Frequent Miler on the Air - Amex nails it on benefit refresh | FM on the Air | Ep 45 (May 1 2020)

Episode Date: May 2, 2020

Chase & Citi surprise, but Amex delights in their benefit refresh. Hear Greg & Nick talk about: -Cards newly offering bonuses on groceries -Overhaul of Amex card benefits. Did Amex take the Platinum cards from zero to hero? -Which card wins: in several battles throughout the episode, we talk which card to use and why -Do the changes make any cards must-haves now? Don't forget to like & SUBSCRIBE above. Find more ways to follow us here: http://thefrequentmiler.com/subscribe Timestamps: 00:27 Reader feedback. Pop quiz. 5:37 What crazy thing did Citi do this week? 8:46 Chase now bonusing groceries 14:07 3x CSP or 6x Marriott? 17:30 Is it worth buying GCs online to earn grocery bonus? 21:22 Is this all Chase is going to do? 23:31 Amex enhancements card-by-card 24:14 Consumer Platinum refresh 27:22 Is it worth sacrificing cell phone insurance to get the Platinum wireless service credit? 30:44 Business Platinum refresh 38:10 Greg says Personal over Business. Nick disagrees. 41:00 Hilton refresh 48:05 12x hilton vs 5x Chase vs 3x Chase 50:31 12x Hilton vs 4x Amex 51:26 Amex Green card refresh 54:42 Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant refresh 1:00:36 Delta consumer cards: Bum deal 1:03:12 A retraction from Nick 1:06:17 Revisiting Greg's bold satement 1:11:10 Question of the week: Which ultra-premium cards are now must-apply? Which is #1? #2?

Welcome to Frequent Miler on the air. Today, American Express basically rocked our world with all kinds of crazy announcements. So we're going to dive into those, talk about what's great, what's just okay, and what's meh. But first, of course, we have reader feedback time. And we're going to do something.

That was my drum roll. That was a good drum roll. Very nick thank you for doing it we're gonna we're gonna do a little different type of reader feedback time okay so today i'm going to kind of quiz you all right so yeah so you know our stay k to far away challenge where we put out i've heard of it put out all those videos and and we do different themed ones we're doing. There's a cooking challenge. I'm going to read you some reader comments, the snippets of those comments, not the whole thing. And you have to tell me which challenge and which performer, which contestant's video it was.

Okay. All right. I'm going to do the best I can. We'll see. So I've got four of them. Four, okay. All right. So one of each, presumably. All right. We'll start out do the best I can. We'll see. So I've got four of them. Four. Okay. All right. So one of each, presumably. All right. We'll start out pretty easy, I think.

Okay. So cute! Triple exclamation. Well, I'm going to bet that that was on mine and probably on Destination Cooking because I don't think they were talking about this ugly mug. That is correct. That was most likely about your son. Probably. Good chance. Okay.

All right. Next one. In quotes, that's what she said, in quote, is going to be my new catchphrase. That can only be somebody who's foreign for it to be a new catchphrase, I imagine. So, so that, that had to have been from Steven Pepper's video where he did, okay, wait, now which one was it though? It was the new one. That was his cooking video.

That's correct. Yeah. All right. This one's almost too easy, but I'm guessing, I mean, I guess you're going to have trouble remembering the name of the challenge, not which one it is. All right. This one says, would Lion King type of animal be a wild boar? Was Kumba a warthog? This one was improv travel. Ha, got it this week with Greg. You did.

You did get it. Very good. This was great. Now, in my defense, I looked this up afterwards, and warthogs and wild boars look a lot alike. Very similar. Very similar. They're basically the same animal with two different names.

I see. Well, I'm glad we can clarify that. Yeah. All right, last one. My son is allergic to nuts and fish. Well, I'm glad we can clarify that. Yeah. All right. Last one. My son is allergic to nuts and fish. Well, that one obviously was Carrie's genius hack for the travel themed life hack. And that was this week also.

That is correct. Very good. 400%. Look at that. Aced it. Aced it. You did. You did. So now that Greg has read some of the feedback from those you are surely curious as

to what that feedback was for or what it was referring to so you're gonna have to check out those videos now if you have not yet done it you need to get on our youtube channel the frequent mile or i'm sorry youtube.com slash the frequent miler check out the staycated far away videos yes so that you'll see a uh what it called a chat and no you Frequent Miles their channel it's a playlist playlist playlist called stay K to far away that's where you'll find all of these all right and don't forget to subscribe right you want to do that you want to like the videos that you like even if you're a podcast listener and I'm pointing at you just so you know because

you're a podcast listener so you can't see at you just so you know, because you're a podcast listener, so you can't see me pointing at you. So it's not impolite. Even if you're a podcast listener, just subscribe to our YouTube channel. Because apparently some new features unlock for us when we get to 1,000 subscribers and we're very close. So we need you to help us out. So subscribe. Thank you. Create a free Gmail account.

You don't even have to do it in your main one if you don't want to just create a gmail account go there subscribe like it we appreciate it they have gmail accounts come on well right right but i'm saying even if you don't want to for whatever crazy reason you wouldn't i can't imagine why you wouldn't want to but even if you don't want to just just do it for us help us out all and, and by the way, we mentioned this before, but make sure you like all the videos you like. You're not, you don't have to like only one video each week because it is, there are going to be some cumulative challenges that happen as well. So, you know, if you like a video, go ahead and like it. You don't have to pick just one each week. Yeah. And we are not subtracting downvotes from in person to win because we realized that that

might encourage some people to downvote a bunch of videos to try to help out someone that they like better. And that would go against everything we're trying to do here. So we are going to ignore the downvotes. Greg says that because my mom asked how those were going to work. So, so it's all right. So that's been fun. That's been good this week. So we went through the feedback.

So we need to get to the next regular segment that we started last week. So it's a regular segment for the second week in a row here. But really, we need to introduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, what crazy thing did Citi do this week? So this week, what they did actually isn't crazy. I think it's a totally appropriate thing to do under the circumstances, but it's pretty cool. It's crazy in that it's a good change from Citi.

It's crazy for Citi to do something that makes sense and is kind of normal. Exactly. For Citi, the main thing is for Citi Prestige cardholders who have that $250 travel credit, they no longer have to spend on travel in order to get the credit. You get it for dining and for grocery spend throughout the end of this year, right? Right, that's correct. From today, well, from May 1st, 2020 to December 31st, 2020, exactly. You can spend at restaurants or grocery stores. And you know what?

And if you have a prestige card and you're not using it for your restaurant spend, you're doing something wrong. So it earns 5x thank you points at restaurants. So this one should be really, really easy. So that earns five X thank you points at restaurants. So it, this one should be really, really easy. So that's, that's a nice, a nice bone. That's a gimme. I mean, that that's just giving you your $250 back. It wouldn't be that, that very generous, very generous. Cause like you said, anybody who's got a prestige card, there's no card you have that's earning a better return than that card on dining. So that's gotta be your main dining card. And if you're not

spending $250 on dining between now and the end of the year, I don't know why you've got a prestige card. I don't think it would make any sense. You have the wrong card. Right. So there you go. So that one, I mean, that was a really positive change.

Also another good change. It's kind of about time in the sense that other issuers have already done this, but Citi followed along and did what they should do for once. And they've extended the minimum spend timeframe. So if you've opened a card between December 1st, 2019, and or open a new card between now and May 31st. So anytime in that range between December 1st, 2019 and May 31st, 2020, they're giving you an extra three months to hit the minimum spending requirements, automatic extension. So if you recently missed the spend on something that your window just closed and or you just recently opened a new card, you got an extra three months.

So six months to do the spend that should make it reasonable to meet the spend on basically all the city cards because the spends aren't usually that crazy high on most of the city cards anyway. Yeah. And so anyone who didn't sign up for a card recently, you have until the end of May to sign up for one and get six months instead of three months, right? Right, exactly. So you get almost through the end of the year to meet the spending requirement.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think that's a good change. That's a change we've seen already from Amex. And actually, I just saw that that was in an email we got just a little bit before we started this, that Chase is doing the same. They've done that now, added three months to any spending requirement that was three months long. Those two-tiered spending requirements, like the Southwest card that has an additional bonus in the first six months, they said there is an extension that is going to be coming on that. They haven't announced it yet. Oh, great.

Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's good news. That's good news. Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's good news. That's good news. Okay. Now, Chase also announced some grocery bonuses. They sure did. Wow. Some. Yes. Yes. Like on almost every card that carries an annual fee of $95 or more on the personal side, the consumer side, not the business cards, the consumer side, they almost all bonus grocery spending now, right? Yes, I think that's right. Now, I think there is a business card that gets grocery bonus. There's one that I can think of. Well, sort of, sort of two. Okay. Because to okay um because chase has two legacy business marriott cards and we were told even though mx is not bonusing the business marriott cards for grocery that chase is right that is correct yes

and and that's what i've been responding to people with today that the marriott card and i said the marriott card but now you're right there are two older marriott business, and I said the Marriott card, but now you're right. There are two older Marriott business cards. So either of the Marriott business cards, those are going to earn 6X on up to $5,000 worth of spend at grocery stores between May 1st and July 31st. Now, it's only the Bonvoy cards that are A, $5,000 in cumulative spend and B, May through the end of July. So those Bonvoy cards, again, are in 6X. And that's true both for the Chase cards and the Amex cards, except the Amex business. So any of the various ones, whatever old card you had that got converted over,

it doesn't matter which one it is, except the Amex business side, all the rest of the Marriott Bonvoy is 6X on groceries through the end of July. Now, Amex has a higher cap on that, but we'll get to Amex in a few minutes. Back onto Chase, lots of other Chase cards are bonusing groceries too,

but all of the ones that are not a Marriott Bonvoy card are bonusing those groceries from May to the end of June. So it's just two months, May to June. Plus two months, okay. Yeah, on all the other Chase cards. But there's some good stuff to be had there. The Sapphire Reserve is earning 5X on $1,500 a month in groceries. Not per quarter, but rather per month. So $1,500 in groceries this month, $1,500 a month in groceries, not per quarter, but rather per month. So $1,500

in groceries this month, $1,500 next month, that's three grand in groceries. If you spend that much in the next two months, you'll earn 5x on all of that. That's 15,000 extra points, 3x on most of the other cards. That's really nice. Now, are there caps on the other cards or is it just on the... There are. All of them are $1,500 spent a month uh may and june all of them except the bonvoy ones again got it okay so so my dreams of taking the hyatt card in and and going to the grocery store in order to earn all those free nights because of the the free night um sorry elite nights because of the elite night bonus that they're offering right now. That's Dash because 1500 a month is not going to help me very much.

Nope, it's not. It won't even get you to one unit. Not even close. Yeah. But at the same time, if you're going to do 5,000 spend anyway in that time period in order to earn your three elite night credits, you may as well do 3,000 of it at the grocery store and pick up three acts on that card so right thousand spend over the course of the two months learn you an extra 9,000 or total of 9,000 Hyatt points anyway so that's not bad I mean no no I mean I'm in the end you'll have 11,000 points in three three elite nights after you've done 5k spend as long as you put 15 a month on that yeah so that's

interesting also the southwest credit cards the personal ones that's the plus the premier and the priority all earning 3x at the grocery store again that same 1500 cap per month may and june but those points are companion pass qualifying points and they have reduced the requirements for the companion pass by at least a little bit i I was disappointed they didn't produce them more. But if you are trying to spend to fill the gap to complete a companion pass, do some at the grocery store, especially if you're one of those people that still has two personal cards, you can't get those anymore.

But if you had previously opened those, you may still have two personal cards open. You could do 1500 spend on each card each month. So pick up some extra points towards the companion pass that way. And the bonus points are companion pass qualifying. That is what Gary at View from the Wing had reported. So we didn't get that, the grocery information directly from Chase, but I imagine Gary did. So if anyone does it and it doesn't work out, blame Gary.

Gary, yeah, that's right. We'll give you his address. No, but in the past, spending offers on those cards have always been Companion Pass eligible. Southwest has done some deals like that in the last couple of years. Well, not even just the Southwest. A number of different credit cards. But the Southwest cards had one recently where you had to spend, I think, 4,000.

You got 6,000 points or something. And I happen to have done that on a Southwest card and those points were a companion pass ball. And they were. And we know that the signup bonus points work. So it makes sense that it would make sense. Yeah. Yep.

So that's pretty good news there. So, I mean, straight down the line, the British Airways cards, the United Mileage Plus Explorer, just the plain old Mileage Plus card was in the list. So that's the card that normally earns one mile for every $2 spent. And it looks like it's gonna be earning six,

I'm sorry, not six, three X rather at the grocery store. So I mean, that's not a great card to spend on ordinarily, but hey, three X at the grocery store. I mean, maybe I'll pop it out if we get to the point where manufactured spending becomes something I feel like I can do again, then maybe I'll even bust that card out. My goodness, good way to get all of the justices. Right. So we were asked today, should,

should you use, should you get 3x with your Sapphire card? Sapphire preferred, that is. Preferred, or 6x Marriott? Well, right. And then, I mean, that is. Preferred or 6X Marriott. Well, right. And then, I mean, that's a question that starts to become really complex and messy because then if you happen to have one of the Amex cards too, there's some Amex cards offering additional bonuses. I don't know.

If my two options are Sapphire Preferred or Marriott, which do I take in that specific instance? You know, I would probably take Marriott not because I necessarily, it's tough. I'm sure Greg is going to argue why the ultimate rewards points are more valuable. And I'm not going to really disagree with him. But I'm going to say is I don't have that many opportunities to earn Marriott points where I don't feel like really bad about myself or having spent any money on my Marriott card at all. And this is a situation where at least I won't go to bed at night thinking that, man, I really messed up. I'll go to bed at

night thinking, all right, you know what? I picked up some Marriott points. I'll probably use them to pretty good value. I've been getting decent value out of Marriott points the last couple of years, pretty consistently, a penny or more per point. So, you know, I'll look for those opportunities. I'll plan to use my Marriott points well. I'd pick up the six X only because there's no other Marriott spending I'm doing day to day. Right. Um, you disagree. Yeah, no, no, I don't, I actually, I actually agree. Cause if you frame the question that way, the suppose it sounds like you don't have a SEPAR reserve, so you're not getting the 1.5 value. And so I'm going to assume also that because you're asking the question to us, you're not into transferring points to Hyatt or other programs for high value awards. You can count on the Sapphire Preferred for getting 1.25 cents per point value for travel. Whereas I find with Marriott, you can pretty much count on every two points because it's giving you double what the Sapphire is.

So every two points for giving you 1.4 cents per point value. I mean, it'd be better or worse, but that's like the average. So yeah, it's slightly better in that example. Now, if it was Sapphire Reserve 5X or Marriott 6X, it's no contest to go with the Sapphire Reserve. Right. But the other thing that I would tell you is, does it really have to be an either or?

If you're into manufactured spending at all, or even if you're like just a little bit interested in manufactured spending, obviously you're not manufactured spending at all, or even if you're like just a little bit interested in manufactured spending, obviously you're not going to be going out there to manufacture spend right now and take extra trips to the store. But if you're going to buy groceries anyway, then when you go buy your groceries,

if you pick up a single $500 Visa gift card and then bring it over to the customer service desk and buy a money order with it, then, you know what I mean? It'd be pretty easy to max that out on both cards. Three of those 500 cards hits your cap on on one so right right i i bet though that most of our audience does not manufacture spend i'm gonna bet you that that may be you may be maybe right but at at the number of

points you can earn pretty quickly and easily it might be worth thinking about not right now though well not right now it's really hard to liquidate gift cards uh right now what about do you think it's worth uh steven had written in in our post called um instant gift card deals he redid that post and he wrote about how giant i think it's Giant, sells gift cards online and purchases Coda's Grocery because it's sold directly from them. It doesn't go over to giftcards.com or whatever the way Kroger does. Do you think it's worth now with all these bonuses buying third-party gift cards?

