When it comes to the best travel portal and getting the best value for your points from premium travel credit cards, there are a few options. The Chase Sapphire Reserve with a 50% bonus when using the Chase Travel Portal, the Schwab Amex Platinum cash out with a 25% boost, and the Amex Business Platinum 35% rebate for airfare though Amex Travel. But does the larger percentage always mean best option for economy travelers?
00:00 – Start
00:31 – Uplift percentages
00:57 – CSR/Amex Uplift
1:56 – Search Parameters
2:31 – Airline Example 1
3:35 – Airline Example 2
5:03 – Airline Example 3
6:47 – Hotel Example 1
8:03 – Hotel Example 2
9:11 – Portals
11:12 – Final Thoughts
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36 comments
Only reason i ended up with the schwab platinum is becasue as a college student i couldnt afford the regular platinum cause u cant cash out points to pay for the af its been a very good experience ever since ive had it
Amex Business Platinum isn't a good card for casual travelers. Unless you are putting huge inventory or advertising spending on it ($5k+ per month), it is not worth getting.
CSR has the better travel portal, and the CS Amex Platinum has the best cash out option mixed with luxury perks.
Amex has got to change something with plat the value just isn’t there in my opinion. The service line is almost always busy who wants to call someone to talk about reservations. It’s a dated clumsy card. Think I’m just going to reduce and go with green card this year
Great content keep it up.
No one seeking the best value would use MR to book hotels through AmEx Travel at 0.7c/point. So the decision if the card is worth it shouldn’t involve how bad the bad redemptions are, and how they compare to each other. Rather, it is about if you are able to make enough use of the best-value redemptions to spend all the points you earn wisely, and how do the best redemptions compare to alternatives.
The video really highlights how restrictive the one-airline limitation for economy flights is. In travel blogs/channels there is too much focus on business class flights (to drive clicks on bank card referral links probably) but given the target demographic for the Business Platinum, it might have been useful to compare a few business redemptions. Thanks for the video 🙏🏼
Also for the direct bookings with the hotel you can use you Amex Green to get 3x points on the hotel booking and still cash out those points with the Schwab card
Very helpful comparison across the different methods. Thanks for sharing!
The flexibility of cash at 1.25 is underrated. I like this analysis for what it shows: most people will take the CSR for simplicity. I just don't see most folks shopping around like it was done on these examples.
Schwab cash out bookings also count toward status so if you have a preferred airline or hotel it has value beyond the portal multiplier.
Yikes, I just got a $200 appreciation credit, and have a $6K refund pending, but I'm dropping the Business Plat as soon as I can! Playing devil's advocate, I would factor in earning of 3X vs 4X, or dining $ swipes. Still pushes Schwab by the same margin as the business plat.
economy is a harsh comparison for the higher tier Amex cards, their target audience is business and first class travelers! Anyway love the videos!
This guy has 0 things Bank of America related.. I feel so out of place 😂
If only Amex would quit the selected airline bs!
Do you see the 35% back on the biz Plat ever winning out over just transferring out points in the cases of business/first class redemption? I imagine that will only be the case when these cash fares have a discount/promotion
Nice data on this. Always been curious which Plat to keep. Already have the plat. To get more MR would u recommend get the business Plat first, then get the Schwab? Any requirements to apply for Schwab?
If you put the 1.25c/point in a Pretax IRA, would that lower your tax burden for the year?
If you are reimbursed by your job for flights the Bus platinum is better by a mile. It goes in as a cash purchase, submit that to your company for reimbursement. Then Amex negates the charge with the points and then adds the points rebate!
I have the Schwab plat, and I always think of travel in terms of the 1.25 cash out rate. Rarely are there situations when it’s better to transfer points. Except for very recently, because hotel points are transferring at higher rates, but who knows when that will end.
Bro, where can I get a shirt like that,,,,seriously.
Call me crazy but I just can't get excited about Schwab or 1.25cpp. This hobby is fun for me because of the outsized value.
My currency has to stay in the form of points or miles. If I start turning my points into cash then it's no longer a hobby for me and I'd never travel because I'd never do with cash what I do with points.
As for the Business Platinum, there are solid plays but it comes mostly in the form is Insider Rates which I've only seen on domestic routes. American dominates here and I do book a fair amount of travel via the Amex portal while collecting 25% back from my Business Gold.
99% of my Insider Rates fares are cheaper than booking with American direct. While I’m no fan of the Business Platinum I will admit that if one looks before they leap, there is definitely ways to make the card work and receive outsized value.
