We’ve seen many changes in the ultra-premium credit card market this year, and it seems that we are not yet done learning about ultra-premium card changes. It has long been rumored that Amex will soon refresh their Platinum card lineup. In anticipation of that refresh and in the context of things like the launch of the Strata Elite card and changes to the Sapphire Reserve and Altitude Reserve cards, a reader recently emailed to ask, “What do you think Amex needs to do about category earn rates to remain competitive?”. The truth is that I don’t expect broad changes to the Platinum card’s category bonuses, but the question did make me contemplate which features I would like to see on the next big ultra-premium credit card.
A wish list, not predictions
To be clear, I’m not predicting the Amex Platinum refresh — I don’t expect much from that beyond changes that have already been rumored, like an increase to the existing prepaid hotel credit, the possible introduction of Resy and lululemon credits, and the confirmed changes to the Business Platinum card’s pay-with-points rebate.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that Amex needs to do much about the category bonuses on the card to remain competitive. Citi effectively only bonuses dining and booking through their travel portal on the Strata Elite. Beyond dining, Chase only adds flights and hotels booked directly with providers with 4x hotel purchases and 4x airline purchases (and Amex already bests them on flights booked directly at 5x). The Platinum card has always offered poor return on spend for most purchases, but it has offered a set of benefits that matters enough to many cardholders to keep it regardless. Amex seems to love its coupon book model.
And the truth is that Amex probably doesn’t need to offer compelling return on spend in order to compete. With Chase fully embracing the coupon book model, Amex really just needs to offer better coupons to be competitive since neither Chase nor Citi are offering a highly competitive earning structure (and I don’t even find the sets of coupon benefits terribly compelling). If the already-rumored coupon book changes happen and the airline fee credit stays, I think they will likely have won the coupon war.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but contemplate what an issuer should do to create a really compelling product. What would make for an ultra-premium credit card that I would want to have and enthusiastically recommend to people as a long-term keeper card?
Bonuses and benefits we ought to see on the next big ultra-premium credit card
Obviously, I’d love to earn 100x on all of my purchases and have the issuer build a lounge in my garage, but I recognize that a wish list here needs to be sustainable for the issuer. Realistically, I would like to see an ultra-premium travel card offer the following benefnts and bonuses.
Best-in-class travel protections
Best-in-class travel protections that kick in when you’ve paid any part of the fare with the card ought to be an essential component of a travel card. Chase more or less offers this already. Some issuers offer surprisingly poor travel protections on cards meant to be strongly associated with travel. See this post for a full comparison of ultra-premium credit card protections.
At least 3x on all travel
I want a long-term ultra-premium keeper card to offer at least 3x on all travel. It has to offer more than 2x on travel purchases since there are so many 2x cards on the market that don’t cost eight or nine hundred dollars per year. I think it was very disappointing to see the Chase Sapphire Reserve lose its travel bonus category for new cardholders in June 2025. While the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve will keep 3x travel, its definition of travel isn’t broad enough.
A base earning rate of at least 1.5x
In order to make for a one-card solution for the ultra-premium card market, I think issuers need a base earning rate of at least 1.5x. I think Citi got that part kind of right with the Strata Elite, but with the Double Cash essentially offering 2x everywhere, it doesn’t feel meaningful on that card. Since Amex’s closest equivalent, the Blue Business Plus, is a business card (so some people won’t think they qualify) and has a cap on 2x earnings, Amex doesn’t really have a fully equivalent 2x base earner. Neither does Chase. I think either would get away with 1.5x as a base rate pretty easily. In a world where the Capital One Venture X Rewards credit card offers 2x on all eligible purchases, earning a base rate of more than 1 point per dollar ought to be table stakes.
Milestone rewards
I think a card issuer would be smart to copy the airlines and hotel programs with milestone rewards. Guest access to lounges isn’t enough to get most people to consider spending $75,000 per year on a single credit card (the level at which Amex Platinum cardholders get to bring a guest to Centurion lounges). Chase launched some big spend benefits on the revamped Sapphire Reserve as well, but I’m somewhat surprised that we haven’t seen more innovation here.
Amex could probably work with partners to create some incentives that would be meaningful for consumers while also helping their partners tap into a desired marketing channel. I have long assumed that the reason hotels are willing to offer additional benefits for those who book through a program like Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts or why a department store pops up with an Amex Offer is because they want to market directly to a customer base that they think can and will spend more than an average customer. I am surprised that we haven’t seen more collaboration here with businesses that want to capture a slice of consumers spending $X per year on their credit card by offering a specific and meaningful incentive. Hotels and airlines want to incentivize spend on their own cards, but I would think that a business like Saks may have been better off offering a high-value coupon or special incentive for folks spending above a certain threshold annually on the Platinum card than offering a $50 semi-annual credit for all cardholders. The former would help them attract the high-rolling customer base they want, whereas a fifty dollar credit at Saks brings people like me in the door to buy your clearance acrylic stemware. I don’t mean to talk the Saks stores of the world out of offering us coupons that we’d like to have, but I am surprised we haven’t seen some innovation for meaningful milestone rewards to incentivize continued use of your ultra-premium credit card (which the issuer wants) while giving a partner access to directly market to the segment of cardholders they want to reach. It seems like a win-win.
