Boraxo

Your best bet is to get a CSR or another card (Citi?) that includes restaurants, and jettison Amex.

camille55

Am UK based, so sadly none of those are available to us here. But point taken.

csycsycsy

Reporting back, this is what 46eur gets in BER's movenpick "Eat". No problems going for multi rounds using multiple PP cards

hhdl

Given that the first two Priority Pass partners to carve out the restaurants were the first two to open their own lounges, it might be more reasonable to expect Chase to drop restaurants as they scale out the Sapphire lounges. A big part of the thinking behind opening lounges in all three cases is that a more fixed cost to cater a lounge beats unbounded variable cost from PP swipes, especially in markets where the issuer wants to build a cardholder base.

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Boraxo

Chase will never “scale out” lounges. It’s a bank. And Jamie has been cutting back the perks since CPC and CSR were rolled out to the masses.

Amex see itself as a conglomerate with a long history in the travel biz. And still promotes itself as a premium product even though many of its cards utilize a coupon-book scheme and anybody with a pulse can get a card now.

ziggy29

Well, this is one of those times where it feels hard to be a beancounter. On one hand, you would think that offering a restaurant benefit could potentially play a part in alleviating the lounge overcrowding problem, and it may be a cheaper solution than constantly building and expanding more lounges. On the other hand, I don't suspect the restaurant benefit moves the needle TOO much in terms of whether or not someone gets the Platinum card. (There may be a few who select the CSR who cite that as a factor, but it likely not often the overriding reason.) And as long as the Amex beancounters think they aren't losing $695 (plus AU fees) times whatever number of people per year for not offering the PP restaurant benefit.

So looping back to Chase, they have to ask themselves when it makes sense to build more lounges and expand existing lounges (in the future), or if it might make sense to offer a restaurant benefit to reduce pressure on lounge admissions.

commaspace

Anyone with a pulse can also get a Chase CSR. And it is also a coupon book. Let's not pretend you are in some exclusive club. The club just have less members because it sucks.

scubadu

If you pay attention to Amex earning reports and investor calls, with the documented growth of issued Platinum cards over say the last five years, it's a pretty much inescapable conclusion that not offering restaurants via PP has not harmed Amex even one iota. Average cardholders likely don't care (nor even know/understand). The only ones obsessing about it are FT types, trying to maximize every penny of the annual fee and frankly, we probably aren't too profitable to Amex anyhow.

Regards

Boraxo

CSR is not a "coupon book". It has a $300 travel credit that requires no special registration and typically (for me) is fully used in the first 10 days of the year. For sure CSR is not exclusive nor has it ever claimed to be. For that you need the JPM Reserve of which there are purportedly only 5k issued, including Obama and me LOL.

commaspace

It's a coupon book: "$1200 in partner value". Lyft bicycle sub? Door Dash? Instacart? Peloton credit?

A pathetic coupon book with a puny lounge "network". I'm good not pissing away money for pathetic benefits.

hhdl

It's three-for-three now on the "card issuer opens lounges, drops the Priority Pass restaurant benefit" heuristic (with each successive issuer having a shorter time from first lounge to dropping the benefit).

Edit to add: this presumably does not bode well for the "competitive pressure will bring back this benefit" hypothesis.

mia

Chase is also ending participation in the Priority Pass restaurant benefit. I have moved discussion to the Chase forum, please post here:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chas...erve-ritz.html

commaspace

Can't help but chuckle.