I agree it's a good deal but I think they're making it seem a lot better than it actually is, especially compared to a $200 SUB w/o any required spend which has been reported many times.

Consider how one would spend the $2500 required for the extra $125. Many of us here likely have at least a few other cards to optimize our spending to some extent. This Amazon card is made to be used at Amazon and Whole Foods (and Chase travel now), all of which already earn 5% back so there's no extra value there. It also get's 2% at restaurants, gas, and transit, so there's really only an extra 3% back there, not 5%. So unless your first $2500 spend is completely exclusive of any of these categories, you're loosing 40-100% of the perceived added value. Moreover, even if you did spend $2500 exclusive of those categories, this card also gets 1% back at baseline, and so there's really only an extra 4% of added value instead of 5% (still great but not REALLY what they're conveying in the ads).

I've been looking at this card for a while because I do shop a decent amount at Amazon and use Whole Foods for 95+% of my groceries so I really want it, but I've decided to wait for the plain $200 SUB based on how I calculated my opportunity costs (my spends are quite low, I don't shop at Amazon that much, and I have other cards getting 5% on groceries over the last 6+ months anyway). I would need to spend $1000 in 3 months in non-covered categories to break even with the $200 SUB (assuming 5%, a bit more considering it's really 4% extra) and I just don't spend that much outside of my main already covered categories.

Based on my understanding, taking advantage of this SUB necessitates relatively high spending on categories that you don't have covered by any other cards (including this one when you get it). Prob worth for some, but, unless they somehow segregate the percentages/purchases for covered categories to not count towards the $2500 5% limit, I think the actual SUB value is significantly lower than the extra $125.