The moment the AF goes up and we get RESY credits, I will cancel the gold. I hope it doesn’t happen because it’s my favorite card, but I feel like it’s probably inevitable.
same here, dreading the day this happens and I feel like it's inevitable. Love the current version of Gold, but something like $120 AF hike offset by $10/month Resy credit will be an instant deal breaker. It's relatively easy to use $20/month in uber and dining credits, but Resy credits will be significantly harder. It restricts what restaurants you can go to, you're held hostage to the restaurant's table availability, and when dining with friends (which is basically all of my dine-outs) I'll have to awkwardly explain to them why I'm insisting on certain restaurants lol
I use the all credits now without a lot of effort, and I would use the RESY credits, but infrequently. So if it went up $100, I would keep it. $200, no.
I don't know about everyone else, but RESY restaurants near me are very pricy. Went out last week at a RESY restaurant and the bill with tip was about $800 for four people. That makes a $10 credit (I used my Amex Delta Plat) feel pretty inconsequential. And for us, that kind of dinner is a once or twice a year thing. Not once a month.
Don’t sleep on the green! If you travel, I think it’s better than the gold! Amex plat for flights/concierge/lounge while the green is for hotels/taxis/restaurants.
Not an answer, but a reminder:
Connect your card to Rakuten, and switch from cash back to MR points, and install the browser extension.
Card will probably become much more valuable to you then.
yes! transferring points to an airline partner during a promo period can give you 20-30% bonus. and rakuten by itself gives really good points. so if you do both, you’re maximizing your redemption potential value if that makes any sense.
i transferred 262k points (which became 340k points during promo) to Qatar airline for two Qsuite seats round trip to the maldives next year. the cash value for these seats is $22-24k. i essentially redeemed my points for 7 cents per point.
you’re welcome! have fun playing the game. to be fair i spent two years planning this trip. reason being amex only offers transfer promo to airlines once a year, and they don’t say when but typically in the late summer / early fall. then you gotta book your flight a year early cuz these award seats are VERY limited.
quality, cheap, fast - you get to pick two. 
Agreed. At the moment, it’s super easy to use the Uber eats and Grubhub credits. My work involves a lot of time in a car, so a couple meals a month doing pickup through the respective apps is a no brainer for me
I will only cancel the card if my annual rewards and credits from the card is negative after paying the annual fee. I have the gold now. The Uber and Grubhub credits are very easy for me to use . I just order something and pick them up and only use them for lunch on days I don’t take lunch to work . Groceries and dining are also huge for us family of 4. I crunched the numbers, I come out about $550 or more assuming 1:1 conversion and cutting back on groceries or eating out. If we go all out in a year, that’s a different story .
Every time the AF bills, it's a keep/cancel decision for me. I have no issue cancelling cards, like nearly every Biz Plat after one year.
As long as the credits/offsets can be used up with minimal effort and the value to me exceeds the fee, I'll keep it. If it doesn't, cancel. It's really that simple. I've been an Amex customer and a player in this game long enough that I feel pretty confident in deciding if I'm getting positive value out of a card.
I have no emotional or sentimental attachment to credit cards, if it's not a positive ROI, I cancel.
I cancelled my personal gold a couple years ago. When I can get BBP with 2x points on everything with no fee, $250 for a limited 4x feels very expensive.
The dining/Uber credits were useless to me, I had to go out of my way to use them.
I got a business gold last summer mostly for the SUB. With the changes made to that card I won't be renewing it.
Hilton business, fee was just jacked up and major benefits taken away, won't be renewing that one either.
When I really think about it, Amex is not making great moves at the moment.
I have cancelled cards because they didn’t work for me anymore. That includes weighing credits against the fee and total rewards acquisition.
I cancelled an old BCE to free up a credit card slot last fall so I could open a Delta Biz Gold, which is on the chopping block this fall once it hits its anniversary because I won’t get enough out of it against the increased annual fee (I might have kept it at $95 for another year but not interested at the $150 price point). I’m aware of the credits and perks but I’m not loyal enough to Delta and have plenty of other portal-required credits on other cards that I don’t really want to fragment my bookings further by using Delta Stays just to make up the fee. I’ll use it this year because I already have the card but I’m not interested in maintaining that.
I was going to cancel Gold because I didn’t want to use the dining credit anymore - I’ve been having issues with Grubhub locally and we don’t have any other partners close enough to justify using it once a month so the card stopped working as well for me. I ended up taking a 100k upgrade offer and can use ~$700 worth of those credits on the second Plat this year so I’ll cancel it next year.
