Amongst credit card optimizers, the American Express Platinum Card is always a hot topic of conversation. This is one of the original (perhaps THE original) premium travel cards, with a primary focus on the benefits it provides rather than the points you earn from purchases. The Platinum card has undergone several updates over the past few years, typically with corresponding annual fee increases. The most recent update brought the annual fee up to $695, which like most cards is not waived for the first year. (Some cards will waive their annual fee the first year). It may sound like a lot of money up front, but the benefits substantially outweigh the cost.
fortune.com
Quick Summary:
$695 annual fee
$200 airline incidental credit
$200 Fine Hotels and Resorts credit
$179 Clear membership credit
$100 Global Entry credit (every 4 years, includes TSA PreCheck)
$100 (2x$50) Saks 5th Avenue credit
$200 annual Uber credit as monthly Uber cash
$300 Equinox credit
$240 (12x$20) digital entertainment credit
Lounge program
5x Membership Rewards points on flights booked directly with airlines, and flights and hotels booked through Amex Travel
With this premium cost comes a host of premium benefits. American Express likes to say the card offers “over $1,500 in value,” but that’s a dubious claim when much of the value is in the form of credits that are specific to just a few brands. If you already use those companies, great! If not, perhaps there is something you would normally get elsewhere that you could substitute for a partner brand to get the Platinum benefit with a credit. For example, usually a Lyft rider? You could switch to Uber in order to take advantage of the credit. But some credits, most particularly a $300 Equinox credit, are all but useless if you aren’t part of the small portion of the population that lives close enough to use one, and have the budget to pay for it, credit or not!
Without using every credit, however, there are still some great uses for a card with such a high annual fee. For me, it’s all about improving the travel experience far beyond what it might have cost. For example, I most often use the airline incidental fee credit on award booking taxes and fees, and occasionally use it for seat upgrades or wifi to make flights more enjoyable. The Clear credit was a nice addition to the TSA PreCheck credit, although the regular TSA PreCheck line frequently isn’t very long to begin with. I’m personally hoping Clear keeps expanding to more non-travel venues, like concerts, sporting events, or even other identity verifications like banking.
If you travel enough, the Uber credit is easy to use, too. Most round trip rides are likely over the $15 added to your Uber cash balance monthly, so really Ubering just once per month will use the full value. If you don’t travel in a month, you can also use the credit for Uber Eats.
Lounge access is really why you get (and keep) this card, though. Kristyn and I live in Phoenix, AZ, near the PHX Sky Harbor airport. PHX is a hub for American Airlines and Southwest. It has an American Express Centurion Lounge and Escape lounge, and will have a Chase Sapphire Lounge coming soon, on top of the usual airline-operated lounges. American and Southwest both fly out of the larger Terminal 4, while most other airlines, including Delta and United, use the smaller Terminal 3. All three of the branded lounges listed above are in Terminal 4, which is great for our regular use of PHX as a hub.
The next airline we fly most frequently is Delta, since we often visit family and friends in Michigan and Seattle (DTW and SEA are Delta hubs). The Platinum cards offers access to Delta Sky Clubs when traveling Delta, so if we are flying on Delta out of Terminal 3, we still have a lounge! You also don’t even have to pay for your Delta ticket on the Platinum card. I’ve used this lounge on a work trip where the airfare was purchased through a company travel agent, but with a boarding pass and a Platinum card, I could get into the Sky Club.
Why should you really care about lounges, though? I used to frequently see lounges while traveling and not have access, but wondered what the point of them was, beyond feeling special. While they totally do make you feel special, the main benefits of lounges are free food and drinks, a relaxing environment with tons of chargers and outlets, and the comfortable, more available seating.
First up, it’s nice to avoid paying the higher airport prices for food. Usually, I would always try to eat outside the airport before a flight so I wasn’t getting something from a terminal restaurant. Sometimes that just isn’t possible though, especially if you have an itinerary with layovers. A small meal and a drink for 1 person can easily be $30 in value or more. In lounges, your food and drinks are free!
Lounges are usually built with outlets everywhere, so your devices will never go wanting. I swear the PHX Delta Sky Club has more outlets than seats. On top of that, because access is more limited and the spaces are nicely furnished, it’s easy to find a comfortable place to sit, eat, and get some work done with the dedicated lounge wifi. After experiencing this several times, the only reason I’m ever not in a lounge is because I get to the airport too late, or there isn’t one close enough to my departure gate.
Along with all of these benefits, cardmembers also earn a competitive 5x points on airfare. What sets this apart is that it’s actually on airfare directly with the airlines themselves, not just through a portal. Booking through a portal can cause issues if you need to change things at the last minute, since the airline will usually say “you booked this ticket with a third party portal, so you need to get that portal to help you change it.” I set the benchmark value for Amex Membership Reward points at 2 cents each, which makes the 5x points like earning 10% back, which is better for airfare than most airline co-branded cards! To see how I get a value of 2 cents per point, see my post on Membership Rewards.
All that said, who is this card for? Well, when I’m setting up a plan for one of my Future Points Planners (FPP), this is a card to include for any moderate to heavy air travelers with moderate to high disposable income, who live nearest a Delta hub or an airport with a Centurion Lounge. Someone who flies less than 4 times per year will likely not get the full benefit of the airline incidental credit, the Clear and PreCheck credits, lounge access, and the strong earning rate to offset the high annual fee (unless you happen to be down the street from an Equinox…). Likewise, if your annual travel budget is less than $3,000, or $5,000 for a couple, apart from just not having the funds to travel much, the high annual fee is a painful sting. That means people who use or connect at ATL, CLT, DEN, DFW, DTW, IAH, JFK, LAS, LAX, LGA, MIA, MSP, PDX, PHL, PHX, SEA, SLC, or SFO, who are traveling in the 6-10 times per year range, should definitely consider this card in their overall strategy!
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