My credit card de jour is the MBNA Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum Plus Mastercard. Yes, it’s a MBNA card which explains why I am ever so popular with MBNA. I use it primarily (aside from the platinum protection) for the rewards; which is to get 1 Starwood point per $2 spent, and bonus 5000 Starwood points at $10,000 yearly spending intervals. Is it better than a dividend card? Well I don’t actually know. And the only time I’ve redeemed points is to stay at the Westin Tokyo.
Well that is a moot point now, because MBNA and SPG are jointly cancelling the card. In place of it, MBNA is offering me a regular old Platinum Plus Mastercard without any rewards. I’m not going to use that!
I have a few months before the SPG card is cancelled, but I’ve begun the long process of finding some better credit cards to use (I’m not really happy with my bank’s tiered dividend Visa either). Surprisingly, it is tough to find an attractive card. Either the rewards aren’t very good, there is an annual fee (I don’t want to play the call-ever-year-and-threaten-to-cancel game) or it’s not a platinum card. Even many platinum cards don’t have all the protection you would expect (I’d want at least LDW and extended warranty – trip cancellation would be even better).
After a lot of looking, I’ve come to the conclusion that Visa cards are very boring. There is no variety or unique reward programs on them. I think I will probably stick with MBNA and ask them to transfer me to a Smart Cash Platinum Plus card. It’s a non-tiered 1% cashback card, but you get 3% on gas and groceries (5% during the promotional phase)!
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