@espnjunkie wrote:
Yeah Amex green is my first prime card, but I figure by winter this year I will have ten months or so of solid history with AMEX and my longest account will be 1.5 years old. History is still kinda short, but there are no other real reasons for them not to accept me. I am not going to use MR points on my green card for anything but saving for miles, so why am I going to bother keeping the green open and pay a higher annual fee? Plus you can use 1,000 star points and get 50% off the rack rate at Starwwod hotels.
I'm staying away from this discussion of who Amex should/should not accept b/c the whole thing reeks of elitism but I wanted to address my dissapointment with the SPG card. I applied for it after hearing everyone over at FT and all the travel blogs rave about it. Got a great CL and APR but the benefits are not as good as them seem off the bat.
-The AF is currently $65 but as recently as a few years ago it was only $35 or 40. That is almost a 100% jump in AF with no justifiable increase in benefits to match it. Who is to say that they don't up in again in the near future? Even at $65, there are competitive hotel cards that give elite status, free night certificates annually, no foreign transaction fees, etc. that SPG does not.
-For a hotel card that charges a premium AF, it amazes me that they still charge a 2.7% forex fee even if you use it at Starwood properties overseas. That completely offsets any benefit you would gain from using the card outside domestic properties.
-SPG advertises no black out dates for reward nights but it only applies to "standard rooms," once those rooms are gone so is availability for free nights or C&P.
-If you do some research there has been the slow and steady issue of category creep. Starwood has not changed the point values needed to redeem a room, they've just added higher categories and slowly moved hotels to higher categories effectively increasing the points needed for redemption. There is a lot of talk over at FT now since NYC was completely devalued this year due to category creep.
-There are usually cheaper hotel options in any given city than the comparable Starwood hotel. Just searching Expedia, Priceline, etc. and I have been able to find deals that trump the 2.3% return on my SPG card. Furthermore a lot of hotels no longer charge extra for WIFI or breakfast, but Starwood full service properties largely still do.
-The 50% off certificates are pretty useless. It is 50% off the rack rate which is outrageously inflated. I tried booking one of these and it ended up that the best available rate was still cheaper.
I think the saving grace of the Starwood card, and what most at FT do outside C&P redemptions is transfer to FF partners. Since you need to spend $20K to collect the 25% transfer bonus, it is logical that this card is most effectively used by high spenders. From what I understand airline miles have the highest value when redeeming for premium tickets rather than domestic economy anyways.
