Some people avoid signing up now for premium credit cards due to their benefits being centered on travel, something most of us are doing little these days. We can hope that as the year progresses travel will become something more and more feasible.
There were recent card enhancements on the AmEx Platinum card and Citi Prestige card which caught my eye from a purely cash perspective.
- The American Express Platinum consumer card released a new offer to get $30 per month on Paypal transactions, and the offer is valid through June 30. If you signup now, you should be able to get six $30 credits. That’s an easy $180 to help increase the value of the Platinum card, or you can think of it as offsetting the $550 annual fee. The case for the Platinum card is especially compelling given the amazing signup bonus, still ongoing, of 100,000 points with $5,000 spend + 10x at grocery/gas for 6 months (or even 125,000).
- Of course you’ll also get the $200 airline incidental credit twice, and the Uber & Saks credits as well.
- (There are also free money AmEx Offers on the personal Platinum for $100 at Best Buy, $100 at Home Depot, $60 at Wine Insiders, $50 at Home Chef. However, from what I understand, it’s stated clearly that all of these offers are only for cardholders who had their cards before 11/1/2020, so probably won’t work for new cardmembers.)
- The Citi Prestige $250 annual travel credit will be able to be used at grocery and restaurants through December 31, 2021. Most people consider these categories to be almost as good as cash versus the typical travel category where some might struggle to use.
Interestingly, the Prestige card resets the $250 based on your December statement date, not based on December 31. If you signup for the Prestige anytime throughout this year, you should be able to get in both your 2021 and 2022 credits under the grocery/restaurants categories by spending $250 there before your December cutoff date and $250 between your December statement close and December 31, 2021. The $500 in credits during the first year more-than-covers the annual fee of $495.Actually, the Prestige year now renews on January 1st, not with the December closing, so you won’t be able to get two credits with grocery/restaurant spend.
(Some of the above thinking could have applied in prior months as well due to the streaming credits, etc. I’m writing this simply from a forward-looking standpoint.)
A lot of people will want to go for the Platinum due to increased signup bonus + $180 in credits, and to leave the Prestige for the time being until you’d be able to make better use of the benefits.
Someone who struggles to use the $250 Prestige travel credit might want to signup for that card as well. There’s no rush on that as we now know the credit categories are expanded through December 31. So you can wait a while to see if any better signup offer comes throughout the year and apply then. The Prestige card comes with a signup bonus of 50,000 points. (Note: the Premier card has a higher bonus of 60,000 points.)
Likewise, it could be an interesting time now to upgrade your Green/Gold card to Platinum. And later this year it’s worth contemplating an upgrade on your Preferred/Premier card to Prestige.
View Comments (61)
Great analysis in this post. Thanks DoC!
Some people avoid signing up now for premium credit cards due to their benefits being centered on travel.
Some people are just in pop-up jail. ☹️
That’s where I’m at. I’m not willing to put a bunch of spend on the only AmEx card I have (the AmEx Everyday) in the hope of being released from pop-up jail.
Doubt it works -- put hundreds on BBP (legit spend) for 6 months with no change
I have an upgrade offer from gold to platinum with 25000 bonus, is it worth it to get this now?
I had platinum in the past
I think it'd be worth it for you and anyone who had it previously. I kind of made the mistake of upgrading without having had it, mostly because I wanted the extra credits last year (and now this year) without the extra 5/24 hit. With the extra credits, I think that deal is worth it for most people. Also, the lower spend requirement has its perks for those of us who don't want to put so much time into the hobby (MS, etc).
I have the same offer spend $2k in 3 months to get 25k MR. The big question is if we had our Gold cards before 11/1/20 will the upgraded Plat also get these great Amex offers? It worked the other way around for another reader Plat downgraded to Gold & they got the offers. 25k MR isn't much, will have to see what past upgrade offers were. For sure we will get the $180 Paypal.
I got an offer to upgrade my Gold to Platinum to get 60,000 MR with $5,000 spend in three months. I think between the PayPal, Uber and airline credit, it's worth doing. I can get the MR bonus without a hard pull and could get another Chase card in a few months, as I'm under 5/24. I'll definitely spend more on dining in the first six months of the year, so I hate to lose the 4x dining on Gold, but shifting non-bonus dining to the 3x on Freedom Flex should offset it.
Too much struggle to offset AF, Amex didn't even had a single BA Avios transfer bonus last year. Not gonna jump into this for foreseeable future.
I just finally went for it and applied for the Amex Platinum. I have been waiting for that 100k on cardmatch for months and it never materialized. 75k isn't bad SUB and the 10x first 6 months basically makes the annual fee a wash in the first year. I was torn being at 4/24 but I have accumulated all the Chase cards I wanted, and if I change my mind, that is what p2 is for.
There are 100k referrals on FM from many readers.
I don't know how I missed that FM referral. Well I'm boned. Oh well lol Hopefully someone learns from my splat of an application.
Did you try to get the 100k through incognito?
Yep, I tried all the tricks. Incognito in Chrome. Then I tried other browsers like FireFox and Explorer. Just wasn't happening for me.
These are pretty litty deals. These grocery credits work towards visa gift cards at walmart right ?
AFAIK Walmart never codes as grocery. On the Citi deal TOS it probably falls under "general merchandise/discount superstores" - which are ineligible for the credit. Though I don't use Citi so I can't verify what counts for them
>>Though I don’t use Citi so I can’t verify what counts for them
Thanks for the valuable insite.
Just to clarify, how does the prestige credit work? If I sign up now the $250 will reset on December? So I can use $250 credit from January to end of Nov 2021 and then use another $250 between Dec 2021 to Jan 2022?
Based on December statement close
"That’s an easy $180 to help increase the value of the Platinum card, or you can think of it as offsetting the $595 annual fee."
Shouldn't the annual fee be $550, since you are referring to the consumer/personal version?
Fixed, thanks
This, plus the MSR for the offer mentioned is $5K, not $15K.
Fixed, thanks
Correct, the 15k is the limit for the 10x grocery offer, not the MSR
Have fun trying to use Saks credits on items that aren't still backordered from last year.
I’ve had 3/4 of my Saks orders cancelled since using my $50 credits
What do you mean by you'll get the airline incidental twice? Are you implying 2021 and 2022?
Yes