I had to part with my PRG today 
and its a sad day for me. The AF kicked in this month and I have been calling upon AMEX to try my luck with any retention offer. They seemed not to care about it and was ready to cancel it outright. I tried HUCA a couple of times and was offered nothing and hence I went ahead and cancelled the card today.
I will definitely miss this card for the AMEX offers and the NPSL. When I was new to credit and when many creditors where not willing to extend credit AMEX gave me the NPSL which was a boon at the time and helped me put through some spending though I have been PIF all the time.
I find the CSP and TY Premier of better use because my travel dates are usually not flexible and mostly falls on the weekends. I love the Chase Portal which helps in speeding up the points and used for redemption. I plan on adding Freedom and Prestige and some point later next year(Hopefully Chase becomes liberal on approvals. Was denied for Freedom on June) which will compliment my point earnings well.
Well, you had a good run with it, so it was good while it lasted! Now you can focus on spending with your other cards!
I sympathize because I just cancelled my Amex SPG and feel the same way. It was a good card but I didn't use it enough to justify the now increased $95 AF.
@yfan wrote:My guess is that Amex is not sorry to see you go. My guess also is raising the AFs on cards like the PRG and SPG while adding benefits was a way for them to cut out customers who care most about each additional point and get more customers who are after the benefits (and given the level of these benefits, it's probably likely these customers also charge more, resulting in more swipe fees for Amex). Both cards still have an incredibly attractive points program, but I think Amex wants the focus to be on the benefits and treatments of "membership".
The benefits added don't really justify the AF increase especially with the SPG. A hotel card should never have a FTF to begin with. I don't think anyone is paying a higher AF because of these minimal additional benefits. I also disagree about the benefits causing people to charge more. Given the value of starpoints some of us that carry this card have a tendency to put our non-category spend on the SPG, so Amex makes out quite well with these people. The changes were simply a way to try to justify the AF increase.
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@Beckhsrules wrote:I had to part with my PRG today
I will definitely miss this card for the AMEX offers and the NPSL. When I was new to credit and when many creditors where not willing to extend credit AMEX gave me the NPSL which was a boon at the time and helped me put through some spending though I have been PIF all the time.
I feel ya. My Green is on the chopping block next month..Im finding the Charge card thing just a tad obsolete. i could see if I was earning a ton of points and bonuses. But no. I may as well use my Debit card instead of the green. I don't want to hear about protection. its just merchandise. But why funnel my money thru them since its the way it is. Maybe i would think different if i had the pay over time option. But probably not. I wish i could pc it to something but its ok. Its just basically; standing at the edge of the cliff waiting to jump off.
@yfan wrote:
@red259 wrote:The benefits added don't really justify the AF increase especially with the SPG. A hotel card should never have a FTF to begin with. I don't think anyone is paying a higher AF because of these minimal additional benefits. I also disagree about the benefits causing people to charge more. Given the value of starpoints some of us that carry this card have a tendency to put our non-category spend on the SPG, so Amex makes out quite well with these people. The changes were simply a way to try to justify the AF increase.
That may be your opinion, but I am not so sure. The SPG added premium in-room Wifi, which at their properties can cost between $11 $20 a day - which means a few night's stay can easily make up the AF increase. The Boingo preferred wifi costs money in a lot of airports and a lot of flights too. The way most point-proponents here value points is they take the face value of an expense and calculate a point ratio (not whether someone would be using those properties given other alternatives). Using that standard, the SPG added benefits can quite easily double or triple the AF increase for someone able to use them even without the FTF change. And as I said, I think Amex is looking for customers who care more about the benefits than they do about maximizing points.
And of course when it comes to the PRG, the airline fee credit alone offsets the AF increase 5x over.
I have neither of these cards because I'm not really interested in fringe travel benefits. I could be drawn to the airline fee allowance potentially for luggage, but I generally have no problem packing relatively light. I am someone that looks to maximize rewards (cashback is my choice) rather than seek fringe travel benefits, making me a bad candidate for these cards.
The benefit as you mention is for premium internet. All SPG guest get complimentary internet. Also, if you book via a third party (or even on a business rate) you do not get the premium internet benefit even with the card! I guess if someone simply must have the premium internet then there is some value there, like if you are working online or doing extremely intensive stuff. Other than that the normal internet would be fine I believe. The Boingo feature does not apply to in flight internet. Only airports. I suppose for people who need the wi-fi signal and don't have lounge access it could justify the additional fee, but I think the only time I ever paid for internet access was in flight which this card won't even cover (if it applied to inflight as well that would be something of value and something I'd be really excited by). So sure it could be worth it to some people, but I think its a rather small group as the hard core road warriors will likely have status or other credit cards with more benefits that would negate the usefulness of some of these.