Over the last week there's been much teeth gnashing among the various travel communities regarding the loss of lounge privileges (For the "new" American lounges) on the American Express Platinum Card. Many points-chasers/travelers have openly considered getting rid of the card. Unsurprisingly, this generated a flurry of responses from some of the (too many) miles and points bloggers. To wit....
The Points Guy:
So here’s how I see the card’s benefits valuation breaking down.
Sign-up bonus: I value Amex MR at 1.8 cents a piece, so the 25,000 points that both the personal and business Platinum cards come with right now = $450. However, the bonus sometimes goes up to 50,000 points or even 100,000 points, so if you do not yet have this card I might wait for one of those offers to come around. I’m going to leave this out of my final valuation, but just in case you were wondering. Rather, I’m basing my overall valuation off the value you can get from these benefits every year.
Airline Reimbursement: $200
Lounge Access: $200
Global Entry: $100
Starwood Gold Status: $100
Hilton Gold Status: $100
Fine Hotels & Resorts: $200
Purchase Protection: $100
One Mile At a Time:
•You receive a $200 airline fee credit per year just for having the card, which can in practice sometimes be redeemed for airline gift cards. As far as I’m concerned this essentially lowers the annual fee on the card to $250, since those gift cards are “good as cash” to me.
Matthew Klint on Live and Let's Fly:
The terms and conditions are a bit fuzzy, but I have now used this credit in both 2013 and 2014 to buy a $200 gift card from united.com, good for travel system wide, and received a $200 credit from American Express just a few days later both times.
It's all amazingly similar isn't it? That's not surprising when we find out that American Express has been pushing the same argument:
A Bumpy Take-Off for the Year in Travel, Joe Sharkey, NY Times:
American Express has been arguing that its Platinum Card has other perks that make the $450 annual fee worth the price, including $200 in reimbursements for airline fees, reimbursement for the $100 fee to join the federal Global Entry quick-pass program for travelers re-entering the country after international trips and a host of other travel-related services and benefits.
Now, to be up front, I have no problem with bloggers who are making a very good income off of referral links promoting the company line. However, I do think that, just as there's an ethical need to advertise such financial gain, many bloggers need to point out the source of this defense and that it was disseminated by American Express. Now, I'm almost certain that every one of these bloggers will, hand on heart, say that they came up with these very similar, very detailed answers independently. But there's just no way. Especially when you consider that, in many cases, the wording was almost exactly the same.
This brings us back to the original point of the post: What are miles and points bloggers really?
It's becoming more obvious that they are compensated sales agents and spokes-persons for the credit card companies. This is OK except when they pretend to be offering unbiased advice to the traveler. You need to understand where your information is coming from, that's vital in any industry.
For my part I could care less whether or not you keep your American Express Platinum card. I don't have one myself, and AmEx doesn't pay me a dime to have an opinion one way or another. The devaluation, on first glance, looks to be fairly severe and there is a huge loss of value there. Whether or not you feel the remaining perks are worth it is entirely a personal decision made on your value system. Good luck with that, just don't fall for credit card company contractors who have a skin in the game. Make your own decisions. After all, some of these bloggers don't even review the stuff the companies feed them before publication.
