@sladesurfer wrote:
Just need some opinions. Thinking of replacing my Amex platinum to Citi Prestige. I don’t have centurion Lounge at my home airport, only fly with AA not delta maybe once a year. I do use uber a lot so the $200 credit is good.
Am I crazy?
I think the Citi Prestige travel credit will be easier to use and that 4th night stay can be valuable
As someone who frequently flies with AA. I find the platinum card worth while. My home airport doesnt have ANY lounges but the airports I have to connect through have Centurion Lounges. Amex is rapidily expanding their Cent lounge program this year as well. Centurion lounges are always located in AA/OW hubs if you haven't noticed.
Considering that atleast 5 AA hubs are adding lounges this year. It might be worthwhile to hold out if you connecting through those airports.
The ocassional time that I fly Delta having access to SkyClub's is nice but I only fly Delta 1-2 times a year when the cost of AA Y is higher then Delta domestic F.
The way I look at is, If you are using the Uber Benefits and recapturing the $200. Airline giftcards are super easy to buy and use on AA. So thats $400 back of the $550.
Do you use the Saks credit ? Do you ever benefit from Hilton/Mariott status ?
You can use the Saks Credit at Saks off 5th, you just have to go to a store and buy a giftcards for S.O.5th
Have you considered any of Citi's transfer partners ? What sort of redemptions are you looking to achieve with the points ? Citi's transfer partners arent quite as vaulable as Amex IMO but are still worthwhile to asia. If asia doesnt interest you, you could have very different results.
@sladesurfer wrote:
Just need some opinions. Thinking of replacing my Amex platinum to Citi Prestige. I don’t have centurion Lounge at my home airport, only fly with AA not delta maybe once a year. I do use uber a lot so the $200 credit is good.
Am I crazy?
I think the Citi Prestige travel credit will be easier to use and that 4th night stay can be valuable
What I would recommend is this. How valuable will the citi prestige card be to you? Is it going to offset the AF? Yes there are benefits on the amex plat that lower the AF from the uber credit which you use to being able to get AA GCs. This lowers the AF omn the plat card BUT it does not make it free. Since you do not really fly delta or use the centurion lounges then the prestige will cover your lounge benefits.
Things to consider with the prestige you would get a SUB. You get 5x points on airfare like the plat but also 5 times point on dining globally which pretty sweet and 3 points on hotels. There is also a $250 travel credit that is more flexible than Amex's $200 airline credit. Future benefits of the prestige will include cell phone protection. You mentioned the fourth night free stay benefit. In september this is changing and it will only be useable twice per year (most people only use it once per year anyway but for some more frequent travellers this will be a major hit) and also when you book the fourth night free deal you will no longer be able to do it via concierge so you won't necessarily get hotel loyalt points or have access to AAA rates or whatever so you would need to look closer at the tradeoffs when making a redemption. The AF is jumping up to $495 unless you are citigold/private banking. Another smaller thing to consider is with the prestige you can get trip delay reimbursement up to $500. With the amex plat you get nothing.
So in summary I would look at which card you get the most benefit out of and then look at the benefits of the other card and see what additional benefits you would get from the other card that you do not get from the first card and then just looking solely at those benefits do the calculation as the the AF on the second card to determine if it offsets the AF.
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@Anonymous wrote:
@wasCB14 wrote:I'm familiar with how to book AA metal with Avios, and Amex occasionally offers MRs-to-Avios transfer promos, I don't really know the process of booking AA metal with Cathay/Malaysia/Etihad/Qantas/Qatar. So for me, TYs are not necessarily better than MRs for AA.
Combined with other factors (lounges, credits, customer service, complementary cards) I strongly favor Amex.
What’s AA “metal”? Although I haven’t done it yet I’ve looked a few times and it seems that not many AA flights are available to book through BA. I just can’t find them. What am I doing wrong..
AA Metal is the term used by frequent flyers for a flight owned and operated by American Airlines.
You can can purchase tickets on AA.com that are sold by AA but are operated by BA and thus are considered BA Metal.
I cant really help you with the Avios issue though. I am not a fan of Avios the surcharges are ridiculous for the length of flights. It’s always some a moderately high amount of points to redeem then you tack on several hundred on YQ (surcharges).
etihad has recently changed to make AA Metal redemptions easier then it was previously. If I need to book a flight on AA and didn’t have the AA miles to do so. I would take a look at Etihad.
I recently spent some time on the phone with the call center and was surprised by the results for a program that had a reputation for being difficult to book.
A lot of the time for award bookings. Just because a flight isn’t showing online doesn’t mean it’s not bookable. If your seeing SAAver level space on AA award search, you should be able to call BA Avios line and give them the flight numbers and get it booked. You need SAAver space though. Expert flyer can help with locating space.