American Express just announced some enhancements to their personal Platinum card (SEE: 6 major changes to the American Express Platinum). There are some new potential benefits, but overall the changes leave much to be desired, in my opinion.
Plus, the annual fee will be hiked to $550 starting March 30, and there is honestly not much in terms of beneficial changes that justifies this increase (unless you use Uber regularly, then it may be for you). Overall, I think Amex really missed the mark with consumers.
What could Amex have done better?
Here are 5 changes American Express could have made to their personal Platinum card that would be far more appealing to the bulk of travelers, not to mention making the card far more competitive with the Chase Sapphire Reserve:
- The new hotel 5x earning rate could have included the Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts program – The hotels in the Amex FH&R program tend to be pricey, but the perks offered through the program are great: complimentary room upgrades, free breakfast, and early check-in / late check-out to name a few. Including the FH&R bookings in the earning bonus would have really sweetened the 5x deal. Instead, Amex has confirmed that FH&R bookings are excluded (H/T: TPG). Only hotel bookings through Amex travel qualify. How…constraining.
- The hotel earning bonus could have been reduced, but general – Instead of rolling out a 5x rate for hotel bookings through Amex travel, Amex should have just added a general hotel bonus. I would have been pleased with an earning rate of 3x on hotels, or maybe even 2x, as long as it was for any merchant that codes as hotel.
- The Uber credits could be a simple annual credit – I find the Uber credit structure arcane. You get a credit of $15 per month, and $35 in December. As someone who doesn’t tend to use Uber regularly, I would much prefer an total annual credit. I am far more likely to spend $50 on Uber rides over a few days on one trip than I am to spend $15 a month with Uber. Additionally, an annual credit would be way more easy to track. Travelers may be left wondering, “did I use my credit this month, or do I have a new one?” (SEE ALSO: Don’t screw up your Citi Prestige credit like I did)
- A dining bonus could have been added – Even the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card has a dining bonus! An earning rate of 2x on dining on the Platinum card would suffice. I mean…come on. Tons of other cards have at least a 2x bonus on restaurants.
- The annual air credit could be turned into general travel credit – This would have sold me, and made the Amex Platinum a lot more competitive with the CSR. While there are currently a number of ways you can extract the $200 airfare incidental credit for actual airfare (typically via gift cards), changing the $200 credit to a general travel credit would be amazing. Especially in light of the $100 annual fee increase.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I really think Amex missed the mark on these changes. They honestly make me less likely to be interested in the Platinum card in the future. These “enhancements” are relatively hard to use and simply don’t provide enough benefit to justify the fee.
Amex needs to up their game in order to be competitive with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, if that is ultimately their goal. The Platinum card may still be a great premium card in terms of overall perks, but it would be great to see the same sort of earning potential offered by the CSR.
In short, any of the above 5 changes would have been far more welcome.
What do you think of the changes to the American Express Personal Platinum Card? Are they worth the annual fee?
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I agree with everything you said. Amex Platinum gives you Starwood and Hilton Gold Status, but you can only take advantages of the benefits of those statuses when you book directly with the hotel website (i.e.NOT Amex Travel). So the new earning bonus on hotels makes me choose between taking advantage of the new 5x bonus category or the very statuses they tout as a benefit to the card. That makes zero sense. I agree that I would have gladly taken a reduced earning rate for the benefit to apply to hotels booked directly like the airfare category.
Also, could not agree more about the dining bonus. I mean this is the ONLY premium card (CSR and Citi Prestige) that does NOT include dining. Even the PRG card includes dining as you mentioned. It’s crazy. Seriously starting to rethink of this card is worth it anymore with the new fee.
My wife and I have 4 Platinum Amex cards. I will let them all die.
It is very, very hard to justify the price increase. We do not use Uber.
We travel at least twice a month. The card is not worth $550 in my opinion.
I’m grandfathered into the $450 fee since I renew before September, but I won’t keep this for $550 next year.
I don’t understand why AMEX doesn’t structure these incentives to encourage ongoing spend. It would have been much better to offer 5xMR on Uber to encourage more usage. There is obviously some marketing relationship between the two, so it’s not like 5x would be a loss for AMEX. Giving a credit just incentives me to use my AMEX once a month on Uber, then switch back to CSR, and encourages those who don’t use Uber at all to cancel their Platinum. As it’s a higher tier product, the spend bonuses should be at least as good as the PRG. The whole strategy is a little nonsensical to me.
All of your suggestions would be more expensive for American Express.
Amex Travel bookings earn them a significant commission from the hotel, so there’s going to be revenue attached to the 5x marketing expense.
Lump sum Uber credit would mean less breakage, and it might mean less regular Uber usage — less value to Uber, changing the dynamic of the deal.
Changing the annual fee credit to a travel credit is more expensive, less breakage. And adding another bonus category is more costly as well.
It’s fine to wish for more spending to go along with a higher fee, but from Amex’s perspective they might need a higher fee still, or other benefit cuts, to make this value proposition work.
I agree that #3 and #5 would add cost, but I disagree on #’s 1, 2 and 4. These alternatives would have increased revenue for AMEX as well, so you cannot say that these would be more expensive. As it stands now, the optimum use of a personal platinum is on airfare, once a month on Uber, and then back in the sock drawer. You will also lose a lot of customers who have no desire to use Uber, and don’t want to pay $100 extra for a benefit they won’t use. Time will tell, but I don’t see this playing out well for Amex at year’s end.
