Frequent Miler on the Air - The revised Platinum card coming soon (like it or not) | Ep94 | 4-17-21

Episode Date: April 17, 2021

00:52 Giant Mailbag: A reader tips us off to a great new Cat 4 Marriott in the US 3:31 What crazy thing....did Southwest do this week? https://frequentmiler.com/southwest-rapid-rewards-points-devalued-but-still-good-value-to-be-had/ 8:31 Mattress Running the Numbers: Is the Intercontinental Ambassador offer worth it this time with additional stacking opportunities? https://frequentmiler.com/ihg-buy-renew-ambassador-membership-then-stay-once-get-40k-free-night-certificate-cert-expires-4-30-21/ 18:10 Main Event: Revised Platinum card coming soon (like it or not) https://frequentmiler.com/the-revised-platinum-card-details-and-review/ 52:00 Question of the Week: Is the United Quest card better than the Chase Sapphire Preferred? Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a comment! Join our email list at: https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ Music credit: Annie Yoder

frequent miler on the air starts now today's main event the revised platinum card coming soon like it or not like it or not no choice there i bet everybody's eagerly waiting to pay the new 695 annual fee. I mean, it comes with so many more credits left to talk about it. It does. I'm going to, I'm going to play,

uh, I was going to say devil's advocate, but angels advocate and say that it's, uh, that, that it's a, it's a great thing. We'll,

we'll see. We'll see how far I get. Okay. We'll see. I get that. We'll see. I wish you there's, there's, there's actually, no, I think, I think I can make a pretty strong argument. We'll see how far I get. Okay, we'll see. I wish you luck. I think I can make a pretty strong argument. We'll see. All right.

Let's dig into the giant mailbag. All right. What are people saying this week? Where does it come from? This comes from Mike via email. Hi, Mike. Mike just wanted to thank you, and I think that's a plural you, like us. I'll take it.

For the great work you do. I had an expiring Category 4 seven-night Marriott travel package from the Starwood days and was ready to just let it expire rather than using it at one of the limited and uninspiring courtyard options. Then I remembered something I read in your blog a couple of years back and searched Marriott's database for category fours that were recently opened and sorted by rating. I came across the current, the current hotel. So that's not to say that it's a current hotel, but it's called current hotel. The current hotel in Tampa. It's an autograph collection. And he says, I checked

the review and I had a number of new hotel type complaints. So it's very, very common when hotels first open, all kinds of complaints. But anyway, he said it looked more like a category seven. I just completed a stay and it was fabulous. Possibly the best value I've received in the 20 or so years in the game. Wow. That's a bold statement. Wow. Well, very good. I mean, I'm glad. I'm glad that you got great value out of it. And that was a smart play to take a look and see what's open because Marriott's footprint is so big. Nobody's going to be able to keep on top of all of the new properties all the time. I mean, that was how I stumbled on that property in Phu Quoc a few years ago in Vietnam. I'd never even heard of Phu Quoc. I had no idea where it was or what it was, but it looked kind of cool when I

looked at the pay. It was new. It just opened a couple of weeks before I arrived even. I don't even know if it was open when I booked it yet. So brand new place. And I said, Oh, well, let me try it out. It looks really cool. And it was so in this case, sounds like similar thing for Mike. And that's great. That's terrific. I took a look, actually, I did see this email, and I took a look at pictures. And it does look quite nice for a category four in the United States. It looks very nice. I would agree that it seems like a good use of those types of certificates. It sure does. So it's right on the bay and just looks gorgeous. So great find. And thanks for letting us know, Mike.

Yeah, absolutely. It is. I appreciate you letting us know, not only just because it's cool to hear from readers, but also because, hey, I might go to Tampa at some point. I've never been to Tampa and I'm looking more at domestic destinations probably in the next year or two, three. So great to know there's another place I can use some of my free night certificates. So thank you for that, Mike.

There you go. All right. So what crazy thing did Southwest do? What Southwest got crazy? Southwest got crazy in a bad way. Southwest. Yeah. Southwest. What are you doing, Southwest? During during the pandemic, they decided now is a great time to reduce the value of their points relative to cash rates. Well, at least they waited until a lot of us are vaccinated, Greg. I don't know what they were thinking here. I don't know where this came from.

And it's not the biggest devaluation ever, but it is a devaluation and with no notice. And, you know, initially when I looked at this, I said, eh, not that big of a deal. It's pretty small. And really, you know, as Stephen pointed out in the post that he wrote about it, you can still get better than the advertised value. People tell you they're worth one point two cents. And yeah, they are worth one point two cents of the fair sort of. But when you look at the fact that they also erase some of the taxes, then it gets a little bit better. And so you can still get reasonable value out of Southwest Point. So initially I looked at it and I was like, no big deal. Then I read Gary Left's take on it and he made some really good points. He went back like through eight years of Southwest evaluations and made the point that they used to give quite a bit of notice.

I mean, they gave six months notice. They gave four or five months. They gave two months notice. And then all of a sudden they've started in with these no notice devaluations. And that's kind of crummy. It is. It is. I mean, come on. They could have let people book book things prospectively in the hopes that, you know, whatever they were, they booked. They would actually take those flights and they would get that better value beforehand. Doesn't Southwest want to get people on planes right now? I mean, what would be the harm in telling people, hey, hurry, use your points now before they devalue? I would have been like, slick move, Southwest. Well done there. You know, to kind of give us notice at a time when not everyone is traveling yet. So,

