Amex, Chase and Citi Are Making Changes to Their Flagship Luxury Cards -- and Not All of Them Are Good

It's seemingly the year of the premium travel cards, as Citi announced Tuesday that it'll be releasing a new high-end Strata Elite credit card. This follows other major credit card issuers, American Express and Chase, that announced changes to their own premium credit cards.

Citi didn't disclose the card's fees, rewards or features when it announced the card during its earnings call. However, as it's taking aim at The Card® from American Express, it's safe to assume it'll cost hundreds of dollars each year and come with annual credits and other perks to help it appeal to frequent travelers.

American Express recently changed the language for the terms on the Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Gold Card. The card issuer no longer specifies the exact number of points you can earn for the card's welcome offers. It also announced last month that it's planning to update The Platinum Card later this year, though it was sparse with specifics. 

Chase also altered its rules around who can earn a welcome bonus with its recent Chase Sapphire Reserve®* update. Previously, you could earn a Sapphire card's welcome bonus again if you hadn't earned one within 48 months. Now, you can earn only one Sapphire bonus per lifetime. The issuer also changed how much Chase Sapphire points are worth and altered the card's redemption options.

What's happening with credit cards? I'll run you through the details -- and what to look out for.

How American Express adjusted its welcome offer language

Here's how Amex changed its language on the Platinum Card.

• Old offer: 80,000 points for spending $8,000 in the first six months.
• New offer: You may be eligible for as high as 175,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $8,000 in eligible purchases on your new Card in your first six months of Card Membership. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer. Find out your exact welcome offer when you apply.

The company similarly changed how it talks about the Gold Card's bonus:

• Old offer: Earn 60,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $6,000 on eligible purchases on your new Card in your first six months of Card Membership.
• New offer: You may be eligible for as many as 100,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $6,000 in eligible purchases on your new Card in your first six months of Card Membership. Welcome offers vary, and you may not be eligible for an offer. Find out your exact welcome offer when you apply.

It's a mouthful, I know. As someone who's covered credit cards for nearly a decade, it's a good reminder to read all of the terms carefully. Here's what you should pay attention to.

Why you should read the offer carefully

A few things to call out with this new language.

1. As high as. Yes, 175,000 and 100,000 are big numbers. However, they don't disclose the range. That leaves me to wonder what the least amount you might earn on a card with a $695 annual fee for the Platinum Card (See rates and fees; terms apply.) and a $325 fee for the Gold Card (see rates and fees, terms apply).
2. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for this offer. This could mean that you may not qualify for the highest payout or, in the worst case, that you may not qualify at all. Either way, the wording is ambiguous.
3. Find out your exact welcome offer when you apply. You're no longer told how much you're eligible to earn before applying. Let's say you're approved for the Platinum Card, expecting a 175,000 bonus, but instead only qualify for 60,000. At that point, you'd have to decide if the card is valuable enough to you to accept. On the plus side, Amex says your credit score is affected only if you accept the card -- not when you apply. 

That said, if you aren't approved with the welcome offer you wanted, try contacting Amex for a better offer, advised credit expert Gerri Detweiler. "Issuers have teams devoted to these kinds of requests," she said. "It doesn't hurt to ask, and the worst they can say is no."

However, the new way of handling welcome offers may require extra work on your part, Detweiler noted. She was initially offered the Amex card with a lower bonus, so she contacted the card issuer and was approved for a better deal.

"It wasn't ideal," she said. "Had I not spoken to someone there, I might have ignored the offer completely."

Should you apply for the Amex Platinum or the Gold Card?

If you had plans to apply for the Platinum Card, it might be worth holding off until the company clarifies the bonus -- perhaps that will come with its planned update later this year. Otherwise, the welcome offer you receive may not match your expectations.

It could be that the credit card issuer is making this change ahead of the planned update in preparation for a rewards revamp. Amex might offer tiers of Platinum cards, each with a different welcome offer and rewards, but that's just speculation. But with no planned update for the Gold Card, it only significantly hampers the attractiveness of the card offer.

Regardless, the change in language and the lack of disclosure about the welcome offers give me pause.

What changed with the Chase Sapphire cards' welcome offers?

Chase customers used to be able to earn welcome offers for Chase cards every 48 months. However, a recent change now limits a welcome offer for Chase Sapphire cards to once in a customer's lifetime.

So, as a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card* cardholder who has earned its welcome offer, if I applied for the Sapphire Reserve, I wouldn't be eligible to earn the recently improved welcome offer.

That's obviously not a great change and certainly doesn't help incentivize me to apply for a card with a $795 annual fee.

The annual fee on an expensive credit card can usually be offset by the welcome offer you can earn. For example, with a card that has a $600 annual fee and a welcome bonus of 100,000 points (depending on how much those points are worth), you know that fee is covered for at least a year.

What do these credit card welcome offer changes mean?

There seems to be a trend happening right now where credit card issuers are limiting access to credit card bonuses -- either by approving you for a certain bonus amount depending on your credit, like Amex, or limiting the number of times you can receive a bonus. The new Coinbase One Card is another example where the company won't disclose how many assets you need to qualify for the highest rewards rate.

*All information about the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Preferred has been collected independently by CNET and has not been reviewed by the issuer.