That is an amazing offer! I'd be all over that. So, with regards to the $550 AF, keep in mind it comes with an annual $200 airline credit. You mention you travel SW. If you get this card and you
first choose SW as your preferred airline, you can then purchase a SW e gift cards which doesn't expire in the amount of $200 and it will be credited back to your account. Other airlines have only certain amounts that trigger the credit. DPs show that SW will trigger at the full $200. My preferred airline is AA and it only triggers at $100 increments. So, now your $550 AF is a net $350 AF.
You get gold SPG/Marriott/Hilton status and the value is subjective. However, for me it did have real value on a trip to Iceland last Thanksgiving. We booked the Hilton in Reykjavik Thanksgiving week on points. When we checked in, since we had this gold status, we were upgraded to a Club level room. Food in Iceland is very expensive. The club level room upgrade allowed us to have free breakfast in the dining room or the club as we preferred. The majority of our lunch and dinners we had in the club room for free during the week. This saved us a ton of money over the week which we decided to use and splurge at 2 nicer restaurants for dinner which we had not planned to do.
You mentioned that you travel internationally for work a couple of times a year. Do you already have Global Entry? If not, the card will reimburse you for GE. Every time I see the looooong lines coming back into the US to get through customs, I am grateful to not waste an hour or 2 in those lines. I love going to the GE kiosk and being out of there in less than 5 minutes. Anyhow, that is another $100 savings that can also save you some stress and frustration.
Delta and Centurion lounge access come with the card. If your international flights are on Delta, you can access the lounge for free with the card. If your flights happen to connect you at an airport with a Centurion lounge you can access that for free. Hello Miami Intl airport Centurion lounge and free 15 minute massage!
Well, here is where you'd get a bunch of different answers ranging from "absolutely! #churnlife" to "no way, I want ongoing benefits." So, it all depends on the individual situation. I'll give one example below.
Chase UR cards:
For those who stay under 5/24, they will likely cancel certain Chase cards, especially in 2 player mode so they can get the card again in 24 months. For those like DH and I who will never be under 5/24, we don't cancel UR earning cards from Chase. We can't get them again because we won't stay under 5/24. Getting the bonus again in 2 years will never be an option for us. With our current spending patterns and categories we earn between 80,000 to over 150,000 UR points per year by strategizing our spending across the CSR, Ink+, CF and CFU cards. AFs between 2 Ink+ cards and 2 CSR cards are a net $490 per year. My 100K annual URs are worth $1500 minimum and we tend to get more value than that thanks to the
Plane Princess who wants lie flat seats up front. I have no problem giving Chase $490 a year when they are giving me back $1500.
Other cards with AFs may offer certain benefits that outweigh the fee. Marriott has a free night every year which we each use, so we keep it as does IHG. Now, changes are coming to Marriott and whether we keep the cards after the changes remains to be seen. IHG had new changes and I will keep it at least another year and then re-evaluate.
Hope that helps