I think the thing about the Uber credit that irritates me the most is that it is SO OBVIOUSLY intended to encourage breakage. I mean cmon Amex throw us a bone here! 🙂
if amex gave $200 credit upfront… the penniless peons will just use it all up and cancel the card 6 months later. and reapply again next year!
Amex is smart.
LOL
While I don’t find any of the changes particularly appealing, I do appreciate that they at least tried to go outside of the box. If they make the changes you mentioned, particularly 2, 4, & 5 they might as well rebrand it the Amex Sapphire Reserve since that’s what you’re asking for it to become. Unfortunately the 5x on hotels is a wild miss since few people will willingly give up earning qualifying nights, points, and benefits. The Uber credit is a clumsy effort to appeal to a younger generation while ignoring the facts that Uber is not accessible in a many parts of the country still (and the credit on only works stateside) and that Uber has some serious brand damage going on causing many of the exact target demographic they’re aiming for to forswear Uber altogether. Ultimately these changes make excellent marketing and lip service, which is probably what they were aiming for.
book through amex travel = direct booking with hotel. you get hotel loyalty benefits such as stays and miles and points.
how do i know? i always book with amex travel and get stays and points credited with all my hotel loyalty programs.
now i even get 5x MR points!
why are people complaining.
100 bucks is nothing.. it is less than a meal for goodness sake!
Good points, but maybe a rebrand to the Amex Sapphire Reserve would be better since as it stands, the CSR is very definitely a better card
i love it when the penniless peons stop using amex plat so that it can be exclusive again.
the penniless peons are just gaming amex, they are not big spenders. they get the amex plat just for the sign up bonus and hardly use it thereafter.
get rid of the penniless peons and amex’s actual target market will reap the benefits.
$100 is nothing to amex’s real target market but it will weed out the penniless peons. i would rather amex give more of such benefits and increase the annual fees even more!
kudos to amex.
Amextravel is just a travel agency like any other. Any changes to a reservation would need to go through them versus the hotel property directly. Just like with an airline. I’d prefer to book directly with the hotel but it’s a minor inconvenience I suppose to book through Amex. The points and status will still apply though. With SPG/Marriott/Hilton you will lose ‘some’ benefits such as free wi-fi as you didn’t book through them directly. However with SPG/Marriott you’re gold status which covers that. With Hilton you’re also gold and that ‘generally’ covers wifi. I’ve seen some inconsistency there with some properties. Other places such as Hyatt, you’ll lose any benefits that require booking direct.
The Uber credit is a ‘meh’ for me. I don’t use it that often but if traveling a lot this may have some benefit. It would have been better to just have an annual credit instead of this rather complicated system.
What I’d personally like to see is the value of MR points increased a bit for Platinum members. Either increase the earning or better yet just increase the value. Similar to how they did with the Business Platinum — for airfare the points are worth double. That’s incredible! If something similar to that were done here I’d go back to AmEx for my everyday spend.
I am very loyal to AmEx having had an account for over 20 years continuously. But the value in general has dropped. Just recently I booked two hotel rooms. One I booked with MR points and it cost just over 40,000 points for the stay. Later I booked another through Chase UR and the same room, dates, and property were just over 15,000. I even called the property to verify the rooms were identical. That is a significant difference. A couple of thousand points even I wouldn’t care. But that’s a tremendous amount. I even called AmEx to see if there was a mistake and they confirmed this was the price. The value of MR points should be worth much more for Platinum users. Leave the lower end cards alone but increase the value for Platinum. THAT is the major change I want to see.
I plan on going back to the Gold PR when I am up for renewal in September. Wasn’t keen on the AF to start with and now even less with the $100 increase. Uber? Really? I don’t use them at all and have no plans to do so. The higher ups need to look more at their competitions before releasing new “benefits” and increasing the AF
By the way. Been with Amex since 1982
Just saw this in the new terms: “….At any visit to a Priority Pass Select lounge, you may bring in two guests for no charge. You will be charged $27 for any additional guests.”
Is that a typo? — huge unannounced change for the better.
Bill G – that is not a typo – that is one good enhancement
Question re hotel benefit. What is a “prepaid hotel”? Does this mean only advance purchase rates?
I completely agree with your assessment. I never use Uber but if I did, it would be well over $22 per ride due to where I live. A lump sum would allow for 1 airport transfer in an Uber XL or Black because I have 2 kids too.
The general travel credit is well past due. I have a Chase Reserve as well and I will indefinitely keep this card because of that and some of the other perks.
Dining bonus. Big miss on their part.
We’ll have to see how this plays out.
I am have had a 42-year relationship American Express and I can criticize them for almost nothing. They have been like family to me. But this latest news makes me very unhappy.
I have not yet decided what to do in terms of keeping or dropping the card. These new benefits mean nothing to me and I do not use Uber, so for me, this is just a 100 dollar increase in annual fee.
I am, for the first time in 42 years, truly disappointed. And I would not do business with Chase for any reason, so a Chase Sapphire Reserve Card is out of the question. Truly depressed this morning.