Amex Business Platinum reducing 50% rebates to 35% for its fixed-value redemption option & Chase Southwest Visa 60,000 points each card & Amex Delta Platinum 70,000 miles & Amex Delta Gold 60,000 miles

We have been continuing to make updates throughout the site.  Here are the highlights of the week.

• Effective June 1, 2017, Amex Business Platinum has reduced the 50% rebates to 35% for its fixed-value redemption option when you use "Pay with Points".  Amex introduced the 50% rebate feature back in October 2016, essentially making the Membership Rewards (MR) points worth a fixed value of 2 cents each, when buying First or Business Class tickets with any airline through amextravel.com, and Economy Class tickets with your selected airline also through amextravel.com.  We wrote, "This makes Business Platinum Card a 2% & 10% rewards card, for general purchases and airfare, respectively.  In addition, it opens up opportunities for other MR cards to become more valuable, at least on paper.  For example, when paired with Business Platinum Card, EveryDay Preferred will return stunning 9%, 6%, and 3% rewards for grocery, gas, and general purchases; the personal Platinum Card will return 10% rewards for airfare; Amex PR Gold will return 6% and 4% rewards for airfare and gas/grocery/dining."  Amex has come to the conclusion that this feature is too generous and thus decided to kill it.  Now with the reduced 35% rebates, MR points will be worth 1.54 cents each when you use the "Pay with Points" option, and this value is actually similar to our valuation of MR points when you transfer points to the 21 partner airline or hotel programs.  If you applied the card between October 5, 2016 and May 31, 2017, you are allowed to keep the 50% rebates for a full year.
• Chase has brought the best ever signup offers for its Southwest Rapid Rewards Visa cards, you will receive 60,000 points (~$840 in travel rewards) on each of the three cards: Southwest RR Premier Visa, Southwest RR Premier Business Visa, and Southwest RR Plus Visa.  This is the highest signup bonus on these cards.  Please see our review for details and the signup links.  When you sign up two of these cards, you will receive 120,000 points which more than gets you the very lucrative Southwest Companion Pass status.  After you receive the signup bonuses, you will be upgraded to Companion Pass status for the rest of 2017 all the way to February 2019.
• Amex has another round of limited-time offers for its Delta SkyMiles cards: 70,000 miles on Delta Platinum Amex (both personal and business) and 60,000 miles on Delta Gold Amex (both personal and business).  Please see our review for details and the signup links.