I mean, it would have been a great move for them. I don't understand why they, they didn't give any notice here. And, and, you know, Gary made another good point and then he was pointing out a post from another blogger that basically said that same, like not such a big deal. Um, but he said, you know, it is a big deal if we just accept that they're going to devalue stuff overnight, and that's just the way it is, then, you know, this game becomes less fun. And he said, and it also makes it seem like everybody's on equal footing. And that's not true. You know, Hyatt tends to do a much better job with a lot of these things than say IHG or, you know, one airline, Air Canada is a lot more trustworthy when they tell you what's going to happen and when things are going to change and how they're going to change than other airline programs that devalue

overnight. So I think that, you know, he made some good points there as to why Southwest deserved to be called out for this overnight devaluation. Right, right. Now, you know, I haven't, I'm going to, I'm going to go through the same process I did with United and Delta and American Airlines to come up with our new reasonable redemption value for Southwest points. Because it's not just a formula, as you said, because taxes are erased, it depends on the actual cost of the fare and which taxes are erased and how much they are as to what the actual point value is. So I'll do that same exercise and it'll be interesting to see how it comes out because I remember us when we were talking about the Delta valuations that I came up with, sort of coming to the conclusion that we have to sort of treat Delta miles as being like Southwest points,

but not as valuable. Right. Right. We were saying we're seeing 1.2 to 1.3 cents per point value at Delta. And so, you know, just treat it like that. And now Southwest is like, well, yeah. So we want to be like Delta, especially on the overnight devaluation front. That's right. So we'll do it without notice and we'll lower the value down to Delta's level. Right.

And then we'll be just like Delta. That might have been it. That might have been what it's hard to say. I mean, they do have a purple credit card. It does follow your purple credit card theory for those who are around with the United thing before Southwest changed their cards to purple. Maybe that's, I did not know that.

So is it, is it sort of the same color as these other two? Similar purple. Yeah. So maybe there's a, maybe there's a purple card theory there at play, but, but yeah,

it's too bad to, to see a change there though. I will say one thing that was probably totally anecdotal, but I had booked some flights just a couple of days before this unannounced devaluation. And then I went initially before I read all the details, I just went to see the same flights, how much they were figuring that would give me a feel for how badly they devalued. And all of the flights that I booked had decreased in price. So they were all fewer points than they were a few days before, but of course they were also

less money. So right. Didn't give me a good feel for it at all. So, oh, well save me some points though. All right. So that was the crazy thing. Southwest you're crazy and not in a good way.

Get crazy in a good way again, Southwest. Okay. So that brings us to mattress running the numbers. And this is, we've got a doozy up. Something that you've never ever imagined before. running the numbers. And it does. We've got a doozy up. A doozy? Something that you've never,

ever imagined before. Something brand new. IHG has brought back the same exact ambassador promotion from just a few months ago where you can buy ambassador status and you make one paid stay at like Intercontinental, Kempton or Regent Hotels,

I think it is. And you get a free night start worth 40,000 points. But now people are traveling a little bit more. I don't know, Greg, you were kind of lukewarm on this before. So wait, we've done this mattress running the numbers before, right? Can we just we just get the tech team to like insert the old segment and talk to the audio visual folks. But it might be a little bit different this time because this time there are some additional stacking opportunities. Now, so here's the deal.

You have to register between April 15th, which is already passed at this point, and July 31st. So registration's open. You have to register, or I say register. You have to buy ambassador status by July 31st. So that's $200 or 40,000 points. So plenty of time to do that. Then you have to buy ambassador status by July 31st. So that's $200 or 40,000 points. So plenty of time to do that.

Then you have to make one paid stay at one of those high-end IHG brands, Intercontinental, Kempton, Regent, by August 31st. And if you do that, then you will get a free night certificate valid for a night of up to 40,000 points that is valid until November 30th of this year. So it's got a short-term expiration points that is valid until November 30th of this year. So it's got a short-term expiration date, only valid until November 30th, but it is valid during a time period when certainly more people are traveling than more last year. There are a couple other

things at play though this time around. So I don't think IHG was on any portals the last time this deal came around because everybody came off the portals for a while during the pandemic. Now, this time around, they are on shopping portals. And so as we record this, I don't know what the rate will be when you listen to it. But as we record this, Top Cash Back is offering 6% back on paid IHG stays. All right. Right. And American Airlines Simply Miles has some promotions to earn miles when you link the Simply Miles offers with a MasterCard. If you're not familiar with Simply Miles, you have to look at our posts about that. But you can link these offers, their card-linked offers, to a MasterCard. So if you

link the Kempton or Intercontinental offers to your credit card, you can earn 2,150 American Airlines miles when you spend $200 or more at one of those brands. Okay. There's actually a second offer that's for all IHG hotels. That's a thousand American Airlines miles for a hundred dollars spent. Now, I don't know if those two will stack, but I don't know why they wouldn't stack because they're both valid at the same properties. So, uh, well, I should say they're both valid at Kempton's and intercontinentals anyway, depending on which one you link up. So what I think, what I think we found a $200 paid stay, you can take those two offers and earn yourself 3,150 American airlines miles when you pay with your linked mastercard. Okay. Now, so your $200 stay, you go through your shopping portal. I really should start at the beginning.

Go through your shopping portal for 6% back. So you get $12 back. So your net cost is now 188, right? So 188 net cost. Okay. Now you go through and you pay with your IHG credit card with those linked offers. Because remember, American Airlines, Simply Miles links to a MasterCard and the IHG credit cards are MasterCards. So you pay with the linked card, you earn 3,150 American Airlines miles,

which I think our value, I didn't check this part, but I think our value for American Airlines miles is 1.2 cents each. Is that right? I think we temporarily put it at 1.3. Yeah. All right. So it's even more than what I'm going to tell you because I didn't do the math on 1.3. So that's about $37.80 worth of American Airlines miles if you value those at 1.2 cents each. And if you value them at 1.3, great. It's worth even more.

All right. Now you pay with your IHG credit card. You're going to get 10X for using the card, 15X for being a Platinum member because you got the IHG Premier, old IHG Select or whatever. So you're not 25 points per dollar. Just a little correction.

