Despite the eye-watering $895 annual fee, the American Express Platinum Card® is a great choice for most frequent flyers. Get the card for its welcome bonus, keep the card for its perks, and justify the cost with its many valuable credits. The card won’t be a fit for everyone, but I think that many will find that it deserves a spot in their travel wallet.
The mighty “free after rebate” travel card
The Platinum card offers valuable perks for frequent flyers, including lounge access, emergency medical transportation assistance, hotel and car-rental elite status, cruise benefits, and more. The card also comes loaded with valuable credits.
Usually, I recommend evaluating a card’s benefits one by one and estimating how much you would be willing to pay for an annual subscription to that benefit. If the total matches or exceeds the annual fee, then the card is a keeper (see: Which Premium Cards are Keepers?). You can do that with the Platinum card, of course, but for me, there’s an easier way to think about it. With this card, I ask myself: Does the card offer enough easy-to-use credits to make the card “free after rebate”?
Credits I find easy to use won’t necessarily align with the ones you find easy to use. But, my bet is that there are enough varied credits in the super-Platinum-coupon-book to fit most people’s needs.
If you can easily identify credits that make the card “free after rebate,” then you can think of the rest of the card’s coupons and perks as extras. You don’t have to use any of those extra perks to justify keeping the card, but they can be great to have when you need them. For example, since there are none in my home airport, I rarely visit Centurion Lounges, but it’s awesome to have the option when one is convenient.
The Platinum coupon collection
The following credits are available at least once per year. I recommend perusing the list to see which ones you can use with minimal effort.
| Benefit | Benefit Description |
|---|---|
| $200 airline fee credit | Registration required. Amex will automatically reimburse up to $200 per calendar year for airline fees for your selected airline only. Eligible fees include: baggage fees, flight-change fees, in-flight food and beverage purchases, and airport lounge day passes. For tips on using this benefit, please see: Amex airline fee reimbursements. What still works? |
| CLEAR® Plus credit | Get up to $209 per year reimbursed for CLEAR® Plus subscriptions. See also: 5 ways to get CLEAR® Plus for less. |
| $600 Hotel Credit | Up to $300 back in statement credits semi-annually on prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts® or The Hotel Collection bookings through Amex Travel™. The Hotel Collection bookings require stays of 2 nights or longer. |
| $400 Resy Dining Credit |
Enrollment required. Earn up to $100 back each quarter after making eligible purchases directly with Resy or for dining purchases at any U.S. Resy restaurant. |
| $120 Uber One Membership Credit |
Earn up to $120 in statement credits each calendar year with an auto-renewing Uber One membership in the U.S. |
| $200 in Uber / Uber Eats Credits | Get $15 in Uber credits per month ($35 in December) simply by adding your Platinum card number to your Uber account as a payment method. This benefit also includes Uber VIP status. Important: when requesting a ride, select Uber Cash for payment to use your credits. |
| $300 Digital Entertainment Credit |
Enrollment required. Earn up to $25 back each month after paying for select digital subscriptions: Paramount+, YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, Disney+, a Disney+ bundle, ESPN+, Hulu, The New York Times, Peacock, The Wall Street Journal. |
| Free Walmart+ Subscription | Get back the full cost, including taxes, for a Walmart+ monthly subscription. In addition to its standard benefits, Walmart+ also includes your choice of Paramount+ Essential or Peacock Premium streaming, at no extra cost. |
| $300 lululemon Credit |
Enrollment required. Earn up to $75 back each quarter in statement credits for eligible purchases at Lululemon stores or Lululemon.com in the U.S. Enrollment required. |
| $100 Saks Fifth Avenue Credits | Enrollment required. Earn up to $50 back each January through June, and July through December for purchases at Saks Fifth Avenue online or at locations in the US and US Territories. |
| $300 Equinox Credit | Enrollment required. Earn up to $300 back per year in statement credits for a digital or club membership at Equinox. |
| $300 SoulCycle Credit | Must join Equinox first. Charge the full price of a SoulCycle at-home bike and get $300 back in statement credits. |
| $200 Oura Credit | Enrollment required. Earn up to $200 back each calendar year in statement credits when purchasing an Oura Ring through Ouraring.com |
Coupons that offset the annual fee (for me)
I expect everyone to have their own list of credits that work well for them. For me, I know that I can use the following credits in full each year, with minimal effort:
- $200 airline incidental fee credit: I fly Delta often, and I find it super easy to earn this credit in full year after year (see this post for ideas).
- $400 Resy Dining Credit ($100 per quarter): I used this quarter’s $100 credit on January 1. We happened to eat at a restaurant listed on the Resy platform that night, so I made sure to pay with my Platinum card. In future quarters, I may have to choose to dine at a Resy restaurant instead of another option to use up my credit, but that doesn’t take much effort. If you happen to live somewhere without any good Resy restaurants nearby, though, it would be reasonable not to value this credit at all.
- $200 in Uber/Uber Eats Credits: I order from Uber Eats and ride Uber often enough to use up these credits every month. The fact that the card also offers an Uber One Membership rebate makes it even sweeter.
- $300 Digital Entertainment Credit (Up to $25 per month towards Paramount+, YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, Disney+, a Disney+ bundle, ESPN+, Hulu, The New York Times, Peacock, The Wall Street Journal): I subscribe to a number of these services, but my YouTube TV subscription, alone, easily and automatically earns the $25 rebate every month.
With the coupons I identified above, I easily earn $1,100 in rebates per year! That more than offsets the card’s $895 annual fee.
Free after rebate (for me)
Now that I’ve identified the coupons (above) that offset the Platinum card’s annual fee, I can think of all of the other coupons and perks as being “free after rebate”:
Free after rebate travel perks
- $600 Hotel Credit (Up to $300 per 6 months)
- Emergency medical transportation assistance
- CLEAR® Plus Credit
- Global Entry or TSA Pre fee credit
- Earn 5x on flights
- Airport Lounge Access: Centurion Lounges, Delta Sky Clubs (10 day-visits per year), Airspace Lounges, Escape Lounges, Plaza Premium Lounges, Select Lufthansa Lounges, Priority Pass
- International Airline Program
- Hotel Elite Status: Hilton & Marriott Gold, LHW Sterling
- Car Rental Benefits: National Car Rental Executive status, Hertz Rental Car Privileges, Avis Preferred status
- Cruise Benefits
Other free after rebate perks
- Cell Phone Protection
- $120 Uber One Membership Credit
- $300 lululemon Credit ($75 per quarter)
- $100 Saks Fifth Avenue Credits ($50 per 6 months)
- Free Walmart+
My most valued free after rebate perks
The “free after rebate” perks that I value the most from the lists above are:
- Airport Lounge Access: Delta Sky Club access is the most valuable to me, but I also love having access to other airport lounges when the opportunity arises.
- $600 Hotel Credit: The option to earn a $300 rebate twice per year on Fine Hotels + Resorts or The Hotel Collection bookings is awesome when my plans align with qualifying, reasonably priced hotel bookings.
- Emergency medical transportation assistance: You don’t have to pay for travel with your Platinum card to be fully covered for emergency medical evacuation. This is a perk that I hope to never use, but I love knowing that it’s there.
Coveted but rarely swiped
I rarely ever use my Platinum card for purchases. The card only earns 1 point per dollar for most purchases. That’s an awful return, given that several cards on the market earn 2 