Citi - AAdvantage American Express Review

While the hay day of American Express is long since passed, their attempts at reviving their once rock solid must for the traveler have launched with a pretty darn good offer.  25,000 bonus airmiles to your American Airlines frequent flyer account if you spend $750 USD in the first 4 months, (offer accessible at aa.com online).  Not a bad deal when you consider that 25,000 airmiles is a round trip domestic ticket. 

Another travel bonus that's offered through American Express and American Airlines is a list of destinations published four times a year with reduced mileage travel awards, and offer travel discounts of 7500 less airmiles for destination travel.  Not a huge discount, but maybe enough to get you over the top for award travel, if the list contains somewhere you want to go. 

While the travel perks are not bad, the interest rate is nothing to shout about, and if you can't pay off your balance on a monthly basis, I'd pass on this one.  However, if you don't spend more than you actually have, the additional travel perks include, 24 hour concierge service (which is pretty good by the way), 1,000,000 USD travel accident insurance, 3,000 USD lost luggage insurance, 50,000 USD rental car loss and damage insurance, and 1,500 USD trip cancellation insurance.  Please note that this insurance only is in play if you use your American Express card to purchase the aforementioned items. 

One very noticeable place where American Express truly does excel, is in it's legendary customer service.  If you have something you need to deal with, or need assistance for, it's the equivalence between night and day from other cards.  It's really what all cards should be like, but aren't.

The pros for this card are: 

Excellent customer service

24 hr concierge

included travel insurance with purchase

lost wallet service and 24 hour card replacement anywhere in the world

roadside assistance service

emergency assistance service

product price protection for up to 250 USD (doesn't include Internet purchases)

extended warranty protection of US product warranties for 1 year

24 hr travel services

annual fee waived for 1st 12 months

good online website for managing your account

one airmile awarded for every USD spent on card purchases to your AA frequent flyer account

The Cons for this card are thus:

annual fee of $ 85 USD

not a great interest rate

American Express just doesn't have the coverage it used to, and doesn't get accepted as many places as say Visa, or Mastercard 

I give it 4 stars out of 5, and rate it lower because of the high annual fee, and the less than attractive interest rate.  All things considered it's a good back up card, and if you're a frequent traveler it has a lot of good perks and services.  Add the 25,000 airmile bonus, and the offer is nothing to snivel about. 

UPDATE 03/10/2009:   After an impressive startup and a large lump of airmiles for signing up for this card, the reality of the formerly "great travel card" came to light. 

On a recent trip through the Iberian peninsula and northern Africa it became very apparent that this card is not widely excepted over there anymore, nor here for that matter.  The entire country of Portugal doesn't except American Express a banker informed me in Lisbon.  Not a big deal if you're not in Lisbon, but if you are, it's a bummer.  While getting used to it being a not so widely accepted card anymore, I figured I'd still stick it out cause at least they still gave me a ton of airmiles, and a little loyalty goes a long way in my book.

Then the problems started.  3 out of 4 missed payments by American Express, resulting in many phone calls and a lot of inconvenience of my part.  In the ensuing 10 days it took to rectify this problem, I decided to dump them.  As I carry no balances on any credit card in religious fashion, their inability to maintain the fundamentals of an account made any loyalty to them on my part vanish.  So adios American Express!  I won't be back!