It might be, although I would tell you to look for opportunities to do that at your grocery store. Again, unless you're getting groceries delivered, if you're getting them delivered, well, then yeah, you might look at doing that. But if you're actually physically going to the grocery store to buy food, you may as well look at your local grocery store

because they probably have a fuel point program where you can probably mitigate the fees on activation fees if you're buying Visa gift cards. Obviously, Giant Eagle's not doing that online. If you're gonna you're buying visa gift cards obviously giant eagle's not doing that online if you're going to buy third-party gift cards same thing like right now through the 12th kroger's got 4x fuel points on third-party gift cards so if you're going to buy those third-party gift cards and you have a kroger nearby you don't want to mess with giant eagle online you want to go to kroger and get them with the 4x fuel points and uh and yeah i think it is

worth buying some gift cards for things that you know, places where you know, you'll spend the money. I mean, be careful about buying those gift cards, because I often feel like I get stuck with partial gift cards, or I have a gift card forever. So, you know, I don't go willy nilly on that kind of thing. But when it's something that I know, I'm definitely going to easily use, you know, like I stopped at Starbucks all the time, and I can load those gift cards onto my phone. So I don't have to worry about carrying gift cards around. I'll grab some Starbucks gift card. I say all the time, when can load those gift cards onto my phone so I don't have to worry about carrying the gift cards around I'll grab some Starbucks gift card I say all the time when I'm out and about and on the road I do I don't have a Starbucks yeah it reminds me I once wrote a post uh gift cards that don't suck yeah and the the idea was was exactly that that I can't stand

having gift cards where you have to use them you know you get them in like $25 or $50 increments and you got to use each one separately but the ones where you could just load them to your account like Starbucks, um, and you know, Amazon target, Amazon target. Yep. And just use them when you're shopping without having to think about it. Cause they're just in your account. Those are great. And so those are the ones exactly that if I know I'm going to keep shopping at those places, um, targets a great example. I buy their gift cards, uh, when there's a deal on them. Uh, whereas some, a lot of other things that I shop at occasionally, if they don't have that ability, I'm just not going to do it. Cause it's not worth to me. Like it sounds great when, when the

headline is saved 20%, but when, what it means is you're really saving $10 off a $50 gift card or $5 off a $25, it's not really going to change your world other than aggravate it. Because you've got to remember to bring that gift card with you and if you buy something that's less than that full amount, then you've got to remember how much is left and bring it with you next time. It's just, yeah. I try to keep stuff like that in the car, but even then I still forget that I have it or happens all the time. So yeah, that's definitely something to think about. But like they sell Amazon gift cards,

I think at most grocery stores, don't they? Probably. I think they still have them. I don't know. So I mean like that'd be super easy for a lot of people too. Something like that, Amazon, maybe eBay, et cetera, where you can just load them on there and forget about it. And if you've got the money to be able to float that at all, then,

you know, it certainly may be worthwhile. A lot of people that have a chasing cash card already do that kind of thing with five X at office supply stores. But if you're someone who doesn't have a business card, you don't have the chasing Inc cash and or you're already capping that out, however it is you do that, well, then this is a good opportunity to pick up some extra points at the grocery store. Yeah, or you don't have a Staples or Office Depot nearby. Right.

Or they're always out of Amazon gift cards like the one near me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's lots of reasons that it might make sense. But what perplexed me about this all from Chase is that all they're going to do is add grocery to every single card? Because I mean, like then I got to ask those questions.

Like, do I use the Sapphire Preferred or the Marriott card? Like, why make me ask that question? Why not give me an opportunity to use a card in some other way? I was kind of surprised that they just tossed grocery on like everything, just throwing it at the wall, hoping that, okay, one of these

you're going to have in your wallet. wallet you're gonna bring that to the grocery store i hope and now with them bonusing and everybody else bonusing grocery all over the place like yeah i'm kind of perplexed there were you surprised that they didn't do anything else do you think that they're going to do anything more in order to catch up because we're going to talk about amex in a minute and chase definitely seems like they dropped the ball comparatively, right? Right, right. Yeah, I think they're going to react. I think they're going to have to react

to what Amex has done because you're right. What Chase has done compared to what Amex did is, you know, it's better than, it's much better than nothing. Right. But it, you know, it doesn't really address some of the issues like how much the sapphire reserve costs and the fact that most of its benefits are travel related and we can't use those benefits now that's the exact situation that amex um set out to address

and i think in some cases, they totally nailed it. They did. And I feel like Chase definitely did miss an opportunity there. They must not have anticipated what Amex was going to do. Because if they did, I think they would have made an effort to be more competitive. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't. Now, on the flip side, cards like the Sapphire Reserve, the travel card is so easy to use that maybe they figured they didn't really need to make it any

easier. You can already use it on tolls and parking and lots of things that might not really be travel related per se, or may not feel as travel related, not only on flights and hotels, in other words. So maybe they felt like they didn't have to do a ton there. But I think that they could have done a little bit better, added something more. So why don felt like they didn't have to do a ton there, but I think that they could have done a little bit better, added something more. So why don't we talk about what Amex did so we can kind of compare the two, right? Let's get into it. So Amex, my goodness, they just like blew the thing open. I mean, and they just made it rain. I was surprised at how many enhancements they have. So why don't we run down card by card a few of the enhancements, right?

Sure. And let me start by saying most of the really good ones are for what I call ultra premium cards. Those are the cards that cost $450 or more. Although Hilton surpass cardholders got something nice too. So we'll get to that in a minute. But at the very top end, you have the platinum card. So you have, there's, there's various versions of the consumer platinum card. They all got the same, uh, added benefits and then there's

the business platinum. So consumer platinum, what do we get there? I'm doing it totally from my memory now. Um, so there, I think we got,20 a month towards streaming services. Or wireless services. Well, that's plus $20 a month towards wireless cell phone services. So those are two separate credit bits. I don't think they are, actually, because it's up to $320. $20 a month times 12 months would be... No, it's May through December.

That's what I mean. So May through December. June, July, August, September. Okay, all right. So there you go. So I thought it was all one. Yeah, no, no. Unless I wrote it totally wrong.

This is how I wrote it up this morning. It's $160, I think, per type of credit. And so there's $20 towards your cell phone service and $20 a month towards your streaming service or services. So what's so cool about this is almost everybody pays for these things. Of course. Especially now. Everybody. But, you know, I mean, Netflix is crazy popular and Hulu.

And so HBO, I mean, all those things are things that if you put on your platinum card, they're going to automatically rebate $20 a month through December. Awesome. Cell phone. The only gripe I have there is I don't think Google Fi will work. But still, my wife still has AT&T, so we'll pay the AT&T bill. $20 a month automatic. Boom.

Yes. That's an incredible rebate. It surely is. And if you have Google Fi, like you said, it may not work for Google Fi, but for anybody else, you probably have a wireless phone bill that's more than $20 a month. I mean, that's just straight up money back in your pocket, right? And even if you don't maybe have a friend or family member or somebody to be willing to let you pay towards it, because mean at 20 bucks a month that is just

cash in the bank right I mean that's yeah yeah no I mean that's that's fantastic and and this is in addition to the uh perks that you already have you you still get the uh sax fifty dollars every six months credit and uh the airline fee incidental credit, the $250, $200 a year for that. Am I missing one for consumer? I think that might be it. Oh no.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm missing one. Oh, Uber. So Uber, they're now,

they're now publicly advertising the fact, which we've known all along that you could use those credits for Uber eats. So you could get food delivery, get $15 a month and more in December back automatically. So that those are actually a lot of rebates that this year anyway, I think it is a no brainer to keep the card. Yeah. I mean, you know, when you, when you look at it now, the cell phone thing, somebody mentioned they asked, well, the problem might be that if you have a credit card that offers cell phone

insurance and you partially pay the bill with your platinum card now, even if you're only partially paying it, the $20 a month. So on your platinum, if you're able to split it and pay 20 on your platinum and pay the rest on some other credit card that earns more rewards on the cell phone bill, you know, they asked, well, am I going to lose the cell phone insurance? And we're not really sure. I think probably you will. I imagine that they want you to have paid the full bill in order to get the cell phone insurance, but look at it this way. This is $160 back in your pocket. So unless you're pretty confident that you're going to break your phone, I don't know. Would you pay $160 for insurance this year? I sure wouldn't, you know? And you know what?

I bet you that you could get insurance from your carrier for $10 a month or less. And so if you add that onto your bill, you're still coming out ahead. So do that until, you know, I mean, that would be a shame that you're losing half the benefit. Or yeah, you must be able to buy insurance for your phone for less than $20 a month. So find some other way to insure your phone because you know, that's,

that's a really expensive way to insure it. Then if you're going to keep using your business preferred at a cost to you of $20 a month extra, I mean, that seems, that seems like a poor decision. So definitely I would be putting the bill on that card or at least $20 worth of it on the business platinum. And yeah, so the airline credits, obviously a little bit more difficult to use this year that we've talked about plenty of ways to try to use those airline credits, certainly more difficult than they have been in years past, but not necessarily impossible to use those and get at least some of your money's value out of that. So, but definitely, you know, you know, for, for yes, there's a small chance of clawback, but for people who, you know, I think right now it's actually easier than usual because you should be able to buy airfare.

