With the impending loss of American Airlines Admirals Club access for my Platinum card, I’ve been wondering what to do with it lately.  Previously, I had waived my hands and justified the $450 annual fee with its $200/yr airline fee reimbursement to get my cost of lounge access down to $250/yr, far below the discounted rate for Executive Platinum members.  (Plus, I’ve made occasional use of the card to visit US Airways Clubs and Priority Pass lounges.)  I’m still not sold on the swanky American Express Centurion Lounges, as I spend most of my time in airports with disconnected terminal buildings (JFK, LAX, and SFO) rather than those with a unified airside concourse (DFW).

Yesterday, American Express announced two new benefits for the card:

• Beginning in June, cardholders will get free worldwide Boingo access.  I currently pay $12.95/mo for domestic Boingo access, so I’d be able to drop this in favor of the card-provided benefit in a few months.  After adjusting for Boingo and the airline fee reimbursement, my effective cost of holding the card is about $95/year.  There’s still some benefit from Priority Pass and the global aspect of this Boingo offer that I’m not accounting for.
• As an alternative to the Global Entry fee reimbursement, American Express will cover the TSA Precheck enrollment fee.

Deals We Like mentions that Citi is now offering a 100k signup bonus and a $200 statement credit (for spending $10k in 3 months) for the AAdvantage World Elite Mastercard.  This card has a $450 annual fee but includes an Admirals Club membership.

Historically, I’ve used my American Express Platinum card for AA and US lounge access, justifying the card’s $450 fee to myself with the $200 annual statement credit and the lounge access.  With Amex cardholders losing access on March 22nd, I’m looking for alternatives.  While AA considerably expanded its lounge access policies on JFK-LAX/SFO in the fall of 2012, my upgrades don’t always clear on American and I don’t always fly on nonstops from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

At the moment, I’m pondering how the Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage card can offer a 10% rebate on AA redemptions (up to 10k per year) but the World Elite card cannot.

I rarely peddle credit cards on this site (for starters, I don’t maintain affliate links), but I couldn’t help but notice the benefits on the revamped Virgin America credit card described by MileCards.

Comenity Bank (there’s an issuer you don’t hear every day) is offering two cards, a basic version ($49 annual fee) and a “premium” version ($149 annual fee).  Notably, the premium card includes a change fee waiver on VX flights.

While I’ve never paid a change fee on a revenue ticket (largely because the fees incentivize me to fly my original booking), this comes as useful perk for the VX loyalist who won’t fly Southwest (or earn MVP Gold with Alaska).

One Mile at a Time came across an Amex Platinium card offer for 100k membership rewards points after $3k of spending in 3 months.

I currently hold the card, as the airline fee waiver knocks effective fee down to an $250 per year, providing me discounted access to the American Airlines Admirals Club (normally $300-350/year for EXPs).

United is currently offering a 5k mileage bonus for spending $1k between August 1st and October 31st, including spending from prior to registration.  Given that these sorts of promotions ought to encourage marginal spending, the lack of advertising for it (I saw it on View from the Wing who saw it on Milepoint) defies common sense.

Last year, I picked up the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card when they were running a 40k miles after first purchase promotion.

Alaska offers its members using the card a 1K mile bonus on each booking.  At the time, I figured I would pick up Alaska-coded American Airlines flights occasionally when the AS-coded flights were cheaper or the same price as American’s own flight numbers.  Since making Executive Platinum last year, I’ve stuck to American-marketed and operated flights for the sake of my complimentary upgrades, so this part of my plan didn’t quite work out.  As of a few days ago, Alaska quietly inserted the note in July statements that the booking bonus was going to end August 1st.

As a further enticement of the card, Alaska offered a $110 companion ticket for cardholders annually good on any fare (for itineraries entirely on Alaska metal).  Since Alaska offers rather cheap, fully-flexible first class fares from Newark to Hawaii, this can be quite a bargain.  Consider a simple United fare to Kauai around Labor Day weekend:

This particular itinerary is far from ideal:  The JFK-LAX and HNL-EWR flights aren’t eligible for complimentary upgrades (even if I do like p.s.).  The same itinerary in Business or First Class on United runs about $2500 per person.

While American is a bit more expensive, I would almost certainly be assured complimentary upgrades as an Executive Platinum member (albeit at the cost of 20 500-mile stickers to upgrade a companion for the entire trip) or could easily burn 4 of my spare systemwides to upgrade:

In contrast, a first class itinerary on Alaska Airlines for a single traveler runs $1695.  The companion ticket adds $167.50 to this ($110 for the ticket, $57.50 in excise taxes).

While it is not an ideal itinerary, the total all-in cost of airfare per person comes to $931.25 for first class.  The class of service bonus (~5k RDM if crediting to American) and ability to save my RPUs and GPUs with United makes the small price increase very tolerable. (If combined with an easily available Avios award for 4.5k points per person on American for an early morning BOS-JFK segment, the inbound overnight in Seattle can be avoided by taking the SEA-BOS redeye operated by Alaska.)

Today, the companion ticket has been restricted to coach fares effective August 1st.  To make matters worse, Alaska-operated flights in coach out of EWR tend to be expensive…

While $1400 or so ($1275 plus the companion fare and its excise taxes) is a bit cheaper than my sample United itinerary would be for two, the cost of an overnight in Seattle each way (or an overnight on the outbound and a BOS-JFK Avios award on the return) eats up most of the cost savings.

While I do not have nearly as much invested in Alaska as say American or United (I’ve only flown 6 Alaska-operated one-ways on the LAX-SEA route and I have the credit card), I’m still left to grumble about these “changes I’m going to like” that I had thought were confined to Jeff Smisek’s Continental Airlines d.b.a. United Airlines.

There’s another mourner:  Seth at The Wandering Aramean.  The loss of both the 2% cashback and no foreign transaction fees have left me searching for a new primary credit card.