My American Express Credit Card Strategy: Perks & Points

Do you spend at least $1200 per month in dining on the prestige? If so, keep it.

1 marginal dining point/$ at $0.017 * 1200 * 12 months = ~$245, the annual fee net of the travel credit.

Amex = YMMV if a bank (credit card) company ever did. Examples, in the past year I had 7 credit cards (5 limit) and some doubles. I've had my share of fantastic offers and recently P2 a mail offer for a second business Platinum this time (previous 230K w/checking) 250K points/$15K spend. Together we will have accumulated very close to 1 million Amex points on just 3 card SUBs. That's hard for other card issuers to compete. Thanks Amex!

With three or four wisely chosen cards, a person will likely capture about 95 percent of the points theoretically possible given the person's spending pattern. The incremental benefit of adding another card to the mix only adds about 1.5 percent. The next card even less. The juice ain't worth the squeeze.

I’m starting to agree with this. Add to that, Amex requires us to engineer our spend to meet their credits monthly - it’s easy to lose sight of the goals with these incentives.

I just have an Amex plat for the lounge access. I take advantage of the credits when I can, but I’m not going to drive 20 miles to my nearest Equinox to say I saved $300 out of a $3k annual membership.

There is an objective component to this sort of evaluation, and there is also a subjective part.

A software tool could make the objective part. easier. I'm inclined to agree with Fred Farkle, though: for many people this will be more work than it's worth.

When you talk about overlapping perks and benefits for the card, I think it is not just about comparing it to your return on Amex cards but other cards too. Consider the benefits and categories we are talking about. Restaurants, supermarkets, travel, etc and Priority Pass, Global Entry, etc. What I find most annoying about Amex's perks is they divide it into smaller benefits such as semi annual or monthly.