One need not be a cheapskate to appreciate free meals and free clothes!

You people act like cheapskate is a pejorative term!

Well, I "wasted" $75.07 at Lululemon today (ok, wasted 7�) and will likely get food at a Resy-affiliated place this weekend - wondering if transactions that are processed through Toast will properly credit.

Gold Card ones do.. .it always catches me by Suprise... the email "you used your Resy Credit"

We said, but I will add a thought specifically about 4pm checkouts. The other benefits have financial costs, but late checkout is an operational burden that housekeeping, reception and other departments do not like. A property which is already committed to FHR knows that this will impact N% of its room inventory, but will resist having it spread to other programs, because the cumulative impact can be disruptive.

Not sure if this has been noted already, but as of today I'm seeing benefits tracker in the AMEX app under "Membership." Great way to make sure I'm not missing out on any of the new credits!

Hope you find a good use. I spent my 40th bday at a crappy hotel thanks to the late-in-the-year Aspire refresh which gave an extra Hilton resort credit. Should have just ignored it and went somewhere nice on my own dime.

ummm no. It�s a mass market card they hand out to anyone with a heartbeat. It�s designed for people who want to flash it and visit the �exclusive lounge.�

maybe in a distant time these were travel cards but now just cash cows for Amex minting $$ on the AFs and the interchange fees.

Yes they increased hotel credits because they have to compete with Chase which offers 4x points on hotel spend. Yes they want people who stay at high end hotels bc they make more on the interchange. the breakage is massive

Changed an upcoming booking at a Hyatt Place to a Mandarin Oriental to use the new FHR credit - guess that is an okay trade-off.

My account updated to Sterling status today, after enrolling the day the refresh hit.

Got an email about it this morning too and it shows up for me too today!

You bring up a good point how the utility of these benefits is very much influenced by location and lifestyle. I'm fortunate that I am in close to proximity to Minneapolis-St.Paul and Chicago. In anticipation of the upcoming Platinum changes, I upgraded one of my Gold cards to a 2nd Platinum. Booked a 2-night stay in Chicago, for $365.00, to burn the $200.00 credit, was reimbured, and got an additional $300.00 after the refresh, and immediately booked a 2-night stay in Minneapolis for $330.00. These are not high-end luxurious places, but they are comfortable and provide good service, and I also earn loyalty points.
One of the properties was quite clear that THC was not stackable with Hilton Diamond, and then another associate added it back upon checkout.

I don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but back in March of 2020, I was planning a short trip to Vegas to get away from the winter weather, however, I had a couple family members in healthcare that convinced me to cancel the trip because of a virus. In November of that year, I made the decision to skip Thanksgiving. We ended up having a short Zoom call to "celebrate."
In late December, 2020, there was some discussion on Flyertalk whether IHG would extend their annual anniversary certificates. They waitied until the last minute, choosing not to extend them, but to issue brand new certificates.
I suddenly had an "old" certificate that was expiring in 2 weeks, and a new certificate. At least one person on Flyertalk said they believed it was ethically wrong to use the old certificate, after a new one had been granted; that we were taking advantage of IHG.

I had already decided, without telling my family, that I would forgo our normal Christmas gathering. Happy Thanksgiving would now be Merry Christmas, and another Zoom call. I wasn't going to be visiting anyone, and it was probably the maximizer in me, but I made the decision to use that certificate. I walked a couple blocks to a restaurant that was still open, sat at a table as far from others that I could find, and then walked across the street to our local Holiday Inn, checked in, got my 500 points, and a bottled iced tea, since the bar was closed.

My entire trip from dinner, to checkout was less than 15 hours, and I had traveled less than a mile from my apartment, but for those 15 hours, I felt like I was on vacation. Using that IHG certificate was my Christmas present to me.
I know not everyone wants to travel to Minneapolis and Chicago in December, and I'm not saving any money, but I like traveling, staying in hotels, eating good food, and getting away, and if Minneapolis or Chicago doesn't suit you, there are other reasonably-priced properties, in Oceanside, California, as SanDiego1K pointed out earlier.

Since the 15th, when I upgraded a Gold to a 2nd Platinum, I've used:
$200 Hotel Credit
$200 Airline Credit
$300 Hotel Credit
2 x $100 Resy Credits
2 x $71 Lululemon (2 polo shirts and 2 pairs of socks

Most of these are "treats." Since I've had the Delta Platinum, I use my $10 Resy credit for a gift card to a Minneapolis restaurant that I like, and pair those gift cards with the $50 Resy credit from my Amex Gold.
Last time I went to Minneapolis, I felt a little self-conscious when the bill came and I presented a stack of gift cards. The bill was around $75.00, after tax, and I gave him exactly $100 in gift cards and told him to keep the change. In addition, because I purchased one of these gift cards on January 1, I got a bonus $10 holiday coupon that had expired the previous week, but I gave it to him anyway.

After a short conversation with a colleague, my expired coupon miraculously became valid, and his 25% tip became 35%. Now for my next visit, I can just bring a single $100 gift card, eat $60-$70 of good food, and tell the server to keep the change. You can also bet that next week I'm going to be wearing my Lululemon polo shirt and socks to work. Heck, why shoud I care? On Fridays the office is mostly empty anyway.
I don't know how to put a value on these "treats", but $30 net for 2-nights in a Minneapolis hotel, a $100 property credit, and a meal at a nice restaurant are worth something, just like redeeming an old IHG certificate for an early Christmas present. I've leared, over the last few years, not to take traveling, staying in hotels, or eating in restaurants for granted, so when I get the opportuniy I enjoy it.

