WHICH PREMIUM CREDIT CARD IS THE BEST?
A comparison of the American Express Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve, Capital One Venture X, Citi Strata Elite, and Bilt Palladium credit cards. (Updated)
ANALYSIS
Max Plastic
3/14/202610 min read
Introduction
In this article I’m taking on the premium cards; the American Express Platinum card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the Capital One Venture X, the Citi Strata Elite and the Bilt Palladium credit cards. Each has a unique offer and promises elevated benefits and travel comfort. Does one stand out above the others? Let’s have a look at what they all offer, including characteristics which differentiate them from each other.
This article covers:
Annual Fees and Credits
Bonus Points and Multipliers
Lounge Access
Other Differentiators
Transfer Partners
Customer Service (be sure to read this!)
Protection
Max's Take
Comparison Table
Annual Fees and Credits
Each card comes with hefty annual fees. Amex Platinum leads the way at $895, Chase Sapphire Reserve follows at $795, then the Citi Strata Elite at $595, the Bilt Palladium at $495, and finally the Capital One Venture X at $395. Each of them, however, offers credits toward purchases which can offset those fees. If the credits match your spending pattern, you can earn enough to offset most or all of the annual fee. However, those credits should only be considered as fee offsets if you would have spent money on them anyway. For example, a monthly Uber credit should only be considered if you normally use Uber for transport. Taking Uber when you normally don’t, only to earn the credit, is NOT saving money.
American Express boasts over $3,500 in available credits, more than fully offsetting the annual cost of the card. Personally, I frequently dine at some of the local Resy restaurants, frequently use Uber, have the Disney bundle, and our family Saks bill easily tops the $50 semiannual credit, so we enjoy $950 in credits annually before considering the travel benefits. I can safely say I fully offset the cost of the card each year. Hotel credits are harder to use economically because stays must be at either their Fine Hotels and Resorts collection (1 night minimum) or their The Hotel Collection ( 2 night minimum). Stays at these collections are often $1,000 or more per night. For a closer look at the Platinum card, see my article “Can the New American Express Platinum Card be Worth It?”
Chase offers with Sapphire Reserve a $300 travel credit, $500 in hotel stay credits with The Edit, $250 in Chase select hotels (2 night minimum for both), $150 in semi-annual dining credit at Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables, monthly DashPass, Lyft and Peleton membership credits. In my article “Is the New Chase Sapphire Reserve Card Worth Keeping”, I do a full analysis of the credit buy-down in my case, and arrive at $15 per year out of pocket before considering the travel benefits, so again I find this card to be worth the annual fee.
With Capital One, the math is fairly easy. They offer a $300 credit for travel booked through Capital One Travel. There is no special hotel collection you must use, and there is no minimum stay, so it is easy to use. I’m not normally a fan of the travel services for booking airfare or rental cars, but Capital One has put several layers of protection in place, including the Hopper engine, to ensure your flight or hotel price is competitive, and the treatment and perks associated with booking through the service are worth it. Combine the $300 credit with the annual bonus of 10,000 miles, which has a minimum value of $100, and the cost of the card is completely offset.
Citi boasts nearly $1,500 in value with their Strata Elite card. To use most of their credits, however, would require lifestyle changes for me. In other words, I would need to spend money I normally don’t to gain the hotel and the Blacklane credits. I might use the Splurge credit with Best Buy, but not with the other brands. So, in the end, I would recover very little of the annual fee. In my case, the credits for this card do not bring value like those of the others.
The Bilt Palladium card offers $200 in semi-annual hotel credit booked through Bilt Travel and $200 annually in Bilt Cash, their trademark currency that can only be used in the Bilt eco-system. The hotel credit is easier to use than that of American Express and Chase, but there still is a 2 night minimum stay.
Bonus Points and Multipliers
The advertised bonuses of each card are similar, with American Express at 80,000, Captial One at 75,000, Chase at 60,000, Citi at 75,000 and Bilt at 50,000. If you’re looking at the Amex Platinum card, though, I would encourage patience until you find an increased sign up bonus offer. I’ve seen it as high as 175,000. At the time of updating this article, Chase boasted an elevated offer of 125,000.
While the Amex sign up bonus can set them well above the others, the card fails to stand up to the others with ongoing use. Amex offers only 1x points on purchases not booked through Amex Travel. Compare that to the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which earns 4x points on hotels and flights (8x if booked through Chase Travel), 3x points at restaurants, and 5x points on Lyft; the Capital One Venture X and Bilt Palladium, which earn 2x points on everything; and the Citi Strata Elite which earns 3x-6x points at restaurants and 1.5x points on everything else. The points tend to add up much more quickly on those cards. A monthly spend of $1,500 on the Venture X or Bilt Palladium card equals 9,000 additional points per year over the Amex Platinum.
Lounge Access
With a much broader network of lounges, it would seem the American Express Platinum card would be the hands down preferred card in this area. They all share the base of 1,300+ lounges with the Priority Pass collection, but beyond these, Amex has many more options. Chase and Capital One are opening more lounges, but American Express still has them at least doubled in Centurion Lounge locations. Add on top of this the Delta Sky Club, Lufthansa, and Plaza Premium lounge access and it is clear the Amex network is second to none.
Neither Citi nor Bilt have any of their own lounges, relying solely on Priority Pass, which is not worth much in the U.S. At least Citi offers 4 Admirals Club passes annually with their card.
The size of the network may not matter as much as the locations, based on a traveler’s home base. As an example, a Washington, D.C. based traveler will find a Centurion lounge at Reagan Airport and a Chase lounge at Dulles (Etihad Airways Lounge), but will find Capital One lounges at both Reagan and Dulles Airports.