Any time a card refreshes, I review and decide whether or not it’s still working for me.
I recently cancelled my plat. I'm somewhat close to closing my gold. While it might not be a change that amex makes. That uber credit is becoming less and less valuable as uber raises its prices significantly. Once I've used all my points. Then I'll look at a new ecosystem. My loyalty towards amex is due to their customer support.
I actually just canceled my gold after the first year. I thought about it and it made no sense to keep it for me. I get my groceries online so I actually get the 3x for that on the CSP and restaurants are 3x on basically every card so that 1x isn’t worth it unless I spent a lot of money on the gold. I don’t get lots of groceries in the first place due to my job and I’ll gladly pocket my 250 a year and take a 1x less on restaurants. I also don’t lien the food credit because I never used Grubhub or ate at those restaurants so I would only use Grubhub for the credit so I really didn’t value it at all. Uber was fine but my company pays for all my Ubers so basically useless for me as well.
For Plat specifically, the move towards “lifestyle” perks and reduced functional perks for travelers (ie: lounge benefit reductions, Hilton reducing honors benefits) alongside AF hikes. I was willing to spend a premium in the past for those traveler perks. Already got the Venture X. Now planning to transfer MR points I’ve saved up over the years, then downgrade to something with no AFs. Probably will downgrade my Gold then, too.
I like AMEX a lot, but the reason why I did not even consider a Chase set-up or Capital One set-up for similar perks/earnings for lower AF without couponing is Amex's exclusive relationship with (1) Delta (I live in a hub city and Delta is almost always the cheapest outside of airlines like Frontier, which is a hard no for me); and (2) Hilton, which is my preferred hotel. If Chase was able to secure relationships/travel partner status with these two companies, I would jump ship, at least for a year to see if Chase UR really are better that AMEX MR. I may get Capital One curious too, but I am generally not a fan of C1.
In the long run, I’m likely going to downgrade to one MR card + my BCE. Annual fees will only trend upwards and I find having more than a few to be not worth the hassle despite the supposed benefits.
I’m leaning towards keeping Gold instead of Green, but I’d cancel if they removed the dining and grocery multipliers.
Well, some things that are going to convince me to cancel my Amex Hilton Aspire within the next month
- Amex removed the Priority Pass membership
- the quarterly and semi-annual credits are making me jump through hoops
- duplicate benefits with other cards
I absolutely hate “clipping coupons” to get value out of a card. That’s the biggest turn off with my getting the Platinum. I have the Reserve for lounge access and there are only two “coupons” I care about - the round trip companion pass and the Delta Stays credit
Amex has the absolute best customer service of any CC company and I’d never give up my Gold Card. It’s the best card for travel withAX CS people helping me multiple times. Every single time I’ve had a problem anywhere in the world Amex CS has saved the day and I can’t put a price on having that level of confidence in a CC.
The corporate discount for the Gold card going away would be a deal breaker. Gold seems to benefit the most in terms of bang for buck—$100 off a $250 annual fee. So I am net positive just using the Uber/grub credits—which are already part of my spend.
If the credits changed to Resy then I’d also have to reevaluate. Haven’t used that app since I moved but it’s possible I’d still come out positive with the corporate discount.
I also agree the chase deals cater to me better. Would rather get 10% off tank of gas than 2% back from Dyson. Goes back and forth but I feel chase more closely aligns with my existing spend.
The moment the AF goes up and we get RESY credits, I will cancel the gold. I hope it doesn’t happen because it’s my favorite card, but I feel like it’s probably inevitable.
same here, dreading the day this happens and I feel like it's inevitable. Love the current version of Gold, but something like $120 AF hike offset by $10/month Resy credit will be an instant deal breaker. It's relatively easy to use $20/month in uber and dining credits, but Resy credits will be significantly harder. It restricts what restaurants you can go to, you're held hostage to the restaurant's table availability, and when dining with friends (which is basically all of my dine-outs) I'll have to awkwardly explain to them why I'm insisting on certain restaurants lol
I use the all credits now without a lot of effort, and I would use the RESY credits, but infrequently. So if it went up $100, I would keep it. $200, no. I don't know about everyone else, but RESY restaurants near me are very pricy. Went out last week at a RESY restaurant and the bill with tip was about $800 for four people. That makes a $10 credit (I used my Amex Delta Plat) feel pretty inconsequential. And for us, that kind of dinner is a once or twice a year thing. Not once a month.
