Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Update: This post includes offers that were valid at the time of publication, but have since expired. Please click here to see the best offers currently available.
The American Express Enhanced Business Platinum 50% pay-with-points rebate has quickly become one of our favorite benefits. Unfortunately, it seems this benefit became everyone’s favorite — and therefore it has become too expensive for Amex to continue to offer it. As reported by The Points Guy, Amex has announced that effective June 1st, they will be decreasing the pay-with-points rebate to 35%. Additionally, there will now be a cap of 500,000 rebated points per year. Furthermore, rebate processing time has increased from a couple of days to 6-10 weeks.
Summary of Changes
- Business Platinum pay-with-points rebate decreasing from 50% to 35%
- Annual cap of 500,000 rebated points
- Rebate processing time has increased to 6-10 weeks
Quick Thoughts
This drops the effective per-point value to 1.54 cents per point. While that is still marginally better than using points with the Chase Sapphire Reserve or the forthcoming US Bank Altitude Reserve, those cards are much less restrictive in that you can use Ultimate Rewards or US Bank points to pay for any flight or hotel. As far as we know, Amex has no plans to expand the current benefit, which applies to all business and first class flights, but only your chosen domestic airline for coach fares.
Additionally, the pay-with-points rebate requires you to have more points up front in order to make a redemption. For example, a $1,000 airfare will require you to have 100,000 points initially. You will receive 35% back (35,000 points) for a net cost of 65,000 points. You’ll pay a bit more with Chase or US Bank — 66,667 points in total — but you won’t need to have 100K in your account in order to buy the ticket.
There is no doubt that this change is a disappointment. For Amex to pull the benefit less than a year after launching it, it must have been proving far more costly than anticipated. If you have any pay-with-points uses on your radar, make sure to take advantage of them before June 1st.
H/T: The Points Guy
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
[…] we took a few blows here this year. First, Amex axed a killer Business Platinum benefit. Then, Citi killed a number of benefits on the Prestige card. Following that, Chase stopped […]
[…] Now that the Business Platinum card’s 50% rebate feature drops to 35%, effective June 1 2017 for most cardholders, the Business Platinum card is no longer a slam dunk […]
[…] valuable awards. Even better, if you have a Business Platinum card that still qualifies for the 50% pay with points rebate, those 6,000 points are easily worth $120 in […]
[…] that the biggest news to hit the credit card space in the past few weeks has been the impending elimination of the Amex Business Platinum 50% pay-with-points rebate. This rebate, introduced a mere 7 months ago, is set to be reduced to just a 35% rebate that will […]
[…] removal of the 50% flight rebate. They introduced the benefit on October 6th 2016 and are set to take it away from most existing cardholders by June 1 2017. The feature survived less than 8 months. Fortunately, those who opened, or will open, accounts […]
[…] the Enhanced Business Platinum card. As you’ll recall, we reported last Friday that Amex is ending this popular benefit on June 1st for existing cardholders, but that the @AskAmex twitter team confirmed that new cardholders whose account opening date is […]
It’s like Amex is deliberately trying to be uncompetitive with Chase. Absolutely flabbergasting to watch them react to the CSR’s entry and their loss of Costco by raising fees, reducing benefits, and stubbornly refusing to innovate or improve their product in the face of steady market erosion.
[…] a Business Platinum card holder looking for some opportunities to use your pay-with-points rebate while you still can, check out some of this week’s […]
[…] Business Platinum pay-with-points rebate decreasing June 1st […]
Well, I got one in the bag with the Oslo to New York via Lisbon, Business Class for 21,894 MR points each. Fantastic deal.
Thanks.
Now that it’s taking much longer for the 50% rebate, what happens if I need to legitimately cancel a booking within 24 hours, before the rebate posts? I end up essentially redeeming the MR for 1 cent each?
When you cancel, you can request that the points be redeposited into your account, rather than returned to you as cash.
[…] plot thickens. If you read our post earlier about the fact that American Express is decreasing the popular Business Platinum pay-with-points rebate as of June 1st, you are aware that this valuable benefit will be will be cut from a 50% rebate to a 35% rebate […]
Well that blows. The Amex BP card was going to be a permanent fixture. Now I will have to reevaluate it now. I wish they would have just placed a cap let’s say 500k points per year. Just when I was loving this card: annual travel credit, 5x points on amextravel.com, and Gold status at Marriott & Friends, Hilton. Combo this w/ the Amex EveryDay was a great strategy for family travel.
I find it’s very tough to get a good deal on award travel while school is out. So this was a great alternative.
Major disappointment . Have redeemed about 300K this year (net 150K) . Guess I can stop focusing on MR points going forward
Thanks AmEx for continually making it easier and easier to cancel my platinum card as soon as the annual fee comes due. I just burned all my AmEx points on the 30% bonus to Virgin Atlantic for an ANA first redemption. Clearly their card benefits department is being run by very old and out of touch clowns. AmEx used to be the prestigious card carrier. Now only those who don’t follow points/miles think so. Chase and even Citi blow them out of the water on card benefits and now for a lower annual fee.