Tagging Miles

Is the American Express Platinum still worth holding?

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If I were one of the select few bloggers with affiliate links, you would expect this to be an immediate skip, because, from their perspective, the American Express Platinum is clearly worth holding or better yet, applying for a new one! and here’s 10 affiliate links to use! Me on the other hand, hopefully you’ve come to expect a bit more objective. 

American Express Platinum

The New Annual Fee for American Express Platinum Cards

In March of 2017, American Express added a bunch of benefits to its Personal American Express Platinum card, but with those benefits, came a jarring annual fee increase to $550.

The new benefits (via Gary Leff):

  • New metal card design
  • $200 annual Uber credit (parsed out monthly)
  • 5x earning on some hotel bookings
  • Free authorized user Gold cards
  • 2 free guests on Priority Pass lounge visits
  • 2, $100 Statement Credits for Saks 5th Avenue (my add)

Then, we learned that the Business American Express Platinum card would get new benefits, too:

The new benefits, via Doctor of Credit:

  • One Year Complimentary Platinum Global Access from WeWork ($2.7k value)
  • 2, $100 Statement Credits for purchases at Dell (think this breaks out to the first 6 months of the year and second six months)
  • $100 Hotel Credit at properties in The Hotel Collection
  • 5x points earning at Amextravel.com
  • 2 free guests on Priority Pass lounge visits

Of course, the Business Platinum comes with a jaw dropping $595 annual fee.

Let us not forget, the Sign-on Bonus Rules

Some years ago, American Express introduce a “once per lifetime” rule for getting sign-on bonuses. There are some ways to circumvent this, such as for example, when American Express introduces new cards. There are some slight variations on the business side as well.

That said, I offer that more often than not, the conversation about American Express is the long term value of holding the card, since you can justify away a lot of things when you’re getting 100,000 Membership Rewards points in year one. But is a card costing $550-595 a year worth keeping long term? For me at this point, the jury was still out.

American Express Priority Passes No Longer have Priority Pass Restaurant Benefits

Late last month, it came out that for Hong Kong and US based American Express Platinum card holders will lose access to Priority Pass Restaurant Benefits. Starting 1 August, your American Express Platinum provided Priority Pass card loses significant value. If I knew which card came from American Express, it would have a giant “X” on it.

American Express Platinum, Priority Pass

Last year I wrote how Priority Pass was changing the game for airport lounges. So you can probably guess how I feel about American Express’ change to their Platinum card Priority Pass benefit.

Is American Express on its way down?

When I first started in the game, American Express was the head of the pack in the premium travel card market. They may have been the only mainstream game in town at the time. Since then, Citi Prestige came in big, and has since scaled things back, with changes such as making it harder to use their fourth night free benefit and increasing the annual fee to $495. Chase, on the other hand hasn’t made any notable pull back of benefits, unless you consider the risk of shutdown. There’s also a bunch of great discussion about Chase Shutdowns on the Milenomics Podcast, such as Episode 17.

Bottom Line: Hard to renew

Full disclosure – I just got myself a new American Express Business Platinum, with a 100k Membership Rewards sign-up bonus, so I’m in for at least the year. My wife on the other hand, has had hers for years, and we’re seriously thinking of downgrading when the annual fee hits. Both of our cards are business, and so the annual fee, while a business expense, still is significant enough that we want to be sure we are getting sufficient value. A few years ago, I had cancelled my previous American Express Platinum and we tried with me as an Authorized User. That math is even more challenged with changes like the Priority Pass downgrade.

What are your thoughts? Do you have an American Express Platinum card? Will you be renewing when the annual fee hits?

 

AMEX Business Platinum is killing 50% rebate – Get some extra points!

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AMEX Business Platinum is killing the 50% rebate. I can’t begin to put to words how I feel about the matter. I’ve not even leveraged this particular benefit–it was only first announced in October. 

AMEX Plat, American Express Business Platinum, AMEX Platinum is killing the 50% Rebate

Image courtesy of American Express.

AMEX Platinum is killing the 50% Rebate – but what was it?

American Express enhanced the AMEX Business Platinum card benefits with a 50% rebate when you use Membership Rewards “Pay with Points” program. What does that mean?

  • For economy flights – you choose an airline, and Pay with Points and you get 50% back.
  • For Business and First Class – you don’t need to choose an airline, just do Pay with Points.
  • Expect to receive that 50% rebate 6-8 weeks later

Why is American Express pulling it back?

Perhaps the obvious reason is, that it is such a lucrative benefit that people might be using it more than American Express intended. I can’t blame people for using it. Nick had an excellent post to highlight the true value of the benefit. For many, it seemed like a no brainer. That said, some of us–me!–didn’t happen to have a huge cache of Membership Rewards points, and so with American Express rolling back the benefit so soon after rolling it out, those of us long time cardholders are left holding a bag so to speak.

American Express’ reasoning for giving new card holders better benefits than loyal cardmembers

When I called in, the reasoning I was given, was that the 50% points rebate was actually written into the legal terms. I get that, since its probably the 4th most highlighted benefit on American Express’ sales page. But, they really could give longer term loyal cardmembers a similar bonus, instead they are hiding behind the original terms of the application. 

Poorly played American Express! 

Getting a few more points

Reading this news, I was unhappy! I was almost as unhappy as I was with the Alaska Air no-notice devaluation of Emirates awards! So, I did what any normal, rational person would do. I called American Express and threatened to cancel my card! Incidentally, the statement closes tomorrow with my annual fee. Maybe that gave me a bit of an edge. I reached out to a few friends and the results varied.

  • My result: 10,000 Membership Rewards points for keeping my card open. 
  • A friend’s result: 15,000 Membership Rewards points (after initially being told to pound sand) because Massachusetts requires pro-rated annual fee refunds.
  • Unfortunately my wife, who’s annual fee is not yet due, received nothing, but her annual fee will be coming due soon.

Did you call to complain? Did you receive anything for it? 

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