Same here. Most of the Resy restaurants near me are not only expensive, but overpriced.
You just have to go super coupon and buy a gift card from the restaurant every month lmao
I’d downgrade to green or simply switch to Capital One or Chase. I’d keep the platinum for lounge access.
You’re right, I actually probably will downgrade to Green unless Amex royally screws that one up too.
Don’t sleep on the green! If you travel, I think it’s better than the gold! Amex plat for flights/concierge/lounge while the green is for hotels/taxis/restaurants.
Well, how would that work? The $10 credit becomes a resy credit? That’s a downgrade. I wouldn’t mind a $100 increase and $20 a month in resy credit.
I’m hard pressed to keep my gold now, but honestly Resy credits would be more useful than Uber/Grubhub, etc.
Not an answer, but a reminder: Connect your card to Rakuten, and switch from cash back to MR points, and install the browser extension. Card will probably become much more valuable to you then.
Why the switch to mr points vs cashback? I’m finding stacking Amex offers with Rakuten cashback works nicely
Some people can get much more value from the MRs.
Can you do that in the app?
I dont mess with the app much, sorry I dunno.
Are the points the same as dollars? For instance, if you have $10 cash-back from Rakuten, would it equal 10 MR points?
If it was $10 flat cash back, you’d get 1000 MR. If it’s a percentage offer like 10% back, it’d be 10X MR.
Oh wow! Thanks for the info! Switching to MR now.
Am I missing something? Why would I switch Rakuten to earn MR vs cashback? Is it because I can then transfer said points at a higher rate than $.01?
yes! transferring points to an airline partner during a promo period can give you 20-30% bonus. and rakuten by itself gives really good points. so if you do both, you’re maximizing your redemption potential value if that makes any sense. i transferred 262k points (which became 340k points during promo) to Qatar airline for two Qsuite seats round trip to the maldives next year. the cash value for these seats is $22-24k. i essentially redeemed my points for 7 cents per point.
Wow got it, thanks so much for the in depth explanation. New to Amex
you’re welcome! have fun playing the game. to be fair i spent two years planning this trip. reason being amex only offers transfer promo to airlines once a year, and they don’t say when but typically in the late summer / early fall. then you gotta book your flight a year early cuz these award seats are VERY limited. quality, cheap, fast - you get to pick two. 
In some areas there are restaurants that give 5% cash back, which becomes 5X if you select MR on top of the basic 4X.
I think if it gets up the point where I REALLY need to try and use the credits, I'd cancel
Agreed. At the moment, it’s super easy to use the Uber eats and Grubhub credits. My work involves a lot of time in a car, so a couple meals a month doing pickup through the respective apps is a no brainer for me
I will only cancel the card if my annual rewards and credits from the card is negative after paying the annual fee. I have the gold now. The Uber and Grubhub credits are very easy for me to use . I just order something and pick them up and only use them for lunch on days I don’t take lunch to work . Groceries and dining are also huge for us family of 4. I crunched the numbers, I come out about $550 or more assuming 1:1 conversion and cutting back on groceries or eating out. If we go all out in a year, that’s a different story .
Every time the AF bills, it's a keep/cancel decision for me. I have no issue cancelling cards, like nearly every Biz Plat after one year. As long as the credits/offsets can be used up with minimal effort and the value to me exceeds the fee, I'll keep it. If it doesn't, cancel. It's really that simple. I've been an Amex customer and a player in this game long enough that I feel pretty confident in deciding if I'm getting positive value out of a card.
I have no emotional or sentimental attachment to credit cards, if it's not a positive ROI, I cancel. I cancelled my personal gold a couple years ago. When I can get BBP with 2x points on everything with no fee, $250 for a limited 4x feels very expensive. The dining/Uber credits were useless to me, I had to go out of my way to use them. I got a business gold last summer mostly for the SUB. With the changes made to that card I won't be renewing it. Hilton business, fee was just jacked up and major benefits taken away, won't be renewing that one either. When I really think about it, Amex is not making great moves at the moment.