The old IHG Club card does not, Select does not give you 10X. Right. It gives you 5X at IHG, but still. The Premier. Let's say you pay with the Premier. The Premier gives you 10X. Let's stop living in the past, Greg. That card's not available.

Right. So you pay for your $200 stay. You get 25X. That's 5,000 IHG points worth about 25 bucks. So you get your 25 bucks back in IHG. You got your 37 back in American Airlines. So you're talking 60 something dollars back there on your 188 net cost. So you're now down to a net cost, so to speak, of, oh, I don't know, around $125-ish. And you get a free 40K night certificate valid until the end of November. Well, hold on. I don't remember you including the cost of buying ambassador status in this equation. Well, you're right. I didn't because you're paying the $200, right? So for that also, but you're going to get ambassador status.

So you're going to get all the ambassador status stuff too, Craig. Right. But the total cost is both your paid night and the cost of ambassador status, right? So what are you trying to say, Craig? I'm just saying we've got to include all the costs in here. We can't say your whole cost is $200 minus all those rebates. All right. So $325 is your total cost. For an IHG free night certificate worth up to 40,000 points, plus a year of ambassador status.

What do you say, Greg? Yep. So when you put it like that, the answer should obviously be no. But don't forget, the ambassador status comes with some valuable perks. And here's the way I'd play it. So one of the valuable perks, maybe really the only super valuable one that I can remember is that it gives you a free weekend night at several types of properties like Intercontinental and Kempton and one other that's not coming to me right now. I hate calling it a free weekend night. It gives you a buy one night, get one night free coupon. Call it that whatever but the point the point here is there are times

where that works out very nicely and i wrote about a time when i had a weekend stay in austin and at the time there was an intercontinental there that's now a sinesta by the way but never mind that um so you know i booked the friday night at a reasonable rate and, uh, got the, uh, the, you know, Saturday night free, plus it came with a complimentary upgrade. And so I was in a nice suite. And, um, so if you could marry these two things, like, so if you have a weekend that you would like to stay at a Kempton or Intercontinental and can find this, a good rate that qualifies for this weekend deal, that would be a great way to meet the requirement for the paid night, right? So you're getting your benefits of ambassador

status as part of the deal of fulfilling, you of fulfilling in order to get the free night. And so it kind of comes back to, I think I've said this before about this ambassador thing, that if you see getting, I used, let's say, 40,000 points to buy ambassador status, right? But I got a discount because I paid with my old card, which gives a 10% rebate. But still, let's just call it 40,000. So you can think of it as like I had a Friday night paid stay, a Saturday night award stay that cost me 40,000 points. You can think of it as like, I had a Friday night paid stay, a Saturday night award stay that cost me 40,000 points. You can sort of think of it that way, which is not a bad price at all to pay for an intercontinental. And then I got the upgrade and I got other perks that lasted a year because I had ambassador status for a year. So that was a good deal by itself. If you throw in a free night certificate, great deal. Great deal. He's saying a great deal, huh? Okay. All right. If those things

line up for you, those things line up. And you have to be able to use the free night certificate, obviously, by the end of November. But I do think it's more interesting this time around, because probably there's a better shot that you'll use that 40k free night cert by the end of November. Last time around, the certificate that it came with was expiring like now. And maybe you would have found a use for it, but maybe you wouldn't have. So that was a little bit harder. It probably is a little more accessible for more people. And there are some stacking opportunities. Overall, this is not mattress run worthy. I wouldn't go out of my way to pay $200 for IHG ambassador status. There's not much they could throw at me that would make me too excited about that.

I agree. I wouldn't go out of my way. But again, if you have a weekend, or yeah, I think it has to be a weekend. So if you have a weekend plan where you want to stay at an intercontinental or another qualifying property, then this could work out very nice. And I think in that situation, it'd be a great deal. There you go. There you have it.

All right. So then my friends, that brings us, I think, to this week's main event. The main event. So the platinum card, there were rumors for a while that some things would be changing, that Amex would be raising the annual fee

on the platinum card but we didn't report it before because they seemed just that like unfounded rumors and then um and then something happened where where amex leaked and then finally came forward with for real information about changes to the um centurion club access and it and at that point doctor of credit reposted about a comment that a a reader had written on one on one of his posts about the rumors about the platinum card and he reposted it because this thing was like crazy accurate with regard to lounge access because it specifically said um not only that centurion lounge access or lounge access would go down to um not to have any guests allowed free but that you could have guests for free if you spend seventy five thousand dollars on your platinum card. And so suddenly that comment,

which before you could have looked at and said, that's just someone else spewing things that they don't know about. Suddenly it's like, oh, this person clearly knew something well ahead of everyone else. So then suddenly all the other things the same person said, I think they went by works for Amex.

And so the other things this person said suddenly had a lot of credibility. So let's review what's there, what we think we know about the revised Platinum card. And it's important to emphasize that this is what we think we know. These are rumors still. I think they're pretty likely accurate. So does Greg. Greg said in the post that he's 85% sure that 90% of this is accurate. And that's as sure as any of us can be. It seems likely that this will be accurate, but we don't have any inside information beyond what's been published in the rumor mill. We haven't heard anything on the inside. So don't, don't think that there's more weight to this than there is. This is our speculation based on what seems like a collection

of reliable rumors. So, so the annual fee is going to go up. So it's five 50 right now for the personal platinum card. And the big sticker shock factor here is that that is likely going to go up in July to $695 a year. Right, right. So it was $550. So that's $145 increment. Yeah, that's not cheap. $700 a year. And there's no indication that that, you know, if that was like, and we're throwing in free authorized users, then that would be totally like understandable.

It doesn't seem like that's coming with it. At least that's not part of any of the rumors we saw. So what are the rumors? What are we going to get for $700 a year? Let's cover the negatives first. The other thing. What are we going to not get for $700 a year? Um, the other thing, besides paying more, as I already mentioned, we won't be able to bring guests into the Centurion lounge unless we spend 75 K a year on our platinum card.

