a majority of the benefits hence justify the $550 fee. To each their own. Though this benefit cut is meaningful to many that is no denying of such.

STS-134

Hilton Gold comes with free breakfast, and $50 < $95. You just have to jump through a lot of hoops to get that for $50. Marriott Gold is mostly useless, although it DOES increase earn rate in MB.

Happy

The HH Gold breakfast is good OUTSIDE US. Inside US, it hardly means much because the lounges (that are where the free brekkie you get) often are pathetic. More often than not a new built Hampton Inn offers better breakfast than the full service Hilton lounges. Outside US, both the new built Hampton Inn / Garden Inn and the full service Hilton lounges are far better than inside US. Still, how often you use certain chains / property types, over the course of a card year, should be factored in whether you should "pay" for the benefits. For us Hilton properties do not come in play until 2020 so we are not even tempted to take the 150K Ascend upgrade offer, let alone use it to justify the fee of the Plat card.

STS-134

What are you talking about? It includes complimentary breakfast at ALL HOTELS, not just ones in the US. https://hiltonhonors3.hilton.com/en/...its/index.html

I've gotten a complete hot breakfast at the Doubletree in Anaheim, as well as the Hilton Garden Inn in Bozeman. Both of those are inside the US the last time I checked. I also got complimentary hot breakfasts at the Hiltons in Xi'an and at the Hilton Beijing (where I also got a room upgrade on top of that).

itsilyas

Agree with you here, at least from my experience of mostly EU Hiltons, but also DT at NY Times Square, I always got breakfast and a room upgrade every time. This, along with late checkouts, Priority Pass and the (limited) concierge makes up the annual fee for me. (I have a UK card, by the way)

marconess

Spoke to Amex UK today and they said the new changes will not affect the UK Market. (Yet)

itsilyas

Ah, thanks for that! I wasn't sure and hadn't come around to contacting Amex UK. To be honest, PP restaurants are more in the US (one of the only ones I am aware of in EU is in LGW)... So UK PP having this probably doesn't affect them anywhere near as US.

Happy

Of course the free breakfast is worldwide. But the quality outside US is much better than inside US.

I am talking about the quality of breakfast / lounges are much better outside , versus where you get the free breakfast, in case you totally miss that important part. On top of that, some purposely built new Hamptons in EU are quite nice, offering breakfasts of much better quality than a full service HH properties inside US - And, you dont need HH Gold to get free brekkie at a Hampton - every guest gets it.

JFSV

dhuey

scubadu

Indeed and agreed. And yet many in this forum spend an inordinate amount of time twisting themselves into emotional knots trying to wring every last micro cent out of things like the Uber credit, which I find utterly perplexing....

Regards

bgriff

Attributing a lot of value to FHR has to ignore that you can get 85% of the same value from Virtuoso and other travel agent-driven programs for free.

Statman

One or two bookings in business class via IAP for me and my spouse more than justifies the $550 annual fee for several years.