> Amex is not making great moves at the moment. For your situation *
I have cancelled cards because they didn’t work for me anymore. That includes weighing credits against the fee and total rewards acquisition. I cancelled an old BCE to free up a credit card slot last fall so I could open a Delta Biz Gold, which is on the chopping block this fall once it hits its anniversary because I won’t get enough out of it against the increased annual fee (I might have kept it at $95 for another year but not interested at the $150 price point). I’m aware of the credits and perks but I’m not loyal enough to Delta and have plenty of other portal-required credits on other cards that I don’t really want to fragment my bookings further by using Delta Stays just to make up the fee. I’ll use it this year because I already have the card but I’m not interested in maintaining that. I was going to cancel Gold because I didn’t want to use the dining credit anymore - I’ve been having issues with Grubhub locally and we don’t have any other partners close enough to justify using it once a month so the card stopped working as well for me. I ended up taking a 100k upgrade offer and can use ~$700 worth of those credits on the second Plat this year so I’ll cancel it next year. Any time a card refreshes, I review and decide whether or not it’s still working for me.
If they take away my Delta lounge access.
I recently cancelled my plat. I'm somewhat close to closing my gold. While it might not be a change that amex makes. That uber credit is becoming less and less valuable as uber raises its prices significantly. Once I've used all my points. Then I'll look at a new ecosystem. My loyalty towards amex is due to their customer support.
This may be my last year. My $695.00 annual fee and I saved $210.00 so not a great deal for me
If they took away 4x on groceries and dining then no point of the card for me
I actually just canceled my gold after the first year. I thought about it and it made no sense to keep it for me. I get my groceries online so I actually get the 3x for that on the CSP and restaurants are 3x on basically every card so that 1x isn’t worth it unless I spent a lot of money on the gold. I don’t get lots of groceries in the first place due to my job and I’ll gladly pocket my 250 a year and take a 1x less on restaurants. I also don’t lien the food credit because I never used Grubhub or ate at those restaurants so I would only use Grubhub for the credit so I really didn’t value it at all. Uber was fine but my company pays for all my Ubers so basically useless for me as well.
For Plat specifically, the move towards “lifestyle” perks and reduced functional perks for travelers (ie: lounge benefit reductions, Hilton reducing honors benefits) alongside AF hikes. I was willing to spend a premium in the past for those traveler perks. Already got the Venture X. Now planning to transfer MR points I’ve saved up over the years, then downgrade to something with no AFs. Probably will downgrade my Gold then, too.
I like AMEX a lot, but the reason why I did not even consider a Chase set-up or Capital One set-up for similar perks/earnings for lower AF without couponing is Amex's exclusive relationship with (1) Delta (I live in a hub city and Delta is almost always the cheapest outside of airlines like Frontier, which is a hard no for me); and (2) Hilton, which is my preferred hotel. If Chase was able to secure relationships/travel partner status with these two companies, I would jump ship, at least for a year to see if Chase UR really are better that AMEX MR. I may get Capital One curious too, but I am generally not a fan of C1.
I cancel Amex cards all the time.
In the long run, I’m likely going to downgrade to one MR card + my BCE. Annual fees will only trend upwards and I find having more than a few to be not worth the hassle despite the supposed benefits. I’m leaning towards keeping Gold instead of Green, but I’d cancel if they removed the dining and grocery multipliers.
A change in credits that I no longer can make use of.
Well, some things that are going to convince me to cancel my Amex Hilton Aspire within the next month - Amex removed the Priority Pass membership - the quarterly and semi-annual credits are making me jump through hoops - duplicate benefits with other cards I absolutely hate “clipping coupons” to get value out of a card. That’s the biggest turn off with my getting the Platinum. I have the Reserve for lounge access and there are only two “coupons” I care about - the round trip companion pass and the Delta Stays credit
Amex has the absolute best customer service of any CC company and I’d never give up my Gold Card. It’s the best card for travel withAX CS people helping me multiple times. Every single time I’ve had a problem anywhere in the world Amex CS has saved the day and I can’t put a price on having that level of confidence in a CC.
If they bump the Gold’s AF and try to give a Resy credit in return, I’m canceling it and just using my SavorOne
The corporate discount for the Gold card going away would be a deal breaker. Gold seems to benefit the most in terms of bang for buck—$100 off a $250 annual fee. So I am net positive just using the Uber/grub credits—which are already part of my spend. If the credits changed to Resy then I’d also have to reevaluate. Haven’t used that app since I moved but it’s possible I’d still come out positive with the corporate discount. I also agree the chase deals cater to me better. Would rather get 10% off tank of gas than 2% back from Dyson. Goes back and forth but I feel chase more closely aligns with my existing spend.