That stinks. Thanks. Like traveling with your spouse, you can't get your spouse in, or you're like, I think the people who are going to be traveling with a coworker and they're going to get there in the lounge and tenant is going to say, so it'll be $50 for your guest. And then it's like, you know, you're, Oh, okay. And, and your guest is like, Oh, I'll pay the $50 that I don't want to pay to get into this lounge.

Are you crazy? You know, like, it's just an awkward situation. Anyway, one person, just the card holder. Go ahead. Let's just spend 75. Yes. What else is just, just the one person. The other thing, this is our speculation, not work for Amex's speculation, that we will lose the $200 airline incidental fee credits. That comes partly from what we thought was a rumor on Flyertalk a while ago? They said that that was likely to go. And combine that with the fact that they did, in fact, remove the $100 airline fee credit from the gold card. It made it seem like, yeah, that's a likely scenario. So this is the one and only place where we're stepping away from works for Amex and saying, we think this is what's going to happen.

So I'd say that's the one I'm least confident about, but confident enough to put it in the list of what we think is going to happen. So we think the $200 airline fee credit is going to go bye-bye. We think so, yeah. I agree. That seems reasonable to me,

especially since they got rid of it on the gold card. So, I agree. But we gained several things, Okay. And I'm, I'm just talking about the annual, uh, credits. Cause there were a couple miscellaneous, like one-time credits that we might be getting, but we don't really know much about them. Um, annual credits, um, clear credit, annual clear credit. Um, assuming that that is a hundred dollar annual clear credit, we don't, we a $100 annual clear credit. We were just told annual clear credit.

We weren't told any information about it, but the green card offers $100 credit each year. It seems likely that Amex will just follow that. How much does clear cost, the non-discounted version of clear, do you know? What's the full price of clear? Well, I think if you just blindly go to their website, which you should never do and just sign up, I think it's $179 a year. But if you are a Delta or United member, it's $119 a year if you go to the right place to sign up.

And if you have any elite status, like you have United silver, right? Then it would be one Oh nine a year. So it would bring clear if it's a hundred dollar credit or bring clear down to $9 a year for you. Right. Um, and another, uh, annual credit is $200 prepaid hotel credit. Okay. So book, book a hotel through, through Amex amex travel uh as a prepaid and and you

get 200 off okay um another one 240 entertainment streaming credit um we're assuming that that's going to be doled out 20 a month like they've done before. And, um, you know, so for a lot of people, I think of it as like sort of a set and forget, you know, if you pay for streaming types of things that add up to more than $20 a month, just charge them to your platinum card and you're going to get $240 over the year back. And then finally, what we have is $300 Equinox credit. And is a $40 a month service. So basically, if that's true, what you're getting is really just the ability to subscribe to the Equinox app for $15 a month really is what it comes down to. So yeah, so there's that, there's that. And we'll talk more about this. Those are the, so those are the headline things.

So just to summarize the new credits, a hundred dollars for clear $200 hotel, $240 entertainment streaming, $300 Equinox. So it's like $840 worth of credits, potentially. Right, right. If you're going to use it all. But let's look at this another way. Okay. If we conveniently set aside the Centurion lounge problem, then what we could do is say, you're getting a $200 hotel credit each year instead of the $200 airline fee incidental credit, which I would argue that more people will know how to use the $200 hotel thing than they knew how to use the airline fee thing. So that's probably a net win for most people. And it's worth noting that prepaid hotels doesn't necessarily mean

non-refundable. Amex has prepaid hotels that are cancelable and refundable. So it's not a situation necessarily where you're locked in and can't change plans. Obviously, you're not going to be able to cancel the day of arrival. You can't do that with anybody. So it's not as inflexible as it might sound when you hear prepaid, not in all cases anyway. So yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you. I think most people are going to find that much easier. Right. And I'm not sure about this, but maybe, you know, I was thinking that you could probably book some fine hotels and resorts as prepaid and get all those benefits that you'd normally get. You certainly can because these days you can either prepay for fine hotels and resorts and

get 5X, I think, or pay at the hotel and not get 5X. So, yeah, I think you can prepay for any of those. So, yeah. So that would be a great way to use that credit each year. Yeah. And, okay. So then, so if we say that's, just say that's a wash, basically. $200 in exchange for $200.

Then what we have is we're paying $145 more in exchange for, forget about the Equinox thing, in exchange for $240 of streaming. I would say that. That's an interesting point. Yeah. So when you say we're looking at it as a wash, to be clear, we're not looking at it as $200 cash value for the $200 prepaid hotel booking. We're looking at if you lose the $200 airline credit and replace it with what I think is

you're right and easier to use $200 prepaid hotel booking credit. That's and we say, OK, that's a wash. Then, yeah, it's $150 a year more for the 240 and streaming credits. Yeah. I mean, if you pay for any streaming at all, that's got to be worth it. Right. It's you know, it seems like a good deal to me. I mean, I understand a lot of people

don't pay for these things, but a lot of people do. I mean, so if you just subscribe to Netflix and Hulu, for example, you're done. I think even like some of the Amazon things might count. Yeah, I think there have been of the Amazon things might count. Yeah, I think there have been things that I don't know if Amazon, anything Amazon counts

anymore, but people always find creative ways. There used to be a way you could gift somebody a Kindle book and trigger a streaming credit, but it doesn't work like that anymore. At least to my knowledge, it stopped working. But yeah, I mean, I think it's for a lot of people, it's a good value. I, you know, I looked at it and I said, well, $20 a month, I actually do pay more than $20 in streaming services right now. But just a few days ago, we canceled some of those. So I'm going to be just Spotify premium $15 a month Netflix I get with T-Mobile. So I don't,