And even if that doesn't qualify for the airline, like buy a seat assignment or whatever that does. And then you can cancel it for free and get credit. There's various ways you get credit, but in some cases you could just get for free and get credit. There's various ways you can get credit, but in some cases you could just get it back to the airline. So that's as good as the old way of buying gift cards. It's just now on your account instead of a separate gift card. Right, right. And in many cases, those credits,

you have to check with the particular airline programs. But in some cases, anyway, those credits might be valid now for two years. So a decent amount of time that if you're going to travel at some point in the future, you're right. It probably is an easier time to use those airline credits in many ways. So, I mean, if you're going to get any value out of the airline credit, and then the Saks Fifth Ave credit and the Uber credit and this, I mean,

that's just, it's a lot of money all of a sudden. 320 is like 320. That's pretty easy to use. all right so so real quick has has the platinum card think of like one of those stock buying shows like is it a buy i mean i think so i don't already have one do you pick one up you know that's somebody asked that question that precisely that question and i was gonna hang on to that for later on but i think okay well well, but I think, I think it's worth talking about because it's probably on people's minds that are listening right now. Do I think it's worth it? Yeah, I do. I think it's worth thinking about getting it. And I think that the personal one and the business one, that's where the line might be tough in terms of which one to pick up because we got to talk about what's

happening in the business side. I am super pumped. Let's get after that one now. All right. The business side, I'm excited because I was planning to cancel and just didn't do it in time. And so then I was planning to downgrade because I didn't cancel in time. And I didn't do that either. So yeah, so I still got a business platinum in the household. And I'm like, well, yes, that's why I kept the business platinum. So business platinum is also getting that same $20 wireless services credit per month, May to December. So that's 160 bucks, same as the personal one. And then also they're getting $20 in shipping credit each month from May through December. Now you might think I don't ship a lot of stuff. I don't necessarily need that, but Greg did a good job. He had a great idea, right? How could we, how could you, I think you could just order $20 a month in stamps

from the post office, help support the post office. And you've got your forever stamps forever. Right. I, I, that was a great idea. And even if it didn't work at the post office, which I bet it does.

Oh, it will. I'm sure it will. I think you could order them online too. I don't, I don't think you even need to go to the house. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Brilliant. Great idea. So yeah, thank you to do that, but that's not all. That's not all. That's not all. So again, mine too yeah i don't think you even need to go to the house yeah yeah yeah brilliant great idea so yeah thank you to do that but that's not all that's not all that's not all so again that's 320 dollars to chain cash in the bank more or less because you'll eventually use the stamps someday it might take you a while maybe um and and uh and then of course you got your 20 a month in wireless cell phones so 320 that's pretty close to cash value anyway. And then what else did they add? And then they're doubling the Dell credits. So you already got $100 for the first six months

of the year and $100 for the second half of the year. Now you're going to get, you have $200 credit in the first half of the year and $200 credit in the second half. So if you haven't already spent your hundred dollars credit for January through end of June, uh, you can now buy something that's $200 and get, get it fully rebated from Dell. Um, or if you're in my situation,

you already used it, then you've got a hundred dollar credit between now and then. And then starting in, um, July, July 1st, boom, you've got $200 credit and and and let me add a quick idea and no you know what before I add that let me ask you Greg so what are you what is that worth I mean I know there are probably some people listening that don't

regularly shop at Dell and they're like yeah I don't see anything at Dell what are some things that come to mind as decent uses of that adult anything um i mean honestly i've struggled too uh you know you um i ended up like last year i had i had a lot of credits because at the time so i had a card that uh we were going to cancel which i did and then my son had two card two business platinum cards for a brief period of time. Uh, cause they had that special deal anyway. Um, so I had a lot of credits to spend and I ended up buying lots of, um, uh, like Christmas gifts. So they, they have things like Amazon echo dots and other like little, little things like that, that, yeah, exactly exactly that tend to be roughly the same price

as elsewhere now a lot of things like um wireless headphones unfortunately they their usual price for them is is higher like often a lot higher i found than amazon but when they're on sale that they they pretty much sort of match amazon or whatever but um so you try to look for those kind of things on sale and also for big portal payouts right now they're like portal payouts are abysmal so just like everybody else nobody's spending any money on advertising so portal rates are really poor right now but hopefully if things turn around at least for the second half of the year keep an eye on portals because sometimes portal rates go up to like 20% back on Dell. So, right. And so, I mean, that's like just more free money because, so we've got, you know, when you spend a hundred dollars and it's a 20% back cash back, you're getting,

you spend a hundred dollars, you're getting something worth a hundred or maybe not worth a hundred depending on what you're getting, but getting $120 back. Right? Yeah, exactly. So I mean, it's an easy, easy one. And then we also covered the fact that there are some Amex offers right now, my business platinum, one of my household, we've got 10% back up to $1,500 back through the end of this year through the end of August, I think. And then there was also an Amex offer through the end of this year for one extra membership reward point that we saw when today that we published today being Friday, actually May 1st. We published one for an extra four points per dollar at Dell through the end of July. So look for some of those Amex offers that you might also be able to stack theoretically. And then Dell also has other

stuff like software. If you're a Microsoft 365 user, you can buy a subscription. Now, sometimes around the holidays, those go on sale. So paying full price at Dell might not be the best deal ever, but at the same time, that is a potential use if you're an Office 365 user. And it's way better than just letting the credits expire. Exactly. Might as well get something worth $50 for free

rather than just not getting anything. And the other thing is, get on Slick Deals and set a deal for Dell because they do deals all the time with rebates. Like they'll do rebates or an additional Dell gift card on like TVs and computers and stuff where you buy it. And then you also get a Dell promotional gift card. So you might be able to parlay that into another thing in the future and getting started on your holiday shopping now might make sense. The other thing that I was going to mention at the beginning, and I'll mention now is if you know somebody else that

has a business platinum, let's say you have another person in your household or a friend or colleague or something that's got a business platinum, Dell lets you split tender online. So you can use two different cards online. So let's say Greg and I wanted to combine our forces. We each have a $200 credit. So we split tender on a purchase right now and use his card and my card, $200 each to buy a $400 item for Greg. And then we switch in June and we do the same thing for something that I want to buy. So if you want to buy something that's 400 bucks, you might be able to kind of combine forces that way.

Yeah, no, that's a great point. So altogether, we're talking about what, $320 from the first two things we talked about and another $200 of extra Dell credit above what we'd normally get. Right. Um, so, so we're talking about $520 in new credits, in new credits, new credits alone, right? And that's on top of what it already had. So let's add it all up together. So it's 320 in the phone and shipping, total of $400 in Dell credits. That's $720 in credits there. And then your $200 airline credit. So that's what? $920 in credits. What? Thank you. Thank you. Procrastination. I'll take it. But, but, but, but, you know, a lot of people don't have $400 worth of Dell stuff

that they want to buy. A lot of people don't have $160 worth of shipping they want to do. So maybe not as good for some. I would say in terms of Dell, you might, A, you might be able to get gifts. B, you might find something that you didn't realize they carried they've got all sorts of other stuff too a lot of electronics obviously so if you're

an electronics person not going to be your bag but i'm going to guess that if you've got the business platinum card you probably use a few electronics in your life so you may take a look smart watches and things like that they got lots of different things so and if you don't want it yourself then buy something buy a few cheap, toss them up on Facebook for sale. You might be able to get some of your money back that way by reselling. So, uh, yeah. So my opinion is, it's funny cause even though there's way more credits here, I don't think it's an, it's a sort of no brainer by, you know, that go out and get this card for everybody. I think that, uh, the personal platinum is now for everybody for i i think for more for more people i think because i think the credits

i think the uh uber food delivery i think the credits are just more in line with what most people would use anyway so streaming service streaming services um uh cell phone and uh food delivery are all things that like people are just doing anyway and the food delivery makes sense because lots and lots and lots of people live somewhere served by uber but i mean i know that we do have other listeners that live in areas that aren't as populated like i do and there's no uber here so i don't use the uber credits i'm sure that there are a few listeners who don't just like there are probably a lot of listeners who do buy electronics so I would think I would think that a tv or a computer is something that most people you know would have a use for somewhere so I don't know I think I I think I feel like I would go business I think but

I see what I see your argument but but distributing is definitely a nice thing. It's totally, of course, up to the listener to see where they fit in that equation. But what I was going to say is if you are someone who is going to value the $400 in Dell credits and the shipping credits and stuff, then it's an incredible deal. I mean, I think it's absolutely a buy for you. Yeah. And in the future, when things open back up and there's less of a risk in going out and going places, the other thing to think about is like FedEx office stores. I haven't paid a lot of attention to what else they sell in there, but they do seem to sell, at least they have some racks of different items. So you might be able to pick up some school supplies or that sort of thing and use up some

of your credit that way if you're looking at trying to find a way to use the shipping credit other than buying postage stamps. So you may be able to look outside the box a little bit there. So all right. So we got the business platinum, got all of those things, the personal platinum. You think the personal platinum is the buy. I think the business platinum is the buy. Either way, I think a platinum card is certainly worth considering at 550 a year, right? And had you asked me last week, last night, had you asked me last night, that's right. I would have been like, no. I would have said, what are you smoking? Like, you know, the platinum cards should make sense, but they just don't right now.