I think too, there may be a certain amount of cheeriness that Amex, unlike Chase, chose to give these "treats" to existing cardholders immediately. It's amazing how many posts and messages I've read and received from people that are also visiting lululemon for the first time or figuring out how redeem their Resy benefit before the end of September.

findark, I owe you an apology. When I was at work, very tired, and reading these original posts about FHR and fancy hotels, I saw your post and read it as:
"I never stay at the Four Seasons. When I go to Hawaii, I stay in a front cabin."

I've never been to Hawaii, and hope to go someday, but when I read that, I thought, "They have cabins in Hawaii?"
When I hear the word cabin, I think of 2 things:
1) A guy I knew that would go to his cabin in December, so he could go out at 6:00 AM and go ice fishing on the lake. No thank you. I'm going to stay inside, where it's warm, stream some Netflix, and Doordash it.
2) Lincoln's boyhood home on the plains of Kentucky

So I was picturing Hawaii, with it's beautiful beaches and luxurious hotels, and then past the beaches, beyond Mediterranean and Baltic Avenue, is findark, living in a cabin, like Thoreau and Abraham Lincoln.

If American Express ever partners with REI or Duluth Trading Company, I think I'll have to draw the line. If I ever have to carry an axe, or cut firewood, I'd be worried about accidentally cutting my leg off!
Don't worry....after waking up, I know that staying in the front cabin OF AN AIRPLANE, is not the same as roughing it in the woods or in the remote corners of the Hawaii wilderness, but it still made me think of this bit from John Pinette and it describes me perfectly:

FWIW, I think that whether this refresh is good/bad/neutral all depends on how you value the benefits. Here's my personal valuation of the new stuff:

• 400 Resy credits, $100/quarter - must register Worth $350 to me. Very likely we'll use full value 4x as we already go to Resy restaurants. Small loss in value in having to use Plat (1x) as opposed to Chase Sapphire Reserve (3x)
• $25/month for digital entertainment credit, up from $20/month Worth $300 to me. Already have multiple purchases that are eligible for credit.
• $600 hotel credit thru FHR, $300/half year - up from $200 for entire year The AMEX Plat Biz card has added $600 hotel credit, having none before. Hard to say, but I'll go with $300 per year. Often I can get better deals than FHR.
• $120 UberOne credit - costs $10/month so covers that charge - benefits include $0 Delivery Fees, savings of up to 10% off on eligible orders, Uber One credits on rides Worth $120 as I already get that.
• Leaders Club sterlling status - must register I registered but I doubt this will be of any value to me.
• $300 lululemon credit, $75/quarter, enrollment required Wife and daughters sometimes buy there. I'll say $125.
• $200 Oura ring credit Nope, and it's not worth my time to buy anything and try to resell it.

So, the above is worth about $1,195 to me. In addition, there's the airline incidentals that is worth pretty close to $200 on Southwest (I do the buy cheap, cancel, hold funds routine), $200 Uber, Saks, Clear, Trusted Traveler, 5x points on airline purchases.

And after all that, a whole lotta lounge access. So for me at least, this is a good thing.

I�m honesty kinda stunned at how good this refresh is for me personally. Like, they picked a bunch of stuff that is extremely low effort for me to use for most of these credits? I love FHR so expanding that from $200 to $600 semiannual is great value for me- I can easily use that twice a year (and will). I already booked a $689 one night hotel stay for my Tokyo trip next January to use the $300 credit, and I had already used the previous $200 credit on a different two night stay during the same trip. So that feels like a nice win, especially since I get one more year at the old $695 rate (my renewal is in like five days).

But most of the rest of the new credits are all easy too. I live in NYC so I have a million Resy options, including a couple restaurants I eat at frequently, so using $100 per quarter is a piece of cake (already booked one for next Tuesday). I pay for Uber One myself and find it a pretty decent value, especially with the new surge pricing savings, so now they�re just gonna cover that for me. Even the Lululemon credit is kinda great because I�ve gone through a lot of weight loss this year (currently down 72 pounds since January!) and really need to start putting together a new wardrobe, and they honestly have a lot more men�s clothing than I would have guessed before I started poking around their site. And then the extra $60 for the entertainment credits is just a nice little bonus. So yeah I dunno, I�m kinda blown away by how much additional value I can get out of this card now. It�s gone from a card that I was getting decent value out of to one I�m gonna get really outstanding value out of.

Hah, I did a very similar thing. Had the Tokyo Dome Hotel booked for 1/10 to 1/11 for one night (the last night of my trip, as I�m coming back from Osaka to go to a couple of events in Tokyo the night of 1/10 and morning of 1/11 before flying home at 7:45 pm on the 11th)- it�s a perfectly fine Japanese 4 star hotel that I�ve stayed at before, but also nothing to write home about. I think the price I was paying was $210 or something.

Once this $300 credit dropped, I booked the Palace Hotel, a beautiful looking 5 star with views of the Imperial Gardens, for $689. But that will soon become $389 after the credit. An extra $179 already feels more than worth it for the level of hotel upgrade I�m getting here (and the FHR rate is basically exactly the same as the direct rate for this night), then you add in the $100 property credit, the free breakfast and especially the guaranteed 4 pm checkout (great for me since again I don�t fly home until late evening) and it feels like I made out like a bandit here.