It's a cushion for me that I have needed 2 years in the last 6. There is no way I'm NOT going after platinum and thus I see this and the personal card as a buffer. I keep paying, but this year maybe my last needing it as next year I will be lifetime platinum.

I'm going to make use of that benefit on both cards this year, plus the 2x elite credit targeted offer, to get Platinum.

But in general, I find I get enough value out of the offers to make it worth it. Even though I have a whole bunch of American Express cards, including free ones that also come with offers, I get enough out of them that I feel I can keep any Amex with an annual fee under $100. I realize that's not the case for everyone. As an example, though, this year I went to Vegas with a group of friends and had 6 rooms booked in my name at Aria. I was able to use the #AmexMGM twitter offer (now expired) on every single one of my cards, plus a few of my friends did too. For the SPG cards, that was $60 per card. Since I have an authorized user card for my wife for both of them, that right there saved $120 per card for the $95 annual fee. Anything else is a bonus. I'm also going to end up with huge value out of the spend $300 get $60 SPG offer on my cards this year, too.

Again, I realize this doesn't work for everyone. But for me, I can justify any of these annual fees with it.

I value the ability to separate my personal and business expenses!

I just got an email on this targeted to my personal card

removed

Wow That Was Fast
 

Applied for personal card late Friday night, card delivered via UPS on Monday.

Hey, got a quick question about hitting $30k spending to keep SPG gold (and Marriott gold). Just tried to clarify on few things with an incompetent Amex chat agent, and he's no help. I reached over $30k recently based on my calculation during my current billing cycle, so I shouldn't be worried and assume that AMEX can detect that I made $30k during 2017 calendar year since my statement will end on Jan 7.

I don’t see a question but the $30k includes December charges regardless of the January statement date if that’s what you’re asking.

Looks like I and few friends got 4S 10N credit from amex card, others still get 2S 5N
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1ca0b2310d.png
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...eeb69c04e8.png

Yeah I got 2 Stay and 5 Night credit in early January and today I got 4 Stay and 10 Night credit today

Where did you see this ? I also received this, but thought it was a mistake!

Received 4S/10N today as well on top of my annual posting on 1/9. Thanks SPG.

Huh, I got an email a couple hours ago but assumed it was just a delayed email from the earlier posting (1/10 for me) and didn't think to check my account. But I have only received an undeserved extra 2 stays/5 nights, who can I complain to? :p

I assume this is just an error that will get fixed...

(Reminiscent of I think last year when a bunch of DL cardholders got extra MQM boosts that were eventually reversed but not before some people grabbed Choice Benefits due to temporary status bump...)

Also got a double-counted stay/nights bonus; I'm at 8 stays / 20 nights overall. It was enough to push me over to Platinum for the year (I already had 30+ nights for 2018), so I got an email notifying me I have platinum until 2020 8)