GUWonder

jamesinclair

Price rewind + insurance is what made the math pencil out for me.

Without it, it's $250 a year for priority pass + 2 potential free nights. And on average, I only get 1 free night a year because I rarely stay in the same spot for 4 nights.

So it's no longer worth it.

I think I might move to the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I have Amex Gold, and the math on the Platinum never made any sense to me (a Saks $50 credit, really?). If I flew out of an airport with an Amex Lounge, then maybe, but the airports I most frequent do not have one. Amex also doesnt include car insurance, which is garbage. I believe its primary coverage on the Chase cards.

mia

This is inaccurate. USA-issued American Express cards include secondary CDW, the same as Citi Prestige has had. Chase Sapphire Preferred/Reserve include primary coverage, which some think is important.

themicah

To answer my own question, I think I'm going to move most "stuff" spending to Amex Gold, which has 2 year extended warranty and 90 day return protection. I'll miss the 2% cash back and price rewind features from Doublecash, but I look forward to better customer service on the warranty and return protection fronts. And Amex Gold is arguably the best grocery/dining card out there, too.

I'm debating also getting a Chase United Travelbank card (which is one of the few no-annual-fee cards that still has price protection) and using it for the occasional purchase where I care more about price protection than warranty/return protection, like buying shoes at the local shoe store. But it might not be worth the hassle.

abk

My guess is that over the last several years the costs associated with the travel insurance benefits provided on these cards has skyrocketed relative to what it was when it was conceived and what it has historically cost. Whether it is the weather, changes in the airline industry or simply that more people know about it and are claiming it, I am sure that the actual cost of these claims has become a significant liability.

Hopefully, Chase will take advantage of this to expand their base at Citi's expense just as they did when Amex cut out the Priority Pass restaurant benefit. The other side of this is that of the three I mention that would leave Chase as the only one providing travel insurance.

ellinj

Yeah, what they don't offer is any sort of trip insurance unless you opt into their TravelAssure, which I don't think is available to the general public anymore. If this is a trend I may finally pull the trigger and buy a yearly trip insurance plans from either Nationwide or Allianz.

entropy

rental car protection (at least 2ndary) CDW seems like table stakes for a travel card, not even a premium one.

I'd forego fully optimizing "points" to have the trip insurances - which is why I use my Chase ink preferred for 3x on airfare, rather than the AX plat for 5x, Chase is protected, AX isn't.

GUWonder

scubadu

In my case you couldn't be more incorrect. I don't believe, in any way, shape, or form that the 4th night free is "etched in stone." In fact, I'm surprised it's been offered as long as it has. However, my MO is that I assume things in this game will get worse with each passing year, not better, so things like this tend to neither surprise nor disappoint me. This game has gotten way, way too generous and we are beginning to see the "cracks in the armor."

So, nope, I'm assuming they will probably cut the 4th night free benefit (or further restrict it) at some point in the future. But, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, not before. I'm not going cancel a card that pays for itself multiple times over because they cut benefits that most people on FT (other threads in other forums, blogs, etc.) are acknowledging they almost never used, and which mostly didn't exist (with the exception of CDW insurance) up until a couple years ago. But now all the sudden people "need" these because it makes them feel "safe" even if they never use it?! Ummm... ok.

Cancelling this card, given the amount it currently saves me, because they cut benefits I never use, would be cutting off my nose to spite my face. I understand that not everyone has my travel patterns and that's why everyone has to do their own math, but do that math, don't act on emotion.

Regards

scubadu

Ummm... yea, no. Chase hasn't "taken advantage" from Amex cutting Priority Pass restaurant benefits. Chase did absolutely nothing. They had a benefit on offer and they haven't changed it years. Amex made an announcement but Chase didn't take any action whatsoever, and in fact their public statement was pretty non-committal; basically saying there were no changes to the program to share "at this time." That hardly qualifies as "taking the advantage" at Amex's expense.

I find it a little humorous that so many are talking about running into the arms of Chase Sapphire Reserve (full disclosure, I carry that card too) at this point. Over the last couple years, both on FT, and on the "usual suspect" travel blogs, many were asserting, quite vocally, that Chase had to "reinvigorate" the CSR and that they were "falling behind" Amex and Citi. Basically, Chase introduced the CSR several years ago and effectively have left it completely unchanged. People were saying it's time had past, and yet now, with no changes whatsoever, people are ready to go running back into their arms. Perhaps Chase has a better understanding for what the premium card market can bear than people have given them credit for...

Regards

themicah

I think it's a combination of a few things:

1. Until the last couple years, the benefits seemed to be getting steadily more generous. Does anybody recall a card that had Trip Delay 10+ years ago? Citi only recently introduced worldwide CDW (previously there were country exclusions). Most cards with price protection only allowed printed ads from newspapers and whatnot (not internet ads) until quite recently. And so on.
2. Customers are more aware of the benefits and how to use them due to marketing and blogs and forums like this one. It wasn't that long ago that you could only get the real T&Cs for protection benefits in hard copy format, but now almost every card issuer makes them easily available on their website so you can figure out what benefits you have and how to use them. Plus there are tons of articles and blog posts and forum threads on how to maximize the value of the benefits.
3. Tech makes claims much easier. Twenty years ago when I started making Internet Price Protection claims on my ClickCiti card, I had to keep track of a paper receipt, call Citi, spell out all my information for a phone agent to write it down, wait for them to snail mail me a claim form, fill out the form, make copies of my receipt and better price ad, and snail mail the package back. Today I submit multiple Price Rewind claims every month by printing readily accessible e-mail receipts and clicking a few buttons on a website. Having most of my shopping and travel receipts in my e-mail box also makes extended warranty and all kinds of travel protection claims infinitely easier.

AA_ORDlady

DH just called Citicard to voice his displeasure.
The phone rep was well-prepared and had scripted responses. They are inundated with calls.
The phone rep told DH that "95% of customers don't even know about the travel protection benefits, so nobody will notice."

We have used the trip cancellation and trip interruption several times and it is an important part of our travel planning.
I fail to see how anyone at Citi would have any quantifiable data as to how many people are utilizing the card for the travel protection benefits, but I would suspect it is more than 5% of card holders. Maybe I'm mistaken.
In our case---our $30-40K leisure travel spend will transition to Chase Sapphire Preferred so that we have coverage. The balance of our annual spend will be transitioned to other cards.

We will purchase Admirals' Club with $ or miles going forward and will cancel the Citi card--they are quite replaceable at $450/year for a travel card with no travel benefits.

notquiteaff

The Price Rewind site proudly advertises that they paid out $17.5 million last year. That doesn't strike me as a ton of money to be saved here (granted, they probably spend at least as much running the program).

david22

Does Aman even show up on the thankyou.com portal that we soon have to use for the 4NF benefit? :-/

moe8555

Why not the Sapphire Reserve with 3X earning, 1.5X portal, Priority Pass, and better coverages? With that level of spend, it's easily better than the Preferred.