With the start of the new year, I’m evaluating all my cards with annual fees. When the fee came due for the personal American Express Platinum card I decided to keep it another year as the benefits give more value than the annual fee. But that’s not the case with all cards. The big benefits of airline cards tend to be priority boarding and free checked bags which aren’t things I care about. That’s why I downgraded the AAviator Red and will cancel the business version from Citi. Those are easy decisions, but others are more complicated.
Although the personal Platinum is one I decided to keep, I’m not sure if I’ll keep the business version. They both offer Centurian lounge access which I use, but I don’t need two cards with the same benefit. The other primary benefits of the business version for me are the monthly $10 cell phone bill credit and then $200 every six months for Dell. While the cell phone credit is still great, I’ve bought everything I want from Dell. They have limited items and I just don’t need a bunch of headphones and hard drives. I’m leaning toward cancel. But at the end of 2024 American Express added a quarterly $50 Hilton credit. I live near a Hilton so I tested it at the restaurant and I got back a $50 statement credit. There have also been rumors that the Dell credit might change to something else. The fee will post in June, so I have time to see if they make changes.
I also hold the personal Gold card from American Express. When this one renews it will go up by $75 to $325. With the increase came some new benefits. There’s now a $7/month for Dunkin along with $50 twice a year for Resy restaurants. These are in addition to the prior benefits which include $10/month for Uber and another $10/month for certain restaurants (not the same as on the Resy list, so no double dipping). Although there is a Dunkin I drive past on my way to work, I’m just not that much of a fan since I don’t drink coffee. But reloads of the Dunkin card work, so I don’t need to go out of my way to use it like I will in order to use the Resy credit. Even though I could’ve used it at the end of 2024, I never ended up doing so. There are only a few restaurants near me that qualify and they just weren’t places I ever found reason to go to. I’m not likely to end up using it this year either. The card is a good earner with 4x on groceries and restaurants, but I’m pretty much always working on a sign up bonus so I don’t use the card for much regular spend. Excluding the Resy credit, I get $324 in credits I’m not necessarily thrilled to use. I’m hoping they’ll offer something in the way of retention, otherwise I just might cancel this year.
I’m also debating the Marriott card. For $95 you get a 35,000 points free night certificate. That certificate can be topped off with 15,000 points, but it expires one year from issue. Checking around I found a few hotels that I might be interested in that the certificate would work for in California as well as The Nines in Portland. It’s probably worth about a $200 night room. I do already have a use for the certificate for this year–I redeemed it for a $325 night stay at a Courtyard next to the House of Blues San Diego for the night I’ll be there for The Used concert.
The big downside is holding this Marriott card makes me ineligible for other Marriott personal cards. I’m considering product changing to the Ritz-Carlton card. That’s no longer available for sign up so I won’t be losing out on a bonus. One of its perks is a free night certificate for a room up to 85,000 points. It also has a $300 yearly travel credit and 15 elite night credits. The annual fee goes up significantly to $450, so I’ll need to make sure I have a good plan to use the certificate to its full value if I make this change.