I don't, I don't pay more for Netflix anyway. So I'm only gonna be paying $15 a month for streaming stuff. But even still, even if I only got $15 a month in credit out of that, that's still what, $150, $180 a year, right? 180 bucks worth of value to me. Now, you know, I think that's pretty good. Like you said, it becomes a set it and forget it. You just toss it on the platinum card and you don't have to think about it twice. That's money that was coming out of my pocket anyway. I'm going to pay for Spotify regardless. So to me, that's a pretty darn good benefit. Now, I'm not particularly excited about any of the other benefits. I like the rest of the benefits that they're adding. I just, I dislike and the streaming thing works out okay for me. But one of the comments that a reader made that I thought was a good comment is they're

kind of turning the platinum card into a couponing card, right? I mean, it's like all these monthly credits, the monthly streaming credit and the monthly exercise app credit. And, you know, like, come on, stop it with all that. Just make it a little bit, make the credits, I think, a little bit chunkier and easier to use at once. Of course, I understand why they're not doing that. They'd rather create some breakage and make you use a little bit each month.

So you have to hold onto the card to get the full value out of it for the year. So you can't just get the full value and cancel a few days later. So I understand why they're doing it. I don't particularly love it. I don't want to be locked into those kinds of monthly credits. Look at the clear membership. And I say, man, I got so many cards of monthly credits. Look at the clear membership. And I say, man, I got so many cards in my pocket that'll cover a clear membership and I

still don't have one. So I, I'm not going to probably get one because of the MX credit. So wait, wait, wait a minute. What, what, which one covers clear besides the green card? That's the only one I can think of that. Well, you know, okay. So maybe I misspoke. I assumed that the other ones that cover some sort of TSA pre-check would also cover clear,

but no, no, no. See, that's how much interest I have in clear. I haven't even looked at that. I think, I think a lot of people will like it. You know, I think a lot of people have at least low level Delta United status and to be able to get clear for net $9 a year. And, you know, basically I realize not everybody knows what it does, but basically it doesn't get you past security at the airport,

but what it does, it gets you past ID check. And so if there's a big line at ID check, you could go over to the clear lane and they scan your eyes or your fingerprints, whichever you want to do, and go right in it. And so you can, at some airports, it's significant time savings. It just depends where. Also, they're at some entertainment and sporting events, they use it. So they have like at ball games and

things, um, use clear to, to go past the lines. And I'm not sure I've never actually experienced that, but, uh, it's kind of, uh, interesting that, you know, for it'll help you potentially bypass lines and other situations as well. Yeah. I have no doubt. It could be a huge time savings for somebody in an airport that frequently has long lines or even traveling. Even if you don't have long lines at your home airport, but you travel to an airport that has long lines often enough, it could certainly be worthwhile.

I've just never found a lot of value in that. I haven't been compelled enough to really be interested and look into it. So I don't think I'm likely to use it. You have Delta Diamond status, so you already get clear. So you don't need it at all. So it's not particularly exciting for us. Might be exciting for some readers, the, these exercise credits. I'm like, what is up with that? Amex, first of all, whether I want to exercise or not, it's none of your business, Amex. I need to exercise more, but it's not like, why do I want

to get locked into one specific app to bring it down to 15 bucks a month? That doesn't even sound exciting to me. I mean, unless you're a Peloton owner who's paying the $40 a month for the Peloton all access. I just think that most people aren't going to be that excited. When you look at how many exercise apps there are out there that are like 15 bucks a month or 12 bucks a month or 10 bucks a month. There's so many different apps out there that charge right about that much that I just don't see very much value there at all. Unless the app is amazing and maybe it is, somebody will probably tell me in the comments. Right. Maybe it is. Who knows?

This is a great example. I wrote a while ago about the move towards sponsored perks, I called it. This idea that banks can start adding these perks with these high advertised dollar values like this, you know, get $300 of Equinox credit when it probably costs them nothing. I mean, basically, this is Equinox getting free advertising. Yeah. Right? And so, you know, so I'm actually surprised we haven't seen even more of this because I don't, as I said, I don't think there's any cost or any significant cost to the card issuer to offer it. And there's clearly huge benefit both to the card issuer to say

you're getting all these credits, but also to the brand like this in Equinox's case to be able to get all these new customers. Because certainly there's going to be lots of people suddenly looking at Equinox that would have never thought to before. They will at least give it a shot

and put it on their card and then it's $15 a month and it's more hassle to figure out how to cancel than on their card. And then it's $15 a month and it's more hassle to figure out how to cancel it. And it's worth, and you're like, okay, whatever. I mean, they're, they're going to get some people like that, but I just, I feel like it's odd. It turns the platinum card into this lifestyle-ish kind of a card that I feel like, you know, I, I like exercise. I haven't done enough of it the last couple of years, but I do like to work out. I like to be in shape, but I'm like,

that doesn't apply to every platinum card holder. You know, there's a lot of people that I'm sure have no interest in doing a workout app, you know, and we're assuming that that's what it is. Even if you like working out, you have to be somebody who likes working out and likes working out with an app and likes working out with this specific app and likes paying $15 a month for it, I just like, it blows my mind. I'm like, you're right. It's probably no cost to Amex or very, very low cost. It's just something that's valuable because they can say you're getting a benefit and Equinox can get some advertising. I don't really put any value there, even if the app is good, because there are plenty of other decent, good $15 apps. So totally, totally agree with

you there. So we're out on exercise. So, so then, so the streaming credit, I, I, like I said, I think is pretty good. I mean, overall, I don't know. It's, it's not as bad as it looks, but then I have to say, I have to look at this and say, are we getting out of, out of hand here? Is this getting a little crazy? Like at what point is enough enough? At what point are these annual fees that are creeping up? I mean, a couple of years ago, $450 was like, whoa, that was a big annual fee. Right.

It started popping up to 550. Now we're looking at 700. I mean, is the sky the limit or are they just going to keep adding sponsored perks and be like, oh, you get this credit now and that credit and the other credit is just $2,000 a year. And like, what? What?

