bbriscoe34

But the Citi HH Reserve gives you a path to Diamond.

Same with Delta Amex Plat giving you MQM.

And just holding the MR card and the SPG card gives you Silver.

I still see those cards having value if you don't travel enough to earn status from the nights/flights alone, but do travel enough (esp leisure) to appreciate the benefits of the status.

I don't know that any of the point currency cards that contribute towards loyalty program status, do they?

krazykanuck

Amex Platinum gives you Gold status with both SPG (& now Marriott via match) and Hilton automatically. The Centurion card comes with Hilton Diamond and I think Delta Platinum status.

I think the Ritz card and/or Marriott cards confer some level of status, or let you earn it via spend at those chains.

Need

I am going to lower the Citi HH spent to 10K to get the cert and kept Gold instead of Diamond. I am still Diamond until 2018 anyway.

Have SPG Amex so I am going to get Gold thru spent. I am Plat thru 2018 anyway, so we will see again in 2018 after the program merge.

So far I have not see any difference between HH Diamond and Gold... and not sure Marriott Gold and Plat difference isn't that big either.

I was getting those cards for top status but after I have been there they don't really seem that great. The 2nd status seems to be about the same.

Teckelspass

I think the card has a great deal to offer as it currently stands. Setting aside the signup bonus (which is amazing, but is not the reason to ultimately keep the card), I plan to keep the card long term. Even for someone who does just a bit of travel, the $300 travel credit is easily used, making it effectively a $150 AF card.

Because I personally value UR points more than MR points, the 3x on travel and dining more than offsets that fee, especially combined with UR earnings on no annual fee complementary cards like the Freedom (for 5x bonus categories) and Freedom Unlimited (1.5 x on non-bonus spend). In other words, it is a great rewards card for long term use. The Priority Pass benefit with free guests access is another nice bonus, as is the primary rental car insurance.

Now those calculations may change if they were to reduce benefits. However, I would be quite surprised if the card is not successful long term, simply because I think a lot of other people would value the card long term for the reasons discussed above. No doubt some will just dump it next Fall, but I think they will hang on to enough people to make it work. Citi to me is not a fair comparison, because I do not think it offers nearly as rewarding of a rewards structure.

Just my 2 cents.

bbriscoe34

Is that on the reserve HH? IIRC, its auto Gold for the $85 fee and spend $40K to Diamond?

I still have the no AF Amex HH card. It was my first non-corporate card back in '99 and I put $20K on it every year to maintain Gold.

Need

Yes it is auto Gold on the Reserve but I need to spend $10K to get the annual weekend cert. I already spent over $40K this year to get Diamond until 2018. I used to have the Amex HH Surpass but decided not to keep it and downgraded it the no AF Amex HH and then since I don't use it at all.. cancelled it.

eajusa

Well said.

Other cards have 3X on travel and the ability to transfer those points (miles) at ratios of 1:1.5 or greater. In some cases the points (miles) are even worth more than 1 cent, so the potential to go beyond 4.5% is there.

This is true if all your spend is on travel. 1.5 miles per $ on non-travel spend is superior to just 1UR. There's also the fact that if you frequent Star Alliance lounges you find United Club membership much more valuable than PP which is offered on other cards anyway.
I'm not saying you can't get $150 worth of benefit each year from CSR, but for others with different spend and travel habits there is great value from UMPC, which happens to still have the $395 AF for me.

conde

Like many, I obtained the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I am now using it to meet my spend requirement for the signup bonus. Beyond the signup bonus, there are some attractive features, such as 3x points for travel and dining. There is also Priority Pass, Primary coverage for auto rental, and Visa Infinite Benefits.

Despite those nice features, I likely won't keep the card past the enrollment anniversary. There is nothing "wrong" with the card, but for my purposes, I am not a big fan of the UR transfer partners. United Airlines? No thanks. Marriott? No thanks. Hyatt? I already have a Chase Hyatt Visa that offers 1 Cat 1-4 free night and a lower annual fee.

I like the perks from the American Express Platinum card (I fly Delta mostly domestic) and like the airline transfer partners with MR such as Asia Miles. Asia Miles is missing from Chase UR. Delta lounge access from the Amex Platinum card suits me nicely too. The Amex Plat isn't great for earning points, but they recently raised their game with 5x points for airline purchases.