While there are a couple of big spend bonuses on the ultra-premium card market (most notably the new Alaska Summit Visa card’s 100K companion certificate after $60K in purchases), we haven’t seen much in terms of milestone benefits meant to encourage customers to keep spending on a particular card. Most airlines now begin offering milestone rewards relatively early in the progress toward elite status as a way to incentivize customers to keep stretching for the next carrot. I’m surprised that we haven’t seen this to encourage incremental spend on ultra-premium cards and build the habit of continuing to use the card.
Separate but related: There are two innovative credit card features that have launched this year that I think other card issuers would be wise to run with:
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- The Alaska Summit offers 3x on all foreign purchases. I don’t that this will be sustainable, but this is an innovative way to make the card not just one that sits in the travel wallet for lounge access, but rather the one that comes out of the wallet regularly for spend. I imagine that most Summit cardholders will make this their go-to card when traveling abroad, and it will therefore become strongly associated with those positive memories. This is both rewarding and, for the issuer, I imagine it is a way to tap into the psychology of encouraging ongoing spend. Similarly…
- The Booking.com credit card has something similar, where you get an elevated bonus category for purchases within X number of miles of the hotel you booked during your trip. Once again, this probably helps cardholders associate their card with their travel.
It would be hard for Amex to compete directly with those two competitor cards on those specific fronts simply because of the lesser Amex acceptance overseas (though Chase, Citi, and Capital One could probably be leaning into finding a way to make their cards at least more rewarding in some way during your trip even if none of them wants to continue to bonus all travel). Again, I think the brilliance of the Summit Visa and the Booking.com bonus (even though I don’t find the Booking.com card compelling overall) is that it builds a habit of using your card during your trip (which the issuer obviously wants to continue with all of your unbonused purchases after the trip) and a direct association between your card and your travel (which the issuer ought to want).
A broad entertainment bonus category?
This last one isn’t necessarily something I feel like I want, but I am surprised we haven’t seen it. With so much media suggesting that millennials emphasize experiences over material things, I am somewhat surprised that we haven’t seen a push toward an entertainment category bonus or a partnership with a specific experiences partner. We’ve only really seen this offered on smaller cards (the Capital One Savor offers 3x on entertainment and the Wells Fargo Attune card offers 4% back on a wide range of entertainment. I am somewhat surprised that we haven’t seen this sort of thing taken up on any of the ultra-premium cards. Again, it would offer a good bonus category for many folks who love to travel (which you and I want), and it would probably go a long way toward encouraging the continued use of the card (which is the habit that all issuers want).
Bottom line
While cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Capital One Venture X had some exciting new features when they initially launched years ago, it feels like the ultra premium credit card market has grown somewhat stagnant, with Amex and Chase competing to out-coupon each other, Citi avoiding that fate but bizarely not offering much in terms of category bonuses, and Capital One continuing to chug along as-is for years. I’d like to see some more innovation here. I think Alaska and Bank of America have added a bit of that with the new Atmos Summit Visa, though I have to imagine that innovation came more from the Alaska side than the Bank of America side. Here’s hoping they drive some more competitor innovation in terms of benefits and bonuses on the next big thing.
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United Explorer card although not a premier card offers 2 one time lounge passes per year, recently both DFW and DEN had signs outside lounges that one time passes are not accepted. Sad. Will not renew that card since the annual fee will be $150 next year.
When the ultra premium Nick card is issued, I’ll be the first to sign up and begin collecting Reyes Reward points.
And cover Disney+, as that is a big deal to a lot of households. The $20 streaming credit on the AmEx Plat is probably the biggest thing I will miss when I cancel it. Oh, also, higher status with car rentals like National is something I will miss with the CSR.
I agree with a lot of this but I doubt we’ll see much in the way of positive changes. I have many friends and family members who carry cards like Amex Platinum and have no idea what the coupons are for but it feels premium. They spend $75k without even thinking about the opportunity cost and end up with free guests in the lounge by accident. They barely realize they have points and often don’t bother using them. They are of course high earners and high spenders, doctors and lawyers and tech CEOs.