And yeah, Amex just, woo, they definitely changed things up. They sure did. They sure did. So the platinum cards are super relevant to many, most people now, thanks to all those rebates. Hilton added, Hilton sent out emails to their surpass and, and aspire customers.

And that email among other things said, you know, that free weekend night thing that, that you're going to be getting or you can earn with $15,000 spend on the Surpass card? And you know that night that Greg has complained about in the past and it's been his excuse for not getting the card because it's got to be used on a weekend

and that's going to be me taking a weekend trip. So that free night, go ahead, what about it? That free night now can be used anytime, not just on weekends. Any free night that you get between, if I'm remembering right, May 1st and December 31st of 2020 will be valid any day of the week. And a really nice thing, the other thing I didn't like about those certs was that they expire after a year and have no way of renewing them the way like Marriott will let you renew them. But these are now good for two years, two years from the date of issue. Wouldn't you know it? My wife got one

issued today, May 1st. So that's perfect. It's perfect. Yeah. Because it's going to be valid for two years. And it can be used any night of the week. So I was like, hallelujah, great timing. That was perfect. So already she had one that was going to expire just this week. And of course, Hilton had previously announced that those free night certificates that were set to expire during the current time period here or being issued newly between now and August 31st were going to be extended until August 31st of 2021 already. So she was already looking at the ability to use two of them together next year.

And now potentially we'll be able to use three of them together when a new one gets issued next year too. Yeah. So that's great news. Wait, how long is the one that got extended that already was issued? The one that was about to expire. So that's through August 31st of 2021. Okay, I see.

So you'll get the next one. Next one, next May 1st. Got it. Yeah, so three of them all together from one card that'll all be valid at the same time. And now at least this one will be valid any day of the week. So, and I'm not sure if that, you said it this way a second ago,

but I'm not sure whether the ones that are existing, you said that they, that it would only affect the new ones. I think the two year expiration only affects the new ones. How about the any night of the week? Is that only for the new ones? I read it as any, any new, I think it's, I think it's new. I don't know. Read our post. Hopefully, hopefully I have the word incorrect in there. So that's exciting. So that's great.

That is exciting. That makes those much more valuable because you can use at least the new ones anyway any night of the week. And if you were to sign up new for an Aspire card, remember, you get that free weekend night the first year. So if you were to sign up new for an Aspire card anytime through the end of the year here, well, I shouldn't say that. It takes a long time for them to issue the free weekend night. So if you were to sign up for that anytime between now and say, I don't know, maybe October-ish, then you'll get a night issued this year that will be valid any night of the week and for two years. So that certainly is a nice value add that is now going to create a situation of no excuses for Greg not having an Aspire card.

His excuse is going to be he doesn't have a credit card slot for it, but man, you got to think about it now. Because not only that, they added something else, right? They added- They sure did. So another big one for the Aspire card is that the $250 resort credit now can be earned at restaurants, including delivery and takeout food. There's no excuse for anyone not to earn that $250. That's basically, again, $250.

That's going to be June through August, I think. Oh, that's true. That's true. That's pretty limited. For me personally, that wouldn't be be $250, I think. Oh, that's true. That's true. So that's pretty limited. For me personally, that wouldn't be an issue for me. It mainly means taking my prestige, you know, moving my prestige down a slot though, for a little while. Well, but you'll probably because that's June through August, you probably will have spent the prestige credit between now and the end of the month here.

Oh my God. I mean, I think I already did, but. So yeah. So, so that's easy breezy. Anybody who ever, you know, questioned how difficult it was to use the resort credit Darlene, if you're listening, Darlene asked just the other day when we did our frequent miler live about how to use that $250 Amex resort credit. Boom. There's your answer. Restaurants June to August August so easy breezy to use that the $250 airline credit on that card is still the same as it was before and like Greg said

there are probably ways to get reasonable value out of that right now so I mean man that's great and then on top of that they're adding 12x on grocery stores through the end of the end of the year right isn't it 14x 14x perhaps yeah, let me double check. I think it's 14. I think you're right. Anyway, yeah, so 14X, I think, with groceries, is that uncapped? That one's uncapped. They did not mention any caps,

so I take that to mean that it's uncapped because they did specify cap on the Bonvoy cards, so I take it to mean that it is, yeah, uncapped. And I think that 14X also applies or 12X or 14X also applies to the Hilton Surpass card, which is interesting because the Surpass, that's the $95 card. It is 12X. It is 12X. Oh, 12X. I'm sorry. I was totally wrong. Anyway, 12X is still good. It is. But the Surpass card is the cheaper the cheaper card and that one so if you have that one you know you can spend fifteen thousand dollars in calendar year to get uh one of those free nights

and now it's that enhanced free night if you get that certificate this year so if you can spend fifteen thousand dollars in grocery stores you're getting also incredible number of points yeah you're doing that so it's a huge win. I mean, a lot of free nights out of that whole deal. It sure is. I mean, at 12X, if you were to spend the whole 15 grand at 12X at grocery stores, then you're looking at, what, 180,000 points and a free weekend night that can be used any night of the week. And by the way, I wanted to also correct that we said before we were kind of going back and forth. What we have anyway is that all unexpired and new free weekend night awards issued through December 31st can be used any night of the week. So that means even the ones that you had previously that are not expired yet.

So even my wife's previous one can be used any day of the week. So we'll have at least two from her there that could be used any night of the week. And then she'll get a new one that'll be a weekend night next May. So that's three on one, one Aspire card there. So pretty good deal if you had one that was expiring in that in the window, which a lot of people probably do because they had opened up the card when it was a new card last year. So anyway, that's good news. And yeah, 12x at grocery stores is not bad. Now, how does that compare to 5X Ultimate Rewards points? Yeah. How does that compare?

Good question. Well, you can buy Hilton points very frequently at half cent each. So let's call that 6% back. So that's very strong. It is. It doesn't quite compare. I guess i'd still prefer 5x ultimate awards but i think i'd prefer 12x over 3x ultimate awards which is what you'd get with any card other than the sapphire reserve right and i would certainly prefer if again if you had to surpass

i'd certainly prefer also getting a free night with that spend. Of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's a great deal. And also they announced that all Hilton points earned on those Hilton credit cards between May 1st and December 31st will be considered base points and will count towards elite tier qualification and lifetime status with Hilton. So if that's something you've been working on, then that 12X at the grocery store also counts towards that that's a nice yeah that would be kind of like I don't see why anyone would work towards that with Hilton because it's so easy to get you know top tier elite status but I mean if you've if you've been traveling for business for years and years and you've had the status and you're relatively close I mean then then why yeah it certainly doesn't hurt right yeah right you don't necessarily have to

have a credit card then in order to keep the status. I think I also need to mention the Aspire, the more expensive card has also, if you spend $60,000 on a calendar year, you get another free night as well. So again, you could do the math, but how many if you spent $60,000 in grocery stores?

A lot, a lot. You get a lot of points. 720,000 points. That? A lot, a lot. You could have a lot of points. 720,000 points. That's a lot of money you spend in the grocery store. Then you'd be like, well, what do I need this free night certificate for when I've got so many points? Right, right. I don't think it's worth spending for the free night certificate on the Aspire.

