First, congrats! Second, is the draw of the Business Platinum for you just the MR points? Since you cancelled the other ones the benefits were not enough of a draw?
I am in this weird holding pattern right now with what card to get. Trying to decide if I care about 5/24 with Chase. I also want to start with MR points. I can transfer them and help my sad Delta status. If nothing else they would be nice to have with the awesome
Amazon promotions. I keep going back and forth which MR card to get. Just get the no fee Blue Business you all have talked about? Or just go for broke and all the miles and get a Platinum? If I figure I am getting 100k miles out of it I figure the $450 AF is "worth it" for at least one year.
Expanding on my earlier reply,
I love having an Amex Platinum, love its benefits – but it's a perks card more than a big earner that makes a card a “keeper” for ongoing spend for me.
So why cancel?
The big MR points that I get from holding a Platinum comes from the signup bonuses (and there are several varieties to churn through), not spend.
Back when MPX was coding as an airline ticket and earning 5x MR on the personal Plats, it would have been a no brainer for me to keep a personal Plat in my wallet. But Amex killed 5x MR on MPX. During that run, I put about $25k on my first Platinum -- most of it through MPX. Chump change compared to some MSers and 1%-ers, but I really think that spend helped get me a 30k MR, no spend required, retention offer. I should have taken it, but the AF was due at the same time the MB Plat was going to be discontinued. So I went for the 60k MR signup bonus on the MB Plat over the 30k MR offer to keep my vanilla Plat. I didn't want to be paying 2x $550 AFs, and the math on coming out ahead or breaking even on the Plat gets harder to justify in the second year.
Without meaningful bonus categories on the Plat – 5x MR on flights booked directly with airlines and Amex Travel, and prepaid hotels booked through Amex Travel – I just don’t see myself putting very much spend on my MB Plat beyond the MSR and Amex Offers. I’ll travel a few times a year, and for 3x UR, booking flights with the CSR comes with better travel protections, and I can usually find a better deal on booking hotel stays than prepaid through Amex Travel, never mind using points for air and hotel. Consequently, I don’t expect a good retention offer this year.
Which is fine, because Amex has other flavors of Plats to churn through that’ll continue to give me the perks I love. I just picked up the Biz Plat for 100k. I’ll go for the Charles Schwab Plat after that for another 60k signup and because of its cash out ability. (I remember reading a few months back that a blogger was able to get the Morgan Stanley Platinum on some low-cost account without having to have millions managed by Morgan Stanley. Might be worth looking into.)
The problem though is if I want to keep the perks from a new Plat almost every year, it’s going to cost me a slot with Chase. I’m 4/24, with cards dropping in December and February. There are still Chase cards I want, which has slowed me down with Amex but I might be ok going past 5/24 next year.
Which card for you?
I don’t think you can go wrong with either a 100k MR Platinum or the Blue Business Plus (“BBP”).
Keep in mind the personal (“vanilla”) Plat has a public offer of 60k, incognito offer of 75k, and a highly-targeted offer of 100k, after $5k spend in 3 months, with a $550 AF; and it’ll cost you a slot with Chase when it reports about 2 months after opening. The personal Plat comes with a few extra benefits not on the Biz, like $200 in Uber credits ($15/mo, $35 in December) and a $50 Saks statement credit. We’ve broken down the benefits vs. the fee previously.
The Biz Plat has a public offer of “up to” 100k if you meet a tiered spend totaling $25k in 3 months. The call-in offer that was reported on reddit, posted on DoC, and I got approved for is 100k/$10k/3 months for a $450 AF, which is about the best offer on this card in a while. And, as a biz card, it won’t show up on your credit report or count against 5/24. I was on the phone for about 18 minutes total, spoke with a nice rep, said I was interested in the Biz Plat and understand there’s a 100k MR/$10k offer, he confirmed that offer is available right now, he asked about my business – I went with my online sales/resale business because I’ve been doing a lot of that lately and had my numbers (I did have over $11k in sales last year, others have been approved with much less revenue) and story ready – asked about how I planned to use the card – inventory to increase my online sales – expenses – varies by season, market prices and trends, lots of reading from long disclosures, asked me the same questions as on the online application, more long disclosures, submitted the application, pitched me other Amex cards, and approved. Yay! It was a lot less harmless than I expected.
The BBP is a no fee card that can hold your MRs, but it’s also a solid daily driver because it earns 2x MR on everything up to $50k/year. And it’s a biz card that won’t report to your credit report or count against 5/24. I still want the BBP, but I keep pushing it out since I have other MR-earning cards open and my Chase cards usually earn me better than 2x.
There’s a
20k MR/$5k/3 months targeted offer, and there’s a
10k MR/$3k/3 months public offer, which you’ll notice has a lower MSR. The public offer is the same as the referral offer on this card, so if you’re interested in that offer you should go through a support link instead. If you want to try for the 20k offer, see if you’re targeted at DoC’s links above, call in to ask for it, or someone commented on DoC that you can get targeted for the 20k offer if you log into your Amex account, start a BBP application but not finish it, then wait for Amex to send you an email with the 20k offer.
This is a lot longer than I intended to write, but I hope it helped!
My my how quickly plans change around here.
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