While this make frost the cookies of some, I’ll say this… if you’re an economy traveler then MR points probably isn’t best for you anyway. You’d be better off with a cash back setup which can be achieved without ANY Amex cards.
Tips for the economy traveler… get yourself a BoA 3-2-1 card, a Double Cash, a Propel, and a Discover IT and ditch the points and miles altogether because unless you’re sitting front of the house then you’re never going to see the real value of transferable currency.
Okay, let the hate begin. I’ll happily take it. 😂
For me hands down charles schwab Platium and also have the Platium vanilla love it both
It's well known that the Business Platinum and Business gold just plain suck. Hopefully your videos make AMEX wake up and update these.
Hey 👋 Could you do a video on the best "set it and forget it" card/cards for a cash back strategy? I have all the basic cards and I find I cannot keep up with / not bothered to CC hack. I do travel often. Food and restaurants too. Also I find that apps like MaxRewards always have a few cards I get an error when I try adding. So I'm looking to switch to just cash back. Thanks man!
To go one step further with the CSR … for now (at least), you can "pay yourself back" to get a true 1.5x by indirectly cashing out. Then just use the airline of your choosing and the booking method of your choosing, plus "double dip" on the purchase side. Truly a "free agent!" (Altitude Reserve lets you do, that too!)
Extremely VALUABLE information. Heck of a comparison Dustin!
Yeah, for a pure travel redemption card, assuming you dont have other cards, I would probably go with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, but for flexibility and especially if combining with other Amex cards, the Schwab Platinum.
The Business Platinum has much more limited value, I would say that as a stand alone card its hard to justify. I think the Business Platinum only makes sense when you have alot of Amex points, and assuming the annual fee can be offset by the credits and retention bonuses etc. after year 1.
For me, I would not use any of those cards for hotels… With all of the great hotel programs out there, I don't see myself ever booking hotels on the Chase portal or Amex portal. I typically book hotels with hotel cards or poinrs or certificates (or the Citi Prestige for 4th night free). I would rather save my Amex, Citi, and Chase points for airfare only and use hotels programs / cards for hotel stays… As far as travel portals go, I actually also have the Expedia Voyager card, which I opened when it had that 70k signup bonus, and which gets status on the portal plus double points value on VIP hotels and potential room upgrades due to the Expedia Gold status, and I recently also opened that Hotels. com card which although it only had a single free $125 night certificate signup bonus, it gets status on the portal and allowed me to keep my 8 Hotels. com stamps alive and get a second $165 night certificate on Hotels. com… Hotels. com
can often have competitive rates on budget hitels I have found, but the shortcoming is that stamps expire after a year… But the Hotels. com card enables you to get a stamp on every $500 in spend which keeps your certificates and stamps from expiring… The one thing about the Hotels. com card is it only earns stamps, so to maximize value, I only purchase on charges where I can spend exactly $500… All other chain hotels, I prefer to use hotel cards for much higher multipliers + status, since using portals you also forfeit the points from the stays themselves at hotels… Especially at this time with annual free night certificates being so hard to redeem, I do like that I can keep my Hotels. com nights from ever expiring through credit card spending – it means that you can potentially have an extra stash of free nights at more budget hotels that you can use whenever needed…
NO CARD IS WORTH 500$ is bull shit. I have the platinum Amex. And I don’t see the point to it. Is just another way FOR THE WEALTHY FOLKS TO RIP OF THE MIDDLE CLASS. IS THAT SIMPLE. STOP THE BULLSHIT
Hi Dustin,
Would you recommend the Morgan Stanley Amex Platinum card since the entire AF fee can be waived?
Chase travel portal is king right now with the current cash value of airline tickets. Hard to find tickets that beat the 1.5 cents per point right now, even with transfer partners.
Wow. The business Platinum is straight garbage when it comes to redemptions. Thanks for this video man, it was very interesting! Take care and keep the family safe!
Glad you split up the video with bookmarks ! Made it a lot easier to navigate 🗺
Altitude Reserve must be pretty good then since it’s 1.5 cpp direct too! Too bad it’s a lot harder to get.
Do you have a Schwab referral code we can use?
I was looking to stay at a Loews and use the SC Platinum offer of $50. I was just about to book thru the amex portal but just happen to check Loews hotel site, they were offering $75 daily food/beverage package!! so I booked direct with the hotel, still got the $50 back from the SC Plat offer and points!! I love this cc game 😂
🙌🏾