Probably not. Unless you don't want to have the Surpass also, if you're in a situation where you can only have so many slots. Well, what if, I mean, if you're in a situation where you can only have so many slots well what if i mean if you were into manufacturing spend and you knew you were going to spend a lot of time in hilton properties with your points and with your free night certificates i could see it being worthwhile but i mean i think you have to have a specific goal why wouldn't you just do it on on a surpass card though is what i'm saying because oh oh i see what you're saying yeah unless you don't want to have both cards then then the surpass card is the one that makes sense to spend the money on.

If you're only going to have one, then yeah, okay, I guess go ahead and spend the 60 grand on the Aspire. It's a good return at 6%, like Greg said, at the grocery store. That's good. That's competitive. That makes it such that even if you also have a gold card, that's a debate. Do you spend the money on the gold card or on

the aspire i don't know what do you think between those two cards and you also got between forex amex membership rewards which you get with a gold card um or 12x 12x hilton so um i would well so so there i think it would depend on, on what your balances like. So, you know, I think they're close enough that if you, uh, want to work on your membership rewards balance, then go with the gold card. If you want to work on your Hilton balance, um, go with Hilton. I off the top of my head. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Okay. I agree. All right. So Amex Hilton cards, definitely some good stuff going on there. They also added some stuff to the Amex green card. Tell us what they did with the green card.

They did. So they, they threw us half a bone. So, so they took that same cell phone credit that what, what on the platinum card, you're getting $20 a month for cell phone service. They said, well, you're not paying as much for the green card, so we're going to give you $10 a month. So you're getting a total of $80 if you spend, you know, if you use those credits every single month through December. So that's pretty good. I mean, it's what, $150 cards, so getting $80 back there. The other very valuable benefit that card offers is a clear membership, which it's not clear right now that anyone's going to value that membership. It sure isn't. It sure isn't. And they have $100 lounge buddy credit too, and same kind of a thing. So yeah, you're right. That's unfortunate. But the 3X travel and transit, 3X dining on that card,

if you aren't going to have a gold card, well, I mean, you know, getting your 80 bucks back on money that you're spending anyway. I mean, obviously that $80 on wireless services, it's not a stretch or difficult for most people to use. So it's pretty much $80 in value for most people. So that drops your $150 annual fee to around a $70 net. Would you pay $70 net fee to get 3X travel and transit,

3X dining rather than getting a gold card? No, I wouldn't. Would you? Well, I might only because I don't, I say I might, I'm going to keep the gold card. I'm happy with the gold card. But the reason I might consider it is at least in my situation, I don't use the $10 monthly credit every month. I always estimate I'll use it five or six times a month. So because I don't use that

every month because I don't have any Grubhub where I live. And so I could use box.com, but that's not always convenient because they charge shipping if you don't hit a minimum order and all there's that blah, blah, blah. So I don't always use it. Probably five, five-ish times a year is what I say that I would organically use that credit. So then I don't know. I mean, maybe the green card, it makes sense. I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to switch to it.

But for some people, I mean, the people who are interested in the green card, maybe. So I think we're clearly not going to say this is a definite buy, right? No, definitely not. It's sort of along the lines of if you already have the card, you probably want to keep it because you're going to get some good value back this year. If you're thinking about getting it, this certainly would help encourage you to get it. Especially if you get a nice especially we get a nice targeted offer for it maybe i don't know if there's big offers out for it right now probably not i haven't

seen one a big one in a while but yeah i think the biggest we've seen though is 45k which is pretty good for a green card offer it is something like that then it would be be worth thinking about i think right right so it'd be worth thinking about to to uh uh you know increase your membership awards balance and then to get the 80 back and then cancel the card when the next year annual fee comes due i mean unless you see enough value in it or if clear becomes valuable again and it might so yeah no it absolutely might but we just don't know we just don't know yeah so okay so that's a green card then Then the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant. This is the expensive fancy pants Marriott card from Amex.

So this is the $450 annual fee. Amex Marriott. That's right. Yep. Yep. And so what did they do with that? That has a $300 annual Marriott credit. Right.

So that one is usually easier to use than Hilton's because you don't have to be at a resort. You can just use it at any Marriott. And whether you use it for room charges or anything else, it does. Well, just like the Hilton one, it does rebate that spend. But exactly like the Hilton Aspire, what they said is that $300 credit can be earned at restaurants now. So that's great. My wife has a Bonvoy brilliant card and I'm going to use it on dining until we use up that credit. Cause I haven't,

I haven't used it yet. So, so wait, you've got the prestige $250. You've got the, this one, the brilliant to use. You got all of those Uber Eats credits to use on your platinum cards so i mean i dinner at your place i guess huh with uh something about this whole thing we i think we've been ordering out more than usual so like by the end of next week, I'd probably have used up all of those. I'm not too worried about it. Well, you know, my wife has been itching to order out and we haven't been doing it.

We live in a really small town, so we don't have very many ordering out options anyway. There's like two places we could probably order out from locally anyway. So we don't have very many options for it. We're not going out anywhere. So we haven't been doing it. We haven't eaten something that we didn't prepare here in like you know two months now it almost seems in fact it's probably about accurate almost so uh so we're like really itching for it and she was already this morning saying you know i think when you go to record fm on the air today i might take a ride and go get some takeout oh nice and i said oh well maybe, of course, this all hit, right? So which card is she going to use?

Well, you know, I should remind her. I told her about the Aspire card, but I should have reminded her. I hope she's got it in her wallet. Find out when we're done, I guess. Right. We have not used the resort credit yet. So it just renewed. So that'll be good.

So anyway, brilliant now, $300. Easy breezy to use. Again, that's, that'll be good. So anyway, the brilliant now $300 easy breezy to use again, that's June through August of 2020. So you'll have to, you know, eat at restaurants between June and August. So in the summertime, if and when everything kind of, you know, lightens up, and you're able to go out and or if you're ordering takeout, like many people are, that should be super simple to use. Right, right. So, so unlike, unlike the Hilton one, I don't see this one as really greatly increasing the desirability of this card. What this does is it just makes that $300 credit much easier to get, especially now when we're not traveling. So that's a great thing for current cardholders. I wouldn't rush out and pick one up because of this change. You know, no, I wouldn't rush out and pick one up.

But I think the thing of it is, so I would have looked at that before and said, okay, it's relatively easy to use that $300 and get a gift card. So I would have thought, okay, well, I'm eventually going to stay at a Marriott property. So that's why I would do it. Right now, I wouldn't run out and get the Brilliant card for that, though, because I'm like, I don't know when I'm going to stay at a Marriott for sure. So I, that wouldn't like the gift card route would not be a,

a decent backup. But on the other hand, if I was kind of interested in the brilliant, now I look at it and say, well, I'm definitely going to spend $300 in restaurants in that window. So, so it,

I think it, it, it does make it particularly appealing, especially for somebody who's like, I think I'm going to stay at Marriott's, but I don't know. You know, you'll definitely be able to use it. But of course, if you're in that boat, maybe you shouldn't be looking at a hotel credit card. Well, that's the thing.

Exactly. Exactly. So, okay. So it's not a rush out and buy on that one either. But it's a very nice change. It's nice. It's nice. So, okay.

And we talked about the, oh, I'm sorry. And I mentioned before that the cap is different on groceries. So remember all of those Marriott Bonvoy cards, except the Amex business card are getting six X at us supermarkets. Now. In fact, I don't think it's only us on the chase cards, but on the Amex side, of course it's us supermarkets, six X, and the cap on the Amex Marriott Bonvoy cards is $7,500 between May and July. So remember that the supermarkets and the restaurants spend overlap some,

but they're not the same calendars. So the supermarket calendar is made to the end of July on the Bonvoy cards, including the MX Bonvoy cards. So like that brilliant, for instance, learn six X on groceries up to $7,500 cumulatively may through the end of July. Right. And pay a lot of attention to the dates when these things go. So we were just talking about how these restaurant charges apply to the $300 Bonvoy Brilliant credit and the $250 Hilton credit. Those don't start till June 1st,

if I remember right. Right. Which is so weird that everything else starts in May and those start in June. So just make sure you're paying attention to that. And so double and triple check on those things. So now if your wife took the card out for that reason, too bad. Right. Too bad. That's right. Oh my goodness. That's right. See, I would have let her astray. See how easy it is to make that mistake there you go so yeah so that's that's the one thing i didn't like is that i it was very confusing that the list of like different date situations and uh and then how some things have limits some things don't and what we're gonna have to do at frequent miler is create a post that lays it out very easy here are the things

that are valid in may and you know run it down and Here are the things that are valid in May and, you know, run it down and here are the things that are valid in June. So that way you have that. Definitely. Right. Right. Okay. So that's good. So surpass, we already talked about 12 X there.

