Hi all:
I'm a newbie but thanks to good advice have accumulated the British Airways visa, Amex Platinum, Sapphire Preferred, and am considering the SPG Amex. Once I have worked my way through the spend requirements on all 4, my question is how to allocate the continued spending on each. Comparing the benefits, I had decided to focus on Amex Platinum, using Sapphire Preferred for places that don't take Amex (British Airways benefits aren't as attractive to me as Sapphire's -- I already got the BA 100K miles). If I get the SPG Amex, it will necessarily cut into the spending from the other two. How do you all figure out what to spend where (as in which card)? Put another way, are the SPG Amex benefits better than the Amex Platinum benefits, such that it would be better to spend on the SPG Amex rather than the Platinum? Make sense? Thanks so much! The answer will govern whether I go ahead to apply for the SPG Amex.

the ba mi's don't expire for 3 yrs, iirc, so you may not need to keep the card if you can use up the mi's....good luck...

As always, the answer is: depends. It depends on many factors, such as which FF programs (air/hotel) you want to focus on and what your spending habits are. SPG Amex is great for: transfers to multitude of airline partners (always transfer in multiples of 20,000 as you get the 25% 5,000 point bonus for MOST partners), as well as using SPG points for cash-and-points at SPG hotels (some are GREAT deals, earning you upwards of 7-8 cents per point or more; some, especially the highest category hotels, are not). For one example, if you want to focus on AA, you'd want to stick to the SPG Amex since Amex Plat and SP do not transfer (at least not directly/efficiently) into AA.

Another factor (that is somewhat unpredictable): Amex MR will often have great promos on partner transfers, like the recently-expired BA 50% bonus. These give you a lot of bang per buck. While Amex Plat MR has fewer transfer partners than SPG, they still have a lot of options and I really like that Amex Plat transfers (generally) almost instantly. Surprisingly, this has been a big deal for me more often than I thought (SPG can take a week or longer for transfers).

The SP has the most limited options for transfer partners, but some real gems including Hyatt (esp. if you're planning on staying at the higher end Park Hyatts). A real bonus for SP is that now you can get double points on all spending on dining and travel (which stacks with some of their UR Mall bonuses, if I'm not mistaken)! This is a huge benefit for me, as I tend to spend a good chunk on dining options. So one thing I can say is: with the 1:1 transfer from SP to BA, you should not use your BA card (1.25 points per $1) for dining because generally SP is strictly better (with the two exceptions being using the BA card to prevent points from expiring and also hitting the $30k spend on BA card to get the valuable 2-for-1).

The BA visa (along with the SP) is nice because it is a Visa -- not all places accept Amex. The BA visa is nice since you earn 1.25 points per $1, but beware the high YQ fees on most BA flights or flights on BA partners using BA miles (highest fees on travel to Europe; moderate fees on travel to Asia on partners; low fees on travel to South America on partners). A big bonus is spending $30k to get a very valuable 2-for-1 voucher which allows you to BOGO ON AWARD REDEMPTIONS (not full fare purchases)!!! You just have to fly BA metal.

Yet another consideration: no foreign transaction fees on Amex Plat, BA Visa and SP. This has come in big for me lately.

I know this is not an Answer, but hopefully it will help you a bit in figuring out your situation. Good luck!

thanks so much, very helpful!

I certainly would consider spend requirements based on remaining time in the bonus period. If your spending dollars are finite and you are getting close to the end of the spend period, focus on that particular card.