Maybe it's only my anecdotal experience, but I've seen a lot more merchants lately flat out stop accepting expensive payment methods like Amex, and these were all merchants that I had previously been able to use Amex at before.
1. Competing card companies offer much better cards than they used to, and include benefits that only Amex used to provide. For example, Visa Signature and Mastercard's competing product offer return coverage, extended warranties, free rental car insurance, etc.
2. One of the main draws of accepting Amex was that Amex's customer base was more affluent than that of other card companies, but that is no longer the case, partly because of #1.
3. Amex lost the Costco deal. That's a loss of a great deal of credit card fees, and 10% of Amex cards were the Costco card.
The court case was also seen as a blow, but maybe not if it got reversed on appeal. In any case, there are plenty of other problems for Amex to worry about.
http://thepointsguy.com/2016/01/maximizing-amex-platinum-in-...
I'm old and busy; I'll pay for covenience in life, which is why I've kept the card up to this point.
EDIT: Almost forgot: I have had the need to pay for a friend to be airlifted out of a central american country due to a medical emergency, and Amex was the only card willing to auth a low five figure amount with just a phone call to pay the helicopter fee. I have yet to find another financial provider who'll do that.
[+] Cost of customer acquisition in credit cards is $250 on the low end.
Interesting. Would you consider it feasible to do so for a card you don't have yet (i.e. obtaining a new card without its associated annual fee), or would you only consider that plausible as an existing customer of such a card?
And does that apply to the large vendors (such as Amex or Chase), or only to smaller ones?
I am unaware of any CC issuer in the US of any size or segment which, as a matter of policy, refuses all requests of this matter. It comes down to policies and often a judgment call by a line cSR.
The important thing is that we're not going out of our way to justify the cards, we're simply operating our household expenses the same way we would be on a $0 card.
The difference is we use our points to buy everyone in our family pnice Christmas gifts, can get pre-sale access to shows/concerts (that is admittedly underutilized now that we have three kids), access to airport lounges, double up on hotel points, get discounted airfare upgrades, and things like expense categorization in the web portal. We get frequent discount offers for things we normally purchase, instant alerts for weird transactions that I can handle from my phone.
For us it pencils out. For someone or a family without the recurring expenses we have and doesn't travel very often, it wouldn't be worth it.
Chase reserve is 300 back in "travel" expenses which include parking/tolls/flights/uber. Assuming you have any of those expenses, it's a 150 card. Redeeming points is 1.5x more value if done through the reserve, travel/restaurants give 3x points. If you spend 4k a year on restaurants/travel, you'll break even.
So why get it if I have to spend >4k to break even? Because there is (was?) a 100,000 point signup bonus worth 1000 dollars cash or 1500 dollars in flights/more if transferred for a ticket. I'll break even on the yearly fee just from flights that I'm taking so it's 1000 dollars for "free".
If you're a chase ultimate rewards user, you should have the csr for the 1.5x redemption. If you like free money, you should have the csr and meet the spending requirement for the bonus.
By fiddling with credit cards, I'll save over 3k this year while traveling. There are people who do far, far more.
For people who travel a lot, for example, an annual travel credit + Global Entry fee covered + lounge access + redeemable points from spending on the card provides much, much more than $450 in value. Back when I flew more than I do now, several of the available cards had returns for me well above the cost of their annual fees.
I have a Barclays Aviator (old US Airways, now American Airlines) card, and although it has a $195/yr annual fee, I get $100 back for renewing my Global Entry card. This is in an addition to free checked baggage on American Airlines flights and group 1 boarding.
I usually fly enough that it pays for itself with the bag fees alone. The extra 1 year warranty on purchases has also saved me as well.
For many people traveling and eating out, the 4.5% will easily cover the $130 expense and so you easily make up the yearly fee.
Since I switched a while back from flying American to flying Delta, I looked into getting Delta's branded card, which is Amex... except my current apartment doesn't take Amex for rent payments. So I'd be unable to hit the thresholds to make the card pay for itself.