For points earning, I use the Citi Premier. 3x points for travel (including gas), and 2x points for dining (not as good as Sapphire Reserve). The real kicker is the 2x points for Entertainment! I have baseball season tickets which I charge to that card, thousands of points annually which trumps the Chase Sapphire Reserve. The Citi Premier also has a lower annual fee. Asia Miles is also a transfer partner for Citi ThankYou points.

Amex Plat for perks, Citi Premier for points,and Hyatt Visa as a backup are all I need. I will likely be canceling the Chase Sapphire by the anniversary. Every Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholder needs to ask themselves if they are happy with the perks, the redemption options, and transfer partners to determine what is best. Some will keep the Chase Sapphire Reserve, but not everyone. Perks are light, as there are no paths to status with airline or hotel loyalty programs.

Chase is paying a high price for customer acquisition. Time will tell if it is worth it for Chase.

cesco.g

Related article here:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ame...rds-2016-12-12

notquiteaff

Sorry if this has been beaten to death in other (mega)threads, but could you elaborate? I have PP through both the Amex Plat and the CSR. No problems in either case getting the physical PP card. What impact does the outsourcing have on me?

mia

The discussion is in this thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...embership.html

snic

I avoid flying UA whenever I can, but I have to admit that UA miles can be pretty useful for business class awards on other carriers. They do cost a bit more than awards on UA, but compared with other (foreign carrier) FF programs, at least UA doesn't charge ridiculous fuel surcharges. Of course, UA recently changed the redemption rules to make complex itineraries much more difficult to book, but there's still value to be had.

Productivity

While the card seems great (neither my wife nor I have it as we are both 5/24) and we will get one as soon as we can, I'm not sure if it will be just for the signup or if there is a true marginal benefit. The Citi Prestige is a stronger card (4th night benefit eclipses pretty much everything else and earns us 10+ times the annual fee each year, so there's no way we would give that up), that already has a 3x earning on travel. CUR points are marginally better than CTY points, but not so much that it's worth holding on it's own.

Take that out and the big value is 3x points on dining, so I have to look and see do we spend enough on dining to make 1 extra point worth the net annual fee. That's probably pretty marginal - the net annual fee works out to be around $135 for us (AF + AU - CSP we wouldn't need to pay anymore). Even at $10,000 on dining (which would be a struggle), I struggle to think that 10,000 points for $135 is good value.

So I think Chase missed the business proposition here - the flashy bonus gets people in the door but there is no defining feature that really makes it worth having over any of the other premium cards.

highops

tldr: URP are the best point currency for me, but depending on how you value perks you can come close using a couple other cards as your program. (And obviously just getting sign up bonuses is the most lucrative plan.)

CSR: If I didn't keep getting distracted by shiny new offers (ooh 70,000 Skymiles and I haven't had Platinum before so I can really have them) Ultimate Rewards Points is the best system for me. I can pretty reliably use Hyatt and United most places we go. Mix in Ink, Freedom, Freedom Unlimited multipliers, add in the ability to top off the lesser valued currencies for an award and the 1.5 cent point value in the portal and this is, in fact, a hard card to beat.

RITZ: On a sort of lark I put all my non-sign up bonus for a year on the Ritz. This cost, probably, $1200-1300 in lost point value comparing Marriott to URP. But, I've gotten upgrades at resort hotels, I've gotten upgrades on United flights from the silver status and I've been upgraded at SPG hotels because of the status match. I probably value the sum of those perks at slightly less than $1200, but they were fun. And depending if you use the travel credit this is currently a negative annual fee card- I got the $300 in travel credits (worth maybe $200 to me), I got one $100 off Visa infinite air fare, and got $100 cash for enforcing the room-type guarantee at a Marriott based on my status from the card.

The Amex Platinum makes zero sense for me alone to renew. But is $625 worth medium status for four members of a family in 3 major hotel chains? Maybe.

snic

That's certainly true for people like you who are able to take full advantage of the 4th night free Prestige benefit. I've had the Prestige for nearly two years and used that benefit exactly once, to save ~$100, and in the future I don't expect to use it much at all because I prefer vacation rentals to hotels. So for me, and I suspect a lot of other people, the CSR is about equivalent to the Prestige, if not a little better.

I do have to wonder, though, how many people are just getting the 100k points with the intention of canceling at the 1 year mark. The huge bonus has hit a nerve with people who ignore the points game because the points can be used as cash towards travel. I know someone who was ecstatic about having 75% of her vacation (involving economy class flights to Australia - uggh! I almost wanted to cry) paid for by the CSR bonus points, which she converted to cash.