I originally planned to wait until January and get an upgrade offer for both DW and myself, but then the 70,000 SkyMiles offer on Delta's website for this card came along and ruined those plans! Now that I've completed the $75k spend for Marriott Platinum Elite for 2019 (and can do it on nights alone going forward), I did the math and it looks like there is no question that Delta Reserve should be my non-category spend card in 2019. The offer expires early next month, and I have a big purchase I need to make the first week of January anyway so I went ahead and got it today since my EQ and TU scores have been dipping the past few weeks and I didn't want to chance it happening to my EX before I had a chance to app. It's been 4 months to the day in the garden and just over 6 months since my last new card (Citi Premier).
Anyway, I got a $10,000 starting line (I'll likely move over $25k of my Starwood's limit in December to swap their credit lines, although I'm also up for a CLI around that time, too), which isn't massive to me but it's respectable and puts me at just over $50k on revolvers with Amex, and I believe it just pushed me over $700k in total revolving lines. Current EX08 score is 763 (checked daily, and it has only moved 1 point in 6 weeks), utilization in the teens (don't try that at home!) but otherwise spotless credit history, upper single digit INQs on Experian, LOL/24 but only 3/12 including this one.
Will app DW's in a few weeks since we need to hit all $10k in 2019 for the MQM bonuses to count for 2020 status, and there's going to be a very short window to do that in. Now debating whether to keep my Platinum and upgrade DW's Gold to Platinum (but then we're stuck taking at least 2 domestic trips a year with us both also having Reserve companion passes that we'll use for transcontinental First), downgrade both to Blue (useless since we have other cards that will match or beat its earnings), or close them and risk angering the Amex Welcome Offer Gods for future apps?
First off congrats on the approval! I think it was the right move to hit it while the offer was as high as it was considering the rarity. Sure the window gets small to hit that kind of spend but tax season can help with that. 
For your main concern I honestly think you're going to be rolling the dice. Some of the datapoints shared on various blogs and reddit are not showing a consistent reason for the SUB popup. If the information is reliable even those with non-churning credit profiles are even being declined SUBs from AMEX. Personally, it comes down to what left of the cards you haven't gotten yet are you wanting to possibly app for in the future to get the SUBs. Sounds like Hilton is out of the picture, you don't do cashback atm, and you don't hit the business cards so that leaves possibly the EDP (?) but the Gold card made that card pretty blah except for the SUB itself. I would just keep the status quo at the very least and evaluate whether upgrading the cards and taking care to not force a trip just so you can use the main cabin companion certificates.
Just when I thought you couldn't grow any more in that collection, you proved me wrong 
. Congrats on the SUB!
@Anonymous wrote:Ummm I asked you a question in the GC concerning the 🌱.....you don’t have to answer that question any longer 😂.
Congrats!
Well, I tried to answer your other question but I'm not 100% sure how an upgrade works. I need the MQMs to post next year so I never really looked into it that much. I don't want to encourage you to leave the garden, but that SUB is pretty awesome.
@Anonymous wrote:Congrats K!
At the risk of sounding ignorant, why would you want to have both the Platinum and the Reserve? The only things I can come up with is that you get the extra domestic main cabin companion ticket and---potentially---10k miles and 10k MQM?
Since I'll continue to use other Amex, Chase, and Citi cards for category spending, I don't see spending $25k on the Platinum in addition to the $60k on Reserve. Plus, Amex has been known to extend a 3rd Mileage Boost promo on Reserve ($90k for 45k/45k total). It would really only be for the additional companion tickets.
@simplynoir wrote:First off congrats on the approval! I think it was the right move to hit it while the offer was as high as it was considering the rarity. Sure the window gets small to hit that kind of spend but tax season can help with that.
For your main concern I honestly think you're going to be rolling the dice. Some of the datapoints shared on various blogs and reddit are not showing a consistent reason for the SUB popup. If the information is reliable even those with non-churning credit profiles are even being declined SUBs from AMEX. Personally, it comes down to what left of the cards you haven't gotten yet are you wanting to possibly app for in the future to get the SUBs. Sounds like Hilton is out of the picture, you don't do cashback atm, and you don't hit the business cards so that leaves possibly the EDP (?) but the Gold card made that card pretty blah except for the SUB itself. I would just keep the status quo at the very least and evaluate whether upgrading the cards and taking care to not force a trip just so you can use the main cabin companion certificates.
I'll need to pay for after-school activities the first week of January, so I can just switch school tuition billing to the Reserve and leave it there since that will be a huge portion of the non-category spend. No problem at all hitting the SUB in a short period of time, but I don't want to try to do all $10k for both Reserve cards in a week so I'll wait on DW's. Thanks for the encouragement that it was the right move. Amex will likely always have another card that I'll want at some point, so I don't want to stop the generous SUBs. No Hilton for now, no cashback, and no business cards for now. If I were to do EDP, I would just product change my Blue since it's 16 years old and currently useless.
Forcing the trip is a good concern, so again I'm on the fence for us having a pair of Platinums and a pair of Reserves (we usually travel as a family of 4) vs downgrading to a pair of Blue SkyMiles cards just to keep the accounts open in hopes of future SUBs. At least we wouldn't forego the Blue SUB by doing that since the language for those cards clearly states that anyone who has any of the other cards is not eligible.
@Cred4All wrote:Just when I thought you couldn't grow any more in that collection, you proved me wrong
LOL thanks. I've actually closed quite a few over the past few years.