[quote=Nazzy_17]Yes, definitely just a status symbol and the only time it seems to get you something is when you check-in to a fancy hotel with the card-you can try and finagle an upgrade or when you book a trip through Amex there’s some type of upgrade – however, I’ve noticed that the prices on Amex is slightly higher than booking through Expedia – so an iffy benefit there.
When I was researching the card, it seems to benefit travellers – $200 annual airline credit(so depending on when you pay the annual fee and it crosses over into another calendar year you already get back $400 for bag fees, wifi, misc airline fees) and is a bonus to access lounges and priority boarding and bypass security checkpoints for international travel. Having said that I don’t travel enough to benefit from all of this and was lucky that my annual fee was waived because I got the card through Ameriprise-fee free for the first year. If they try and charge me the fee next year, I will cancel since I don’t reap the $450 back. THE BEST CARD HANDS DOWN IS AMEX BLUE CASH – I think they changed their rewards program but i basically get back around $2,000 year that I take as statement credits every month. They offer around 3 % for gas and grocery purchases (average after you cross the tiers).[/quote]
Just saw this Nazzy (see post, above). The Blue Cash Preferred is a screaming deal offering 6% cash back at grocery stores (for up to $6K in purchases per yr but I would never buy that much). This card was just released on 4/2/14 (in its present form). You may want to switch yours out and pay its $75 annual fee:
The only caveat is that you likely wouldn’t qualify for the $150 stmt credit after your first $1K on the card because you are already a “Blue Cash” cardholder.
edit: A “big box” store is not considered a “grocery store” by AMEX. They consider those “gen’l mdse” stores and thus only award 1% cash back on those purchases.