Right. Isn't it getting a little out of control here? Even if we say, well, yeah, I mean, they're adding something that's worth more than $150. At what point do you say, okay, yeah, but I don't want to pay $700 a year for my credit card. This is, this is kind of nuts, isn't it? Yeah. I think, I think Chase is to blame here. And here's why it went when Chase came out with the,hire Reserve card for $450, I think that the likes of Amex were surprised how many people, it wasn't just the people with tons of money that were signing up for this card. everybody and suddenly they were like oh you know that's a price point that everybody's willing to go go for how do we differentiate as being like the really premium card i know we raise the price and so they raised to 550 then chase copied them they're like no no chase we have the expensive card that's right that's right we have the premium

card and they had to then add in some perks to make up for it as i think what happened there uh but you're right i mean it's it's um it's it's a it's a it's a really bad even though even though i think that the sort of net value of the card is an overall plus for most people um compared to the previous card i'm still not saying that it's necessarily a good value for you in fact when i looked at for myself the value of like what i'd be willing to pay for the perks didn't quite add up to that annual fee but nevertheless it came closer than the old card would to adding up to the annual fee. So, yeah, it's a better value than before for a lot of people. But this constant moving towards having you basically lock in this bigger and bigger fee each year, not a good trend. No, not a good trend at all. And it's not just Amex and Chase. City got into that business too

with the prestige card going from, there was a way to get it for 350 potentially. And then they said, okay, no, you guys can't get it for 350 anymore. And not only can you not get it for 350, you're not going to get it for the 450. We're going to up everybody to 495. And so they increased that one. Who knows when the next increase is coming there? And I imagine we're going to start to see this on other co-branded cards as well. We've seen it on some of the other co-branded cards. I think, what, didn't the Reserve increase or something else? The Delta Reserve, yeah.

Right. So, I mean, we're seeing that trend. And I think that's interesting because you see these ultra premium cards up at the top. They just keep going up now with annual fee and they just throw more credits at you to make it feel like you're you're coming out ahead. But yet all of these ninety five dollar cards like that have been around forever, one after another, ninety five, ninety nine, eighty nine, whatever it is, all those basic travel cards haven't increased an annual fee in like a decade. Right. And that's an interesting point. travel cards haven't increased an annual fee in like a decade, right? And in many cases, they've improved, but haven't raised a dollar in like 10 years on the annual fee. And somehow they've been able to increase perks. So I look at that and I say, you know, are we just stupid

paying more and more for these cards that, I mean, they really start to add up. And now having two or three ultra premium cards, I mean, you're talking about getting close. If everybody goes up to $700 and you want to have three ultra premium cards, $2,100 a year, even if you think you'll use more than 2,100 more excited about it if they had adopted some of the best of their lower end cards. Like, so if they took some of the best features of the gold card, for example, and said, you're going to get 4X at restaurants and grocery stores, and then maybe even add in the green cards 3x for all travel and uh you know with that combination it would be like oh all right yeah i don't like that i'm paying more for this card but now i don't need to juggle a bunch of cards i have this one card that's good and you know lots of different situations that would be um i think a great way to go but you know we're not seeing that kind of movement instead there you know a while ago they added 5x for very specific things for airlines and you know prepaid prepaid travel right um that's a little too narrow in my in my mind to make it a card that's going

to be top of wallet so that doesn't seem to be the way they're going it's trying to get it a card that's going to be top of wallet. So that doesn't seem to be the way they're going. It's trying to get it top of wallet as much as just get as much as they can out of you from the annual fee. Yeah, I mean, I guess so. You know, thanks Equinox. Thanks. Thanks for your help with that. I don't think I'm going to sign up for the app at a protest now. I'm going to say, you know, forget it.

You guys are part of the problem here. So, you know, I'm not not interested in signing up for your stuff because you guys are causing this this perk creep of the ultra premium cards. So, you know, I like perks as much as anybody else. I like getting a good value as much as anybody else. I don't like this trend of prepaying more and more. And, you know, the interesting thing for me is that I kind of wanted to roast you when I first read what you said about the streaming services. You said, so the streaming services credit we think is going to be $240 doled out $20 a month over 12 months. And you said if you pay that much in streaming services already, then, you know, you might like that.

But you shouldn't value it anywhere near the $240 because you wouldn't prepay $240 for something that only costs $240. And when I saw that, I was like, I don't know. I mean, I prepay my life insurance so that I don't have the hassle of having to worry about remembering it every month or something like that. I just prepay it for the year, pay it all at once. There's other things like that that I do prepay specifically for the convenience. So I look at that and I say, you know what, that twenty20 a month is coming out of my pocket either way. It's not earning me a ton of interest in the bank. I value it closer to face value perhaps than you do. Cause I say I'm already paying for that. So when it comes to something that I'm definitely going to pay for, and there's not a question, my cell phone bill, for instance, I'm going to pay my cell phone bill no matter what. So if you give me a cell phone bill credit

to me, that's more like cash. So I was going to roast you on that. But then I looked at it overall and I said, okay, well, that's essentially what they're doing with the whole thing. You're prepaying for all of these benefits and man, at $700, it makes that realer than it already was at 550. It makes that pinch feel a little bit stronger. So I don't like the increase. I don't really think it's going to be something I can continue to justify. I think it's going to be time to let go of the platinum card, which is too bad because I do like fine hotels and resorts. I like some of the benefits we reported this week that Plaza Premium Lounge is dropping out of Priority Pass, but Amex Platinum Card holders get the Global Lounge Collection, which includes access to

Plaza Premium Lounges. So you can still keep it with the platinum card. That's kind of nice if you travel in places where there are Plaza premium lounges, cause they tend to be pretty nice. Um, so it'd be a shame to have to give that up and the airspace lounges and escape and escape lounges. I like those. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like a lot of those things too, but I don't know if I like them $700 worth at this point. Right. And it's certainly Right. Exactly. Especially if they lose guest privileges too. I don't know if they will, but if they did, that won't be a problem. Then you need to have a card for everybody in your party. Yeah. Well, let's talk just a little bit more about that streaming credit and what it's worth.

