Is it time yet for people to start asking/speculating about the annual 10K+20K SPG Amex offer? (No? OK, then.:p)

Good to know, but why is it taking so long? Chase has offered a chip on the Hyatt Visa card since February 2012.

I've always thought that Chase is a bit afraid of poaching to much from their co-branded cards. They need to keep those partners happy, and honestly the only thing the CSP is missing is the chip.

My Penfed Defender American Express Card has no foreign transaction fee and no annual fee (and 1.5% cash back) so it's not just the expensive cards.

This is a card processed on the Amex network, but it is not issued by Amex.

Once upon a time (before 2002-3, anyway) most cards had no extra forex fee; there was the 1% that Visa and MC charged, and Amex always had its own - higher - exchange rate, but that was it. Then around that time citi, IIRC, started with their cursed 3% forex, and everyone jumped on the bandwagon pretty quickly, except for Capital One (and MBNA briefly). As the years went by and people wised up to the forex ripoff, CapOne cards became more popular, and finally Chase got the message and started issuing cards without forex fees. It seems that citi may be starting to catch up with their HHonors reserve Visa or whatever it's called. Eventually, even Amex might have to catch up with the new trend and go back to no forex fee cards... let's hope anyway.

Agreed. However Starwood does give perks to people for increasing spend on the Amex card (Gold status for $30k spend). Which means they share in the money when spend is high. Since I believe most of us leave the SPG Amex home when traveling internationally it is in Starwood's best interest to pressure Amex into removing the forex fees (and thus increasing spend). It may also help Amex but the loss of 2.7% would probably make the increased spend not worthwhile. Thus although Amex controls it, Starwood could pressure them. After all - there are other choices of companies who could co-brand a card with Starwood. They could move to a Starwood Visa for example. If Amex wants to keep this from occurring they need to keep their customers & Starwood happy.

How long for SPG points transfer?
 

I need to top off my Alaska Airlines mileage account in order to grab some award tickets to Hawaii for the family. I'm planning to transfer some SPG points to do that (I know, some of you might scoff at this use of valuable SPG points, so be it).

My question: how long does it take for such a transfer to take effect?

Thanks.

Took around 10 days for me.

See the discussion in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...er-thread.html (where this really belongs, since the question doesn't pertain to the SPG Amex).

Isn't about time for the extra pts application to appear?
Has anybody heard about a 30K spg pts application this year?
Is it still 2 yrs for reapplying to receive pts?
thanks!

referral bonus
 

Hi everyone, does anyone know if there is a way to get a SPG amex referral bonus?

Yes, sign into your Amex account and there are links to the referral links.

Since when? My account shows none, even if I use the old "search for 'refer'" method to sniff out links.

Referral bonuses for Amex products have been gone for many months, at least in the US.

Seems they'd rather give that benefit to bloggers.