Benefits of the American Express Platinum Card

I love the American Express Platinum Card! It is packed with value, offers a generous welcome bonus, and has a lot of premium benefits making it the perfect choice for a smart luxury travel card!

Welcome Bonus

First of all, let's talk about the welcome bonus. The American Express Platinum Card offers a generous 80,000-150,000 Membership Rewards points welcome bonus after you spend $8,000 in the first six months of card membership (offers vary by time of year and targeting). My husband and I were both targeted for the 150,000 Membership Reward welcome bonus and we used those points to book business class flights from Boston to New Delhi , India for our family of 4 last summer. Even 80,000 points is $800 dollars in value with a $0.01 redemption, but you can do much better than that by transferring to an airline or hotel partner. Amex has 20 airline and hotel partners, giving you more flexibility and value for your travel plans. By transferring our Amex points to Cathay Pacific, we saved over $16,000 and got a 5.5 cents per mile value for our reward points!

Annual Fee

Secondly, let's talk about the annual fee. Yes, the American Express Platinum Card has a hefty annual fee of $695, but don't let that scare you away. The redemption I mentioned above pays the annual fee for this card for many years to come. Additionally, the card comes with so many benefits and credits that can easily offset the cost and make it worth it year after year. The credits and benefits are described below. I've bolded my favorite ones and the ones I feel get us the most value.

Annual Credits and Benefits

- $200 airline fee credit per year for incidental charges like baggage fees, seat upgrades and in-flight purchases on one selected airline (I've had luck this year using Southwest as our selected airline and booking flights less than $100. These are triggering the credit and the money gets refunded to our platinum card and then I cancel the flight and we are left with a flight credit for the same amount. Essentially a free $200 Southwest flight credit!

- $200 Uber Cash per year for rides or eats orders in the US-we always use our $15 credit every month (an additional $20 is added in December) and would order Uber Eats monthly anyways so this credit is easy to get our money's worth.

- $100 Saks Fifth Avenue credit per year for online or in-store purchases. While I wouldn't necessarily shop at Saks, I have been able to use this $50 every 6 month credit for something useful with just a few minutes spent on the website.

- $179 CLEAR credit per year for expedited airport security

- $300 Equinox credit per year for fitness memberships or digital subscriptions

- $240 digital entertainment credit per year for subscriptions to Peacock, Audible, SiriusXM and The New York Times, Disney Plus, ESPN+, Hulu, or the Wall Street Journal. This is essentially a $20 credit monthly for one of these subscriptions.

- Global Entry or TSA PreCheck fee credit every four years ($100 for Global Entry every four years)

- Complimentary access to over 1,300 airport lounges worldwide, including Centurion Lounges, Priority Pass Select Lounges, Delta Sky Clubs and more

- Complimentary Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite and Hilton Honors Gold status

- Complimentary Fine Hotels & Resorts benefits at over 1,100 properties worldwide, such as room upgrades, breakfast, late check-out and more. PLUS a $200 statement credit on prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts or The Hotel Collection. Added benefits are room upgrades, $100 resort credit, and more. We used this benefit for 2 hotels on our trip last summer and we were upgraded at both hotels and were impressed by the benefits we received from the program. We will be writing posts on each hotel soon, so stay tuned, but let's just say they have some FANTASTIC hotels in their collections and the benefits are outstanding!

($200 back on our hotel reservation equals money in our pockets!)

- Complimentary access to The Travel Collection by Travel Leaders Group, a curated selection of travel offers and discounts

- Complimentary access to American Express Concierge, a 24/7 service that can help you with travel, dining, entertainment and other requests

Conclusion

If you add up the benefits in bold, you see that even without the welcome bonus, we managed to get $200 in Southwest credits, $200 in Uber cash, $100 to Saks Fifth Avenue, $240 digital entertainment credit, and $200 statement credits for 2 amazing hotel stays! That is a total of $940 of value without even adding in the other benefits of the card.

As you can see, the American Express Platinum Card offers a lot of value for travelers who want to enjoy luxury and convenience. Of course, the card also has other features like no foreign transaction fees, purchase protection, extended warranty, car rental loss and damage insurance and more.

Referral Link

If you're interested in applying for the American Express Platinum Card and you'd like to help support this blog, you can use my referral link here and you'll earn 80,000 points after you meet the spending requirement of $8,000 in 6 months.

Thank you for reading my blog post and I hope you found it helpful. If you have any questions or comments about the American Express Platinum Card, feel free to leave them in the comment box below! Happy travels!