While Centurion lounges more than double those of their competitors, they have become quite popular and, as a result, quite crowded. Space is not always available. As a result, Amex has tightened up their guest policy a bit. Guests are no longer welcomed free of charge in the Centurion lounges. Adult guests cost $50, and children $30. Capital One has followed suit, and charge $45 for adults and $25 for children. At Chase lounges, two guests are still free. Access can be increased through adding Authorized Users to a card, but this costs a pricey $195 per user for the Amex Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve, and $125 for the Capital One Venture X (if lounge access is desired). This fee gets the Authorized User lounge access with their card, but most the other card benefits remain at the account level. Authorized Users can be added to the Strata Elite card at $75, with no apparent benefits at the card level.
Transfer Partners
The way to get the most value for your points is to transfer them to the travel partners established by the card issuer. These are the airlines and hotel chains who accept points from the card issuers as a form of payment, and most of them only accept points from a select few. The longer the list of transfer partners, the more flexibility you have in redeeming points. The cards themselves are not paired with the transfer partners, instead, the card issuers pair with them, enabling all cards in their offer to transfer points to them.
The transfer partner list of each card issuer is long and constantly evolving. Instead of listing each partner for each, I ranked the premium cards from the best list of partners (1) to the worst (5).
I ranked Bilt as having the best list of partners. They have 18 airline partners, 4 of which are U.S. based, and 5 hotel chain partners. They are the only card to partner with ATMOS and Spirit, and one of only two to partner with Hyatt, United, Hilton and IHG.
American Express ranks second with 17 airline partners, 2 of which are U.S. based, and 3 hotel chain partners. They are the only card to partner with Delta, and one of the only two to partner with Hilton.
I like the Chase offer next, even though it is the smallest. Chase has 11 airline partners, 3 of which are U.S. based, and 4 hotel chain partners. Chase and Bilt are the only two issuers to pair with United, Hyatt and IHG. Hyatt points are the most valuable of the hotel chains, and Chase's U.S. based airline partners include United and Southwest.
Coming in fourth is Citibank. They have 15 airline partners, 2 of which are U.S. based, and 3 hotel chain partners. Citibank is the only issuer to have American Airlines as a partner, and well as the Preferred Hotels and Resorts of the World.
Finally, bringing up the rear is Capital One. They have 17 airline partners, only one of which is U.S. based, and that is Jet Blue. They have 4 hotel chain partners, and are the only issuer to have a partnership with the I Prefer hotel group.
Other Differentiators
Status brings perks such as early check in, late check out, and shorter lines. Here the Platinum card stands apart from the others. It offers elevated status at Marriott, Hilton, Avis, Hertz, and National. With its latest upgrade, Amex has added Sterling status with Leading Hotels of the World. This is a collection of the best hotels anywhere as rated by readers of Travel and Leisure magazine. Benefits of this status include 5 pre-arrival upgrades per year and elevated rewards points awarded for each stay, along with on-property benefits.
Chase offers elevated status at the IHG, and Capital One offers elevated status with Hertz. No such status is provided by Citi.
Bilt is unique in that it offers points for the payment of rent and/or mortgage. For a full description of how the Bilt card works, see my article "Bilt 2.0 Cards – The Real Scoop".
Customer Service
I had to add in this category, not because there is one card issuer who stands above the others. Instead, I feel the need to comment on how absurdly atrocious the Bilt customer service is…and I only use the word atrocious because I can’t think of a stronger word!
It is next to impossible to talk with a live agent. Most issues are handled by an AI bot, and for the most part it does pretty well. However, when something is not behaving as programmed, or just when the bot is stumped, it will either route you into a queue for a live agent, or will provide you an email address for support. This is where the problems begin. Bilt chat groups are littered with situations where the customer has waited more than a day to rise to the top of the queue, only to have that happen late night or early morning when they are not looking at their device, where after 20 minutes the live help disconnects the chat due to no response.
eMail is no better. I, myself, submitted an email help request. Response time was 19 days. 19 DAYS!!. The response did not address my issue, and after the long wait I was right back to where I started. I can only wonder what will happen if fraudulent charges are made to my card, or if there is an issue preventing me from paying my bill or my rent on time.
The rollout of Bilt 2.0 has been fraught with issues from the release, including a change in card structure only 2 days following the announcement due to strong customer reaction. Instead of addressing the issues at hand, Bilt seems to be focusing on introducing more innovative concepts to an already incredibly complicated card. In the case of Bilt cards, buyer beware. If Bilt does address this issue, I will update this article to reflect any improvements.
Protection
Each card provides extensive coverage, not only in travel insurance, but also in purchase and return protection, as well as extended warranty. We've listed the benefits at a high level in the table below. The Chase Sapphire Reserve stands out as the best in this category. For a more detailed analysis, see our blog: PREMIUM CARD COMPARISON - THE FINE PRINT | Max Your Plastic
Max's Take
So, which one is the best? It depends on your location, travel habits and spending habits. Hefty fees can be offset with credits if your spending habits naturally trigger them. Points multipliers can help you build your way to free travel more quickly. Transfer partners bring value based on where you want to travel and who might regularly fly out of your local airport. For frequent travelers, lounge access may be a priority.
The table below gives a good side-by-side comparison of each. If you seek guidance as to which card is best for you, or for a plan on how to maximize your returns on the credit cards in your wallet, send us an email at email@maxyourplastic.com. Our consultation is free of charge and there are no obligations.
What do you think of this blog? Let us know your thoughts, any positive or negative experience you have had with lounge access, or any experiences with any of the other benefits each of the cards has to offer.