We in the game forget that we are not the target customer. High earners and spenders whose time isn’t worth figuring out the rebates and points are the target. So unfortunately it’s just going to get worse as they put out carrots for lower earners that their desired customer base won’t even use.
It’s hard to decide if this works in favor of hobbyists or not. The downside is that the banks are successful at selling a luxury vibe to a lot of people who don’t do the math to figure out if it is worth it. When people get excited about the weight of metal cards or the packaging for the Strata Elite you know they are not focused on real value. On the other hands, the folks who are putting lots of 1x spend on a card and not using the credits are subsidizing those of us who remember to use the right card for spend and keep spreadsheets to make sure our credits get used.
Regardless, I think you are right that the high end cards are going to get worse. The new CSR and the Strata Elite are both duds in my book, and I don’t expect good things from the new Amex Platinum (although I hope I am surprised). I suspect a lot of the game will shift to the newer players who have more reason to provide value to grab some of the market share.
To your point on experiences, I think that is what the CSR is trying to achieve with their $300 year stubhub credit. Would be nice to see a bonus spend category with that too, though. I think BofA is the only one that has really tried an entertainment bonus category.
Savor
WF Attune
Earned choice benefit a la Marriott.
A nice perk for a card with lounge access would be to allow some visits upon landing as a milestone reward for big spenders. It could be restricted to lighter hours, which would probably be okay, because I would anticipate the most use by people landing after red eye flights too early to check into a hotel.
Missing a word here:
“ The Alaska Summit offers 3x on all foreign purchases. I don’t that this will be sustainable,…”
One area where I think card issuers could really innovate in is more user-selectable options when it comes to benefits. As a watered-down example, one of the things that makes the Citi Strata Elite’s Splurge credit uniquely appealing is that it offers a pretty varied range of options where it can be redeemed, which I think allows for most anyone to look at it and see where they might use it.
What if card issuers were to innovate more in that direction? Using the Strata Elite as an example, what if they gave users the option to choose between 6x on dining Citi Nights with 3x the rest of the time, or 4x on dining all the time? Suddenly that puts the user in the position of being able to see a way that the card can work for them, and potentially match or overpower products by competitors – e.g., if the CSE had 4x dining, someone might be able to justify dropping their Amex Gold as their dining card. Or what if the CSE had a selectable “2x everywhere” option?
At the very least, I think card issuers should look at this approach to alleviate the problem of creating accidental dealbreakers for people who don’t quite fit the targeted demographic. For example, I see the Alaska Atmos card as being a potential long-term keeper card based on its rewards structure, but because I’m not certain I’d use the 25k companion certificate each year, I simply can’t justify the $395 annual fee. In the case of the Venture X, the upcoming change to zero free guests with Priority Pass is a similar dealbreaker, one which has me planning to downgrade my Venture X and find a new card for Priority Pass which gets me free guests.
More innovative card issuers could push the envelope: Want Priority Pass with 8x restaurant passes per year? Pay an extra $100/year. Want 2x everywhere and 4x dining? Pay an extra $100/year. A truly radical (and likely not realistic) innovation would be a “build-a-card” model where you could pick and choose your rewards, benefits, and travel/shopping protections, à la carte style. People could create their own “one card to rule them all”.
I don’t expect Amex or Chase to innovate in this space, as they seem to be quite focused on “fluff” credits that allow influencers to say a card gives $1500 in value, even though in reality most people won’t use their cards that way (in other words, breakage intended). But for all the less-dominant players, I see this as an area where they could attract a lot of attention by innovating. (Bilt, are you listening?)
I agree with you 1000%. Unfortunately, I will be downgrading my CSR because I don’t use many of the “benefits”. At most, I could squeeze out $600 worth of value per year. I would love to design my own card and pay accordingly.
Along the line that Nick is suggesting but with an eye towards convenience, I’m happy to pay a higher annual fee if I only need a single card. That is, lump the bonus categories of multiple cards into a single card. And, fine, charge me the annual fee of all of those cards lumped into a single annual fee. But, get rid of the this-card-for-this and that-card-for-that.
I agree, but suspect banks make far too much money on 1x spend to ever do this.
I would like IHG to offer a premium CC.
Priority Pass with restaurants would be the biggest draw to get me to switch to a different premium card.
The momentum among issuer’s is towards elimination.
“neither Chase nor Citi are offering a highly competitive earning structure”
4x on direct flights/hotels and 8x via Chase Travel if the price is right is not competitive?
Huh?
I can see a future world where the AMEX Platinum would move their lounge access to a day pass system. Similar to the Atmos Summit card. You get 4 day passes per quarter. And with a $50k spend milestone, you get 4 more. And with a $100k spend milestone, you get 4 more. Something like that.
Agreed…. unfortunately