All there's that jazz. So surpass we're done. Delta cards. What'd they do to the Delta cards, Greg? Cause I don't even look at the Delta. I see Delta and I just like skip right past it, but I know that you're looking close. So what's going on?

Delta. They're offering four X on their consumer Delta cards at grocery stores, which to me is so lame. I mean, if you're spending on the card anyway, yeah, that's nice. But if you think about, especially the Delta Reserve, that this year they increased the annual fee to 550. And there's like none of the features that are usable right now.

Right. It has a lot of great perks, but. Sure. You can't use any of them. When you can fly. Yeah. Right. So.

I mean, it is an airline credit card. So. It is an airline. But, I mean, where's the the cell phone rebate? Where's you know, where's all the things that the platinum cards got? I guess Delta didn't want to put the bill on any of that. Maybe that's it. I don't know. That's it. I don't know. But but I think that Delta credit card holders got especially Delta Delta Reserve credit card holders got a bum deal.

Platinum ones who might have been, again, might have been spending towards elite status should be pretty happy about getting 4X at grocery stores. That's way better than the normal, depending on which card you got, had. They did introduce some category bonuses. Anyway, so yeah yeah delta was disappointing there's also you know people mentioned in the comments of my post that you know what about the mx gold card

what and and some others and and i think what what happened is they uh you know they they basically addressed mostly cards where where people weren't able to use the features of the benefits of the cards. And so those are the cards they targeted with these good things. So Amex Gold was already giving great bonus for grocery and already giving a great bonus for dining. So, you know, I think it's understandable

that they didn't need to do anything. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, there's definitely, there's nothing, there's no way that people are really getting shorted on that card in the sense that they didn't do anything about the airline fee credits on any of the cards. No, and that's kind of a shame. It'd be nice if they did something, but, you know,

if you're playing this game you got to learn how to use those credits so spend some time i agree i agree see you know i was going to reach back today a statement that i made during our live broadcast the other day because i said the other day during the live broadcast i said you know if you're not going to spend the time to learn how to use the points don't bother with the points and just get cash back and i said you know what that was poor advice because there's a lot of cards that offer really good welcome bonuses that are worth a lot that you cash out one way or another so that would be a poor strategy in terms of like leaving good value on the table so i'm going to retract that comment that i made today however

i'm going to track the comment that i i made in terms of ignore points and just go cash back you shouldn't probably ignore the points still but just just like I said, that if you are going to get the points cards, I do think you should invest the time in learning how to use the points. Same thing here. If you're going to get a card that has an airline credit, don't sit around complaining about how you can't use the airline credit. Invest some time in figuring out how to use it because it's usable. So that's that. So, okay. We talked about that okay we talked about that and uh and now so the delta cards get the 4x and then there's going to be some other like calm meditation something around there's some new way some app called calm or something that you get free with any mx consumer

card so everybody listening probably has some form of MX consumer card and download com and I don't know. I saw that and I was like, what? Okay, whatever. That's something that I apparently somebody thought sounded good in a marketing bullet. Okay, so I mean, really, overall here, these are some incredible. They are. I think we're sort of downplaying the whole thing by ending on the Delta note because that was their weakest entry into all of this.

But yeah, no, great job, Amex. You deserve some kudos for today's announcement. Definitely. Definitely, Delta cardholders didn't get anything great. Although we said that, and I will say though, that I think that for Delta people who are spending towards elite status anyway,

if you're still going to spend towards elite status this year, if you didn't already have it, well, I mean, great. Get Forex at the grocery store while you're doing it. And also they're rolling over MQMs, right? They are. So even if you already have elite status, it's automatically getting extended next year. It still can't hurt to earn MQMs this year.

They'll just roll over to next year. So, uh, anyway, yeah, then, and then it's not necessarily all doom and gloom. It's just, they didn't do much for you, but at least they enhanced that tiny little bit for you. Right. Right. You're going to earn a reasonable return on your grocery store spend. You're not giving up as much as you otherwise would have been. So that's, that's, that's correct. So there we go. All right. So Amex, you did well. Congratulations. We've definitely given you a hard time when you've deserved it. And, uh, and for once you deserve a little bit of praise. So nicely done there. Now that brings me to, what was the other one that, that we were going to talk about here? I was trying to pull it up here.

I think we were just going to wrap up with a message about our conversation last week. Oh, right. And then go into the reader question. That's what we need to. Yes. So, so last week something happened here. Greg made a statement. Yeah. We're talking about stay catered far away, which we discussed a little bit at the beginning. We told you you should go to YouTube and subscribe and all that, remember? So, if you're doing that and you're following along, you've been following along with this,

you heard last week where Greg made a claim about this week's video. Let's see if I can remember what I said. You're thinking. Greg's thinking very hard. He's thinking. He's trying to remember what he said it's gonna rock your world

you heard that right it's recorded right here what i like about this is that next week i can cue it up it's okay if it somehow doesn't have as many likes as greg is expecting i can cue it up right next to the thumbs and we'll get an idea as to whether that'll be fun for everybody's problem. Now you have one. All right. So that was our conversation last week. So this is kind of interesting because, well, it didn't get as many likes as I was expecting.

At least last I checked, I still, you had, with your cooking video last week, I think you had, I don't remember exactly, but close to 100. Yeah, just over 100. I think. Yeah. So last I checked, I think I was still under 90. Last I saw that was true, but I haven't looked at it again. You were behind, in other words. It's the layman's way of saying that. Right, right. But you interpreted what I said,

when I said I'll rock your world, you interpreted that as I'll get so many likes. There might be other ways of interpreting that. There could be. There could be other ways. And what do you think? Have you interpreted it some other way? Well, I mean, I have to first of all admit that the video did rock my world.

If you have not yet seen it. There you go. You haven't seen Greg's Necker Island video. I don't know what you've been doing this week that has been more fun than watching that video two or three times because you should get there and see that so anybody who has missed his video the return to necker island the improv travel I'm not sorry not improv travel see I mean I knew I was gonna get one of those wrong imitation travel video if you go check that out uh you should go check that out rather it will probably probably rock your world too. Thank you. Thank you. I spent so much time on that. And actually it was, it was a ton of fun putting it together.

It looked like a ton of fun. And you got a lot of help. I did. So my wife came up with great ideas. is my son actually he he had a full-on beard going into the last weekend and I showed him picture of Richard Branson when I was on Necker Island four years ago and I said how about making your beard look like this at first he was like no way no way he He was a trooper. He did it. And so he played Richard Branson for the video. And the Cats had a cameo playing lemurs. They did not like the acting business at all. They weren't the finest actors in the video. Let's put it that way. They aren't winning any awards. There's no daytime Emmys on that one, but not in the lemurs anyway. But yeah, so they played along. Your wife helped prep things for the video.

I mean, you had nice camera work. And she had the idea for how I could do the kite surfing, which was the most fun part of recording the whole, the whole thing. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, you have to go watch it. If you can't find it on our website, uh, just search for return to Necker Island on YouTube and you'll find it there.

There you go. And there you go. So give me a thumbs up if you like it. I mean, it's true. Greg deserves, Greg deserves some big thumbs up. I gotta say, I mean, it's true. Craig deserves some big thumbs up. I gotta say, I gotta admit it right here and right now.

That video deserved a lot of thumbs up. It deserves more than it's gotten so far. So if you're listening to this and you haven't watched it, you should. It's guaranteed to put a smile on your face. If that doesn't put a smile on your face, then you need to check out that call map from Amex and download that thing for a little while or something.

Right, yeah. So let us know if it didn't put a smile on your face after you watched the whole thing. I mean, not just the first 10 seconds because that's not going to give you. But yeah, let us know if for some reason it didn't put a smile on your face and then we'll have your comment on air next week.

All right. Well, speaking of having things on the air, that brings us, I think, to the question of the week, right? I think it does. Okay. So the question of the week we've touched on, except I don't think we've totally answered it. So I think it's a good one.

