hottakes

American Express (esp Platinum) is insanely overrated

Founding team @pods | Engineer | Farcaster OG #481

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Don't even get me started! 😅 

At a high level:

- It's a glorified coupon book: you have to put in work to recoup the value, and even then, the annual fee dwarfs it.

- It's an outdated status symbol that too few people re-evaluate from first principles in 2024/2025.

Could literally write 10,000 words on this topic and break it down way further, but suffice it to say, I have or have tried all of the premium credit cards and I'd take a Venture X or even a Sapphire Reserve wayyyyy before an Amex Platinum.

It's just so hilariously off the mark. SoulCycle/Equinox? Cool... airline credit? Only for incidentals. Hotel credit? Only at very expensive hotels where that amount of money is a rounding error.

Could go on and on, I don't know what they're doing over there 😑

Michelada connoisseur. Chief Onchain Officer at /area51 since 2022 AD. Focused on digital art, tech & crypto. https://msha.ke/gramajo

It was a little bit better historically, but it just doesn't live up to the hype these days.

My Capital One Venture X ($395/year) easily pays for itself with almost zero effort, I get 2% back on everything (vs the Plat is only worth using on flights specifically), and I can add additional cardholders for free.

Plus, the lounges are way better and less crowded, the travel portal is actually sick (previously Hopper iirc), it serves as primary insurance for car rentals, the app/site are really good, etc...

Amex just keeps adding dumb coupons and increasing the annual fee 🤷‍♂️

I’d say Amex customer service to me has always been great which is a defining factor for me. Been in the cc game for close to 10 years but I agree on this take