I’m with Jophiel on this. Look at the terms and conditions closely. In my experience with these types of travel cards the devil’s in the details.
The $100 is great at Tiffany’s but do you have to spend $500+ to get it? Is it available online or only in a store?
Similarly - is the Uber good anywhere in the world, in the USA only? Maximum $X per trip?
My advice would be to do something similar to what I did with MasterCard who contacted me to sign up for a “World Elite Traveler” MC. I told them it was a lot of money and I didn’t think I’d get the value out of it but if they gave it to me free for a year and I got value, I’d keep it. MC gave it to me for free.
I don’t know know if Amex will do the whole thing free, but I’d be shocked if they didn’t have the flexibility for a some level of trial discount.
I travel a lot on business and personal and I never even got close to the payback on it. For example: one perk was “free lounge access”, but MC’s list of lounges would tell me they’d never heard of the MC card “Look here, you’re listed on their website” “We know nothing about this card.” A couple times only one lounge in the airport honoured the pass and that was only in the domestic terminal and so on…
Too many devils in too many details. I canceled it after a year.
The Uber thing is correct, but you are wrong the airline credit. It’s $200 per year. You can use the whole $200 at once. The catch is that it can only be used on one airline (that you get to choose st the begining of the year) and it can’t be used to buy tickets. It’s for things like extra checked baggage fees, in-flight purchases and. that sort of thing. I’ve used it mostly for my dog. Bringing a dog in the cabin is $125 each way. So when I pay that $250 fee at the counter, Amex credits me $200 on the bill. So, it only costs me $50.
And of course, you’re right about making sure the perks are worth it for you. Personally, I get no value out of the “30% off private jet rental”, or “buy two yatchs, get the third one half off” deals. But some of the direct reimbursements like one free $50 purchase (or $50 off any purchase) from Saks every six months (no strings attached) I think most anyone can benefit from. They make the annual fee much less intimidating and a bit more reasonable. But if the Saks deal was "$50 off a purchase of $200 or more, that wouldn’t even count as a perk for me.
The $100 Saks credit is $50 every 6 months. What’s nice is that there is no minimum purchase and it works online as well. In fact, online is the only way I’ve done it. Every 6 months, my wife will buy some lotion ot makeup thing that comes to $50-$55 bucks or whatever total after shipping. I get a full $50 credit on the next bill.
The Uber is $15 a month. Shitty thing there is it only works in the states.
Ugh, that would be frustrating. I love lounge access!! Amex gives you a Priority Pass card and in addition to all places that honor Priority Pass, the Amex card itself will give you access to Delta lounges if you are flying Delta that day.