It came in actually just today. It was a reader who said, I thought maybe this would be a good reader question for you guys to cover in your weekly podcast. And I think it was Tim. So Tim asks, just today, there was a reader who said, I thought maybe this would be a good reader question for you guys to cover in your weekly podcast. And I think it was Tim. So Tim asks, he says, with all of the recent enhancements due to coronavirus to the Amex, Citi, and Chase cards,

and there's quite a few. There's the ones we talked about today. And there's also like, you know, the premier getting groceries and whatever else, lots of other stuff that's been going on. With all those enhancements, does it make sense to apply for any of them right now? I currently don't have the Citi Prestige or Amex Platinum personal or business cards.

These look potentially worthwhile to pursue with the added enhancements. So what I want to ask, I want to modify this question a little bit, because we did talk about whether or not the Amex Platinum cards are worth it. Which order would you put these in in terms of importance? So if you were going to apply for any of those cards, the Prest, personal platinum, business platinum, and let's toss the Aspire and Bonvoy Brilliant and Chase Sapphire Reserve all in there. So those are all the ultra premium $450, $450 a year cards. What would be like your order? Like which one would be the first one that you say, this is the one that really you ought to apply for. And then after

you've done that, what's like number two and would you go for three of those? Well, first, let me say, I think there are only three that I would say are in a situation where you should be hurrying to get them now. The three are, well, two are sort of no brainers for now, which are the two variants on the Platinum cards, the consumer and business. And the reason for now is because the $20 per month credit type of things start in May. And so if you wait, you're going to be losing out on some of those. And there's no guarantee any of those credits will resume next year. They might do something. They might on some of those and there's no guarantee that any of those credits will resume next year they might do something they might extend some of them i wouldn't be totally surprised to get extended but we have no idea yeah but we we just don't know so so that's why i'd say both of those if you have any interest in them they're both great deals so yeah, early May, this is a time to pick up.

If you can handle the spend requirements, pick up both. I mean, that's the problem is that there's the signup bonuses that require sometimes a lot of spend. So, but we have extra time for those, right? Right, exactly. Amex is adding an extra three months. If you're approved by May 31st, they're adding an extra three months. So you get six months to be able to meet the spend.

So that should help a lot. Now the Aspire, that one, what do you think? So as long as you get it by October or so, you should get the free night that you get upon signing up will be good for two years and for any day of the week, right? Right. It takes a solid eight weeks, maybe sometimes even 10 or 12. So yeah, I would say by October 1st, you want to have opened that. Right. So other than the fact that you'll lose the ability to get the resort credit through restaurants by waiting. I don't see a lot of downside to waiting on that one. Well, right. I don't think you need to rush out and get it today, but I would get it while you can use that resort credit on restaurants because that resort credit, while I think there are ways

to do it, the ways that I would kind of creatively use the resort credit do have some risk of getting clawed back, whereas spending at restaurants has no risk of getting clawed back whereas spending at restaurants has no risk of getting i say we're saying yeah and it's super easy to use so i would definitely get that during that window at least by that june to august depends on how much you spend at restaurants if you spend more than 250 a month at restaurants you could wait until august theoretically to pick that card up but i would definitely apply for that before august if you're going to but now okay so those, you're saying those are the only three that are no brainers, the prestige doesn't make a difference that those are? Yeah, because I don't think the other cards that you mentioned, have benefits that are worth getting now during

Coronavirus wacko world that we're in. Right. So they have travel benefits. You don't need those right now. So wait until, um, we need travel benefits to think about getting those cards. That's, that's my thought as far as which, uh, which order to get those three. Uh, I think I'd go back to that camera, you know, what I was saying earlier about the types of credits that the two platinum cards give you to, in order to decide which one would take preference. Um, all right, let's say you can only get one cause you, you don't think you can meet the spend on multiple cards. You can only get one of them, which, and, or you don't want to pay

three, four or $500 annual fees or two annual fees that are that high. Which one is number one, which one is the one that you think is the best deal? And then which one is like the second best? Second best, I think, like you said, it's going to come down to personal or business platinum as to which you like more. So you're asking me platinum versus Aspire? Platinum versus Aspire, I guess that's where we are, right? The Prestige, by the way, you know, you said that, well, I would look at the prestige and say the $250 travel credit is easier to use because you can use it at restaurants. However, with the $500 annual fee or $495, whatever it is on that card right now, the

other ancillary benefits like, you know, fourth night free that you have to book through thankyou.com and stuff, those things don't make it worth getting a prestige card. I don't think you're probably not spending much on flights right now. So I think the prestige card, I would agree, that's out.'s out. If you were already thinking about it because you're like, eh, I'm going to use enough of the other benefits, then okay, yeah, it makes it a little bit easier, but I don't think it's a run out and get the prestige. So yeah, it's really between the Aspire and Platinums. What do you think? I'm leaning towards Platinum. Okay. Why? And you're leaning towards putting personal platinum because you think that that one has the better benefits of the two.

So why personal platinum over the Aspire? Because the Aspire's benefits are still travel benefits that we don't know when you'll be able to really get value out of. Whereas the cash back rebates you're getting from the platinum card, you know, obviously is usable right away. So that's what I'm kind of leaning towards. But you could counter argue that the resort credit is just a rebate as well. And so is the airline fee credit on the Aspire. So, you know, but again, that, I don't know. They're very close. They're very close.

So I think it comes down to how much do you value that free night that's good for two years? Yeah, I mean, I think the free night that's good for two years, that's pretty valuable, especially if you like to stay at nice places. And then 12X at the grocery store on top of that, boy, I think the Aspire is pretty strong. Is that your pick over there? I think it is. I mean, I think that as somebody who does buy electronics anyway, I think that the business platinum is a lot of value. There's a lot of potential value there. So the business platinum is pretty compelling. The personal platinum is less lot of value. There's a lot of potential value there. So the business platinum

is pretty compelling. The personal platinum is less compelling to me because I won't use the Uber credits. And the SACS credit doesn't really matter to me because there's not a lot at SACS that you can even get for $50 or less. So the SACS credit isn't a huge draw to me. So the streaming and cell phone credits, 320 there, that is nice. and i do like a lot of the ancillary benefits of the platinum card so if and when we do get to travel again find hotels and resorts is nice and having national executive elite status and hilton gold it's automatic and blah blah blah and hilton gold is arguably good enough for hilton anyway that you don't necessarily need the diamond of the aspire so i i think there's i can understand why somebody would pick the

platinum i wouldn't tell them they were wrong for picking the Platinum, but I think if you're asking me, I think the Aspire is the hands down winner here because that $250 credit at restaurants is cash value to me. I'm definitely going to spend that. So your wife has an Aspire card. Yes. So are you going to turn around and sign up for an Aspire card? Oh aspire card too yeah oh you have one also yeah okay yeah so so the 250 though um cash right 250 cash then because restaurants to me the 250 air credit let's say we only value that at i don't know 150 which i think is probably low but let's say we value 150 so we're talking 400 in more or less cash value to me anyway and then you get the free night too for 450 bucks and 12x at the grocery store that's it's very good aspire aspire be my pick they're they're both great they're both good and and now which card i'm going to tag one question

on to this which card is the card you're bringing to the grocery store the next time you go shopping, Greg? I think the Sapphire Reserve for 5X. For 5X. Yeah. Okay, good. How about you? You know, that's a good question. I didn't think about my answer before I asked you.

I think actually in my case, it'll be the Aspire because our Hilton balances are really low. We used a lot of Hilton points last year and used them up. so yeah i guess we'll get the 12x that's gonna be it yeah i i'm gonna intend to get the 5x out of the sapphire reserve too but yeah i think i get the 12x for a little bit anyway yeah okay so that's good there we go so hopefully tim that helps you out a little bit forget about the prestige card i don't think it's worth picking up one of the chase cards for the grocery store bonus. So Aspire Platinum, up to you. You can go either way. Thank you very much.

It was great having you guys here. That brings us to the goodbye song. So if you've been listening in on a podcast platform and or if you're watching here on YouTube for the first time and you want to find out more about what we've been talking about, you can go to thefrequentmiler.com slash subscribe. Again, that's thefrequentmiler.com slash subscribe up there. So I'm saying up there because if you're watching on YouTube, you'll hopefully have seen the link right above my head.

Check out how you can get on our email list, join our Facebook group, follow us on Twitter, all that fun stuff. So that's all there. Thank you very much, Greg. Great having you here. Look forward to seeing you again next week. Thank you, Nick. It's fun as always bye everybody bye bye