drwilliams

I for one think the replacement card is much better.

There may be a fee, but the earning potential is significantly better IMO.

Braindrain

Yeah, I was one of those people. Luckily, I ran through enough expenses to track and maintain multiples of $10K spend patterns between 2 cards (mine and my SO). However, I don't think others were so lucky or even cared to track.

IMO, the best, included insurance package is with the CIBC Aerogold cards. Why? They actually admit their insurance covers reward trips.

For the Amex Aeroplan Gold/Plat and normal Amex Gold/Plat cards, the insurance doesn't cover award trips. This was confirmed many times through other FT'ers and calls to Amex and their insurance underwriter. Of course, this is absolutely nuts because they're encouraging the accumulation of points to take trips which they will not subsequently cover through their insurance.

So, unless the Amex SPG is going to expand insurance coverage to reward trips, their insurance product is in the middle of the pack.

I hope the Amex guys are reading this one.

JWL

My guess is that an issue for Amex is that there isn't always a clear connection between the reward points earned and the reward travel which could be booked with non-Amex points (eg you used 10K points from travel or other sources and 10K points from Amex).

Amex SPG reward points are earned with Amex, stored at SPG (where other non-Amex points can be earned/used) and transferred to an airline (where other non-Amex points can be earned/used). So it would put Amex in the position of potentially insuring all reward travel of Amex SPG cardholders at many airlines without a clear trail between Amex spending and reward travel.

CIBC Aeroplan of course has the same issue, but it is more contained since they are only dealing with one airline. But I expect they aren't thrilled with having this benefit in place as the number of places you can earn Aeroplan points has grown since the CIBC Aeroplan Visa started (including through Amex MR, SPG and SPG via MBNA). One way or the other, the DO offer it so it is a Pro for that card over existing Amex cards.

I was trying to think of how a rule could be structured so that if X% of your SPG points were from Amex, and Y% of your points spent on reward travel were from SPG then you would be covered. But that would be complicated for a lot of people to prove, would increase administrative complexity at SPG, and would actually penalize Amex SPG cardholders who earned a lot of points through SPG stays.

(Some may read this and say "there goes JWL 'defending' Amex again", but I'm just trying to point out that the issue is a lot more complicated than it appears on the surface because I agree that reward travel earned at Amex should benefit from the insurance offered by Amex)

Vasyl

Let me correct a bit. "there goes JWL 'defending' Amex again A LOT",

bacan

No card that I'm aware of provides coverage when you convert your points, e.g. the Avion card does not cover trips booked using BA miles that you have converted from your RBC Rewards points nor does the TD card cover trips booked using AA miles that you have converted from your TD points. Similarly, I don't think it's reasonable to expect the new card to give us coverage when we convert Starpoints to airline miles and book using those airline miles.

Now if you are talking about booking directly using the same points that you earn on your card and not converting anything, then as Braindrain pointed out, the CIBC Aerogold card provides coverage for flights booked on Aeroplan miles. The TD First Class card also offers coverage when booking directly using TD Points, and the RBC Avion card offers coverage when booking directly using RBC Rewards points. It seems to be pretty much standard except for Amex. So I think that a Starpoint flight award should be covered in the same way.

JWL

And there goes Vasyl just complaining about change rather than dealing with it.

JWL

But Aeroplan flights are booked through Aeroplan rather than CIBC, right? So there is no way for CIBC to tell if you got your Aeroplan points through a CIBC VISA or through and SPG transfer, is there? I haven't had a CIBC Aeroplan Visa for a while so I don't know the specifics of their insurance on reward flights.

bacan

I don't think it matters where your Aeroplan points originated, as long as you are a cardholder and the policy covers you when you use your points for travel. I'm not a CIBC cardholder myself and can't find the policies online, so let's take another example: the flight baggage delay insurance policy for the new RBC Westjet (of course this is only an excerpt):

"This insurance is effective when the full cost of your airline ticket issued by an air carrier is paid with your WestJet RBC World MasterCard card and/or WestJet dollars, and your luggage is checked with that air carrier. If only a partial payment is made using WestJet dollars, the entire balance of that airline ticket must be paid using your WestJet RBC World MasterCard card in order to be covered."

So in this circumstance let's say you use 100% WestJet dollars and there is no monetary amount owing. You might not have accumulated any of those points through your credit card, but on a plain reading of this, the insurance would still be effective. When I had the RBC British Airways Visa, there was a similar insurance policy, and I was covered when I used BA Miles (and put the taxes on my Visa) even though I accumulated many of my BA Miles through flying and not by using the card.

So what I am asking is that the new Amex SPG card, in the same way, provide that cardholders are insured for flights booked directly using Starpoints (I'm not talking about converting Starpoints). This would give us something that is comparable to what's out there for Aerogold and WestJet.

JWL

Thanks for the explanation and agreed that those are analogous situations.

bacan

Now don't get all excited. This is for the U.S. card!

Braindrain

Right.

Right again.

For CIBC Aerogold, as long as you pay your reward trip taxes with the Aerogold, the trip is covered. I'm not even sure it even has to be an Aeroplan award.

In fact, I had bought the MBNA travel insurance and that insurance didn't even cover reward trips.

cko64

Phasers is correct that the US SPG Amex has a 25,000 SPG point promo. And he posted it under the US SPG Amex thread, nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, why did you quote it from that thread and bring it over to this Canadian SPG Amex thread? I wasted a good ten minutes trying to look for Phasers' quote in this thread and it turned out it was from another thread.

bacan

cko64, if you click on the little arrow to the right of Phasers' name it will take you right to his original post, and you needn't spend any time looking for it. @:-) Am I not allowed to quote from another thread? I clearly identified the promo as being for the U.S. card so that you wouldn't be misled. Of course I understand it's a different market here, but nevertheless I think it's good to be mindful of promos like this and the other features of the U.S. cards when evaluating the new Canadian cards.

yeunganson

It seems everything that needs to be said about this card is said.

The number of posts/day is dropping plunged meaning passion/enthusiasm dropped somewhat. I guess everyone just gave up commenting.


Amazing 22 pages.

Great White North

I think everyone has made up they're minds about the card by now. Those who think it's a good deal are waiting for applications to open up and those who don't are looking for a another replacement for their SPG MBNA MC.