Tag Archives: American Express

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Keep, Cancel or Convert? American Express Platinum Delta SkyMiles Credit Card ($250 Annual Fee)

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Updated 8/11/20 at 8:35am: The $1.38 credit adjustment posted to my account and and I now have a $0 balance on my credit card.

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend and your week is off to a great start.  As part of my Keep, Cancel or Convert? series, I like to evaluate and reevaluate credit cards to make sure they still deserve a spot in my wallet.  In today’s post, I will review my American Express Platinum Delta SkyMiles Credit Card, which I wrote about last year in My July App-O-Rama Credit Card Results (Spoiler: 4 out of 5 Approved).  I signed up for this credit card when there was a limited time sign up bonus of 70,000 Delta SkyMiles after spending $3,000 in 3 months.  After completing the minimum spending requirement and receiving the sign up bonus, I didn’t put any more spend on this credit card.  When the $250 annual fee posted to my account, I called American Express to see if they could waive the annual fee.  Here are the results of my retention call.

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Changes to American Express Credit Card Terms (Bye Ameriprise, Third Party Purchases, Foreign Currency & Cash Advances)

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Good evening everyone.  Earlier this week, I reviewed my Wells Fargo credit card statements and spotted some changes to the terms.  I wrote about those changes here: Changes to Wells Fargo Credit Card Go Far Rewards Terms (eGC, Forfeiture at Death, Misuse / Gaming & ATM Limits).  For today’s post, I reviewed my recent American Express statements and compiled all the changes I saw on my cards.  Nothing super interesting stood out to me, but I did see mentions of Ameriprise, third party purchases, paying in foreign currency, cash advances, and a few other things.  Here is my attempt to provide some insight about these changes.  Just a heads up that American Express likes to repeat the same information in different places.  This first section covers Ameriprise cards, earning points with third party purchases, and the arbitration process.

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My 1 Year Wedding Anniversary Trip to Carmel, Monterey, and Big Sur

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  Yesterday (July 27) was my 1 year wedding anniversary – what a crazy year it has been!  If you are unfamiliar with our love story, please read Quick Update Regarding the Old 150x British Airways Avios & Match.com Promo.  Long story short, I joined Match.com because British Airways was running a huge promo and offering thousands of British Airways Avios.  In the end, I didn’t get the Avios, but I did get the girl and we got married in Sonoma, CA on July 27, 2019.  Last weekend, we drove down to Carmel / Monterey / Big Sur for our anniversary.  Here is where we stayed and ate during our trip…

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Grant & Laura’s Wedding Day – July 27, 2019

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Contact American Express via Chat Regarding Missing $10 Dining Credit on AMEX Gold Card

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Good morning everyone.  Long story short, I contacted American Express via chat because I had an issue with the monthly $10 dining credit on my American Express Gold Card.  I was a procrastinator in June and used my AMEX Gold Card to make a Grubhub purchase on June 30 (to trigger the June $10 dining credit).  The purchase posted the following day on July 1 and the $10 dining credit posted to my account on July 4.  The next day on July 5, I made another Grubhub purchase (to trigger the July $10 dining credit).  I immediately received the “Great news! You just used your Amex Offer” email from American Express.  Fast forward to today and I was still waiting for the $10 dining credit to post to my account.  I reached out to American Express via their chat feature.  Here is my conversation with the AMEX Rep and my thoughts…

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Why I Redeemed 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back Feature

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I recently had a change of heart and decided to redeem 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back feature.  Chase introduced the Pay Yourself Back feature on May 31 and I wrote How to Redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards Points via Pay Yourself Back (1.5 Cents Per Point for Restaurants, Grocery Stores & Home Improvement).  Initially, I was not very excited about the new feature, since I convinced myself that I could use my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points in other ways and get more than 1.5 cents per point.

After realizing that I had no concrete travel plans remaining in 2020 (I recently cancelled trips to Boston & New York along with a big trip to Africa), I figured that my stash of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points would probably not be used much this year.  Before redeeming 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, I looked at Chase’s travel partners to see if there were any major reasons to keep my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.  Chase has 13 airline and hotel partners, but only has 4 exclusive partners (Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, IHG, and Hyatt), the remaining 9 travel partners are accessible with American Express Membership Rewards Points, Citi ThankYou Points, and Capital One Miles.

My wife and I have ~58,000 Southwest Airlines points and ~$150 in travel credit, so I would not need to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to Southwest Airlines.  I am not a huge fan of United Airlines and can usually book Star Alliance flights with other travel programs, plus I have ~$178 travel credit from a cancelled United flight.  IHG points are worth ~0.5 cents per point and I have ~222,000 IHG points in my account.  Last but not least, Hyatt is the only travel partner that stands out from the list.  I decided to save at least 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points just in case we stay at a Hyatt later this year).

I figured that normal spending on our Chase Ink Cash Credit Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card, and Chase Freedom Credit Card this year would replenish our Chase Ultimate Rewards Points balance by the end of 2020.

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