A reader commented in my post about the revised platinum card saying something like what it sounds like you were going to roast me about. And my answer is that I think there's a big difference between how much do you value the credits versus how much would you be willing to buy those credits for? So yes, if you're just said to me, how much do you value $240 in credits? I'd be like, yeah, almost $240 because I've got to pay it anyway and I could just set it up. It's no work. But if you came to me and said, I'm going to monthly give you $20 back if you use this card to pay your streaming credit? How much will you give me right now for this service? I'm putting service in quotes because it's not helping me in any way. Well, I mean, yeah. Time savings in some sense,

except you'd probably just put it automatically on another credit card. So not necessarily. There's no time savings. So, you know, so what would I pay for you to pay $20 towards my bill each month? It would be less than $20 a month because why would I do that unless I'm going to get a deal? And it's similar to many, many monthly services give you an annual option that's less than the combined monthly option. And so I think of it that way. If there was an annual option for the $240, what would you pay? And I think it should be less than $240. And so what that exact number is, is obviously going to vary by person as to how much they, uh, they would prepay. I agree. I think that's exactly the way to look at it. You know,

I thought of Disney plus, for instance, came to my mind because recently bought a subscription, a gift subscription to that. And so I thought of that and I thought, okay, well, that's $80 a month. Or if you pay for it monthly, I think it's $8 a month that you pay for that service. So you save $16 over the course of the year over the $96 fee you would pay if you paid monthly. So you save 16.7% by paying it annually, paying it upfront. So I guess valuing it at 80% of face value, I think is pretty fair. You valued it, I think even lower than that in the post. I think you valued it at 180. And I was like, 180. I mean, come on, this is money that you're, you're going to spend. If you save, I mean if you save $20 a year, why wouldn't you prepay for it? Right.

I mean, you save $20, right. If you're going to be spending. And that's fair, you know, bickering over the, the exact amount. I totally agree, but I, I still stand by like, there's just no reason to prepay $240. You got $240 doled out a month at a time. Right. I guess you got to figure out where that, that break point is for you, but yeah. All right. So the new platinum card,

is that basically our summary? Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you agreed with me though, that, that, even though it's it costs more that for most people it's it's sort of a a net game compared to the the previous one only compared to the previous one right if you had it already or you already wanted it then it's a net gain if you didn't yet have it then I don't feel like this makes it enough better. Or I don't know if I would say it that way. I feel like it still is hard to swallow because you really have to work harder at it now. Now, what I would say is it's worth getting now. If you've ever been

interested, we've been saying for months that now's the time with this incredible $100K plus 10X offer plus the $200 credit towards home furnishings if you use a referral link, which is what we keep on our best offers page. So now is definitely the time to get it, A, for the incredible offer on the card, but B, also because the fee is rumored to be going up in July. And so if you get it now, you're going to get the $550 annual fee locked in for now. Then will you pay the new $700 on renewal next year? Is that how this is going to work? That's what we believe. Yep. But you'll start getting all those benefits in July. So you'll

have a lot of time to get the new benefits as well as there'll be some overlap with the lost benefits. So assuming the airline incidental fees are really going, of course you could get your $200 this year. We think, but we're not 100% sure that you'll also be able to get them next year before it's phased out, but that is yet to be seen. My bet is that that'll happen because you'll have people who have signed up

under the presumption that they get it each calendar year in May, let's say, or June. And so they'll be expecting it when they sign up. So I would expect that it will overlap and that will make it a really good time to get the platinum card or to have gotten it recently anyway to have it because you'll theoretically anyway get dual sets of credits.

So all of a sudden the platinum card will actually be really valuable and a smart play to get this year. Then in future years, I think it becomes questionable. But I think even for people who are on the fence before, if you were on the fence before, I think assuming that the credits overlap, then that ought to probably push you over the top and say, okay, time to get it before the annual fee increases. I assume that we'll have some more rumors or idea before the fee increases, but I don't know that for sure.

Probably, probably. But yeah, get it before July, lock in that low rate, get that, get the a hundred K plus 10 X offer. It's awesome. And yeah. And if you're, if you're an Equinox app, you know, a enthusiast, then you should be especially happy by what's going on here. Yeah, and I don't mean to poo-poo the idea of Equinox altogether because I haven't used the app before. It might be great. It might be great. It might be great.

And I recently bought a bicycle trainer. And so I'm looking to set up like the poor man's Peloton, so to speak, by using a connected fitness app. I bought a smart trainer. So I've been looking at other apps like Zwift and Rufi. So I'm kind of interested in this whole realm now of workout apps, though. I don't think the Equinox one is going to be the one because it's not as focused on cycling as I'd like it to be.

Are you sure Rufi is an exercise app? Rufi. Oh, Rufi. I don't know where you're going with this, an exercise app? Roo-Vee. Oh, Roo-Vee. Okay. I don't know where you're going with this, Greg. I heard Roo-Vee. You know, that's... Roo-Vee or Zwift, which are, you know, Roo-Vee is $12 a month. Zwift is $15.

And they cover cycling and running and, you know, other types of exercises. Right. Okay. So similar. So I'll be curious to kind of compare these things. And maybe I'll even go at comparing a bunch of them starting at square one and I'll try the the Peloton app because you get the chase credits and I'll try the right you know this Equinox app because you know I'll write something about it maybe if I do and

then I'll compare it to these other apps and so maybe we'll get some material out of it thanks Amex but I'm probably not going to pay for it long term there you you go. All right. So I think then that wraps us up on the Vamex Platinum card. And that brings us then to post roast. Now, post roast, I already roasted what I was going to roast and I decided not to roast.

So do you have anything for post roast? Ah, no, I'm on vacation. You're on vacation. That's part of the reason I don't have a great post roast. I mean, you wrote about Sinesta and you were like, it's almost exciting. And so there's part of me that wants to roast you for

writing an almost exciting post, except that it was interesting because Sinesta is kind of interesting now. So I can't really roast the fact that it was almost exciting because the post itself was more exciting than Sinesta is. Just in the sense that you learn something you're like oh well maybe that'll be worth it someday not yet but maybe so yeah well you know it's worth it for some yeah that's worth it for some yeah exactly exactly for people who are going to stay at one of their properties it certainly could be worth it so so no roast there so all right then I guess that brings us into the question of the week right right all right did you do your homework here you've got a question ready to go?

I do have a question. I do have a question. Question came from FrequentMiler Insiders earlier this week. So Dan in FrequentMiler Insiders said, I recently went under 524 for Chase. So he's under 524. I was thinking of getting a Chase Sapphire preferred

until the United Quest came along. I know flexible points are more valuable, but if I had to transfer ultimate rewards points to United, I might as well get the United Quest. My home airport is a United hub and we do fly United often. I collect United miles mainly for business class

to Europe or Asia or Australia. I know United isn't the cheapest for this purpose, but relatively speaking, I find it the easiest to find award space with decent flights with regard to time and stops with United, any suggestions or thoughts on which card would be better. So we've talked a little bit about the quest card.

We've obviously talked about the increased Sapphire preferred. What do you think in Dan's case? Wow. That's pretty tough because, you know, in general, I would say definitely go for you know if you just look at this the signup bonuses the sapphire preferred 80k the quest 100k i would always go with um ultimate rewards points i'd say even though you're getting more united points than um then ultimate rewards points with the quest card that I would still say, for most people, go with the Sapphire Preferred and get Ultimate Rewards points

because it's just so much more flexible. But here's a case where it's somebody who clearly likes United. They already have an opinion about how they like to book awards and they're comfortable with that um it it sounds to me like someone that might actually that that getting good value from the quest card is is sort of a no-brainer whereas that might not be as clear with the sapphire preferred. So, um, with that limited knowledge, I'd say, yeah, maybe, maybe the quest card is the right one for you. Yeah. That's I, you know, I thought it was an interesting question because yeah, it's not an easy, um, an easy answer. So, you know, I looked at it and they said, well, when he got to the sentence where he said, uh, I know that flexible points are more

valuable. I was like, yeah, know that flexible points are more valuable. I was like, yeah, full stop. They're more valuable for the Sapphire preferred. So I thought in my head when I read that, right. But then I said to myself, well, if you're going to transfer to United anyway, and it kind of sounds like Dan is then, yeah, I guess you're right. Get a hundred thousand United miles instead.

Not only that, because he's going to get those rebates, right? Sure. Yeah. To 5,000 mile rebates. I think it is each year. It is. But what I have since learned is I think that it's two after your first anniversary. So I don't think you actually get those in year one. I think you got to hold the card and get them in year two. All right. But still, if he's really into United, he's probably going to keep the card. It's probably worth it. Right. So he'll get those rebates every year. That only increases the value of the card. So probably if, and I like how you said this, he clearly already has an opinion about how he likes to book awards. He likes to book them through United. So then that makes more sense. When I

looked at his question, my first reaction, and when I said in response to it in Frequent Insiders was, all right, if your stated purpose here is to get business class flights to Europe or Asia or Australia, then you don't want either card. What you want is a membership rewards card because you want to redeem with ANA. ANA has got by far the best prices for Star Alliance to Europe, to Asia and to Australia. They'll charge you round trip. What United will charge you one way to either Europe or Asia and not exaggerating or anything. That's exactly what it will be round trip business class for what United

charges one way. So incredible. Yeah. So if that's, if that's what you want to do for scrap this whole quest and, and Sapphire preferred plan and learn about ANA and using ANA. And so that was, that was what I said.

And I said, but if you are going to transfer to United anyway, then yes, get the Quest card, I think, because why wouldn't you get the more miles in that case? I just think it's worth learning about some of these other programs. And in response to that, he came up with a good question saying

that he thought these transfer partners, he said that he has a hard time finding availability through ANA. He said, you know, the availability is really difficult. It almost seems like these various transfer partners, interest in them is just purely academic. And I looked at it and I was like, ANA has access to the same space United does. The only space that you can't book with ANA that you can book with United is the United non-saver awards. So if you want to fly on United at non-saver levels, you're not gonna be able to book that with ANA, but all the partners

that you can book with United and any United flight with Saverspace, you could book with ANA. Now, I don't know, maybe he doesn't know you got to book round trip, or maybe he's just not familiar with the ANA tool. It does seem like it was built 1986. So it is not the most user-friendly and United is super easy. You don't even have to log in to search or anything. So I can certainly see how United might be a little bit easier to use the website, united.com. But no doubt. And in fact, most of us start with United's website, even if we plan to book with some other miles. So absolutely. So I get that. And if he flies United a lot for business, maybe he comes out better earning United miles

than he would crediting it to another program. So, I mean, there are a lot of other reasons why that might make more sense or United elite status, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there are some reasons why it might make sense. And if it does, yeah, go for the quest, which I think I'm surprised that we both said that because I think both of us would pick the Sapphire prefer.

Absolutely. But it might make sense for Dan. both said that because I think both of us would pick the Sapphire prefer. Absolutely. But, but it might make sense for Dan. So, so there you go. It's variable. This game can be played in so many different ways. You know,

we're okay with you getting the quest card dance. Yeah. I mean, I think it's not, you'll be happy with it. I think so. I think so. Exactly.

And then at the end of the day, that's what matters, right? Dan, we want you to be happy. All right. Well, my friends, that brings us to the end of today's episode. Thank you guys very much for being out

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