Gary02

Thanks for the tips, especially on the retention bonus and on categorizing spending. Average 100-130 transactions a month, would max out the grocery category (for EDP) and don't buy too many flights so it's likely that the EDP card would be a good value at this point. I'll probably still ask for the retention bonus and failing that fall back to the Everyday mainly due to the fact that I don't want to mess around dealing with low initial limits or redoing a substantial number of auto pays.

I've had an AMEX Premium Rewards Gold Card for about seven years or so now and I've generally been happy with it; however, with the 30k spend bonus going away it's hard to justify the $175 fee, and I'm looking for a replacement. I'm trying to figure out if I switch to a different AMEX card or cash out my Rewards points and move on. Generally I put everything on the card to the tune of about $5-6k per month, but don't fly very often (though I do use points to buy tickets) and credit score is circa 800. I don't think I've used points for anything other than flights in the past, but because AMEX points translate to 1%, cash back might be a better option in any case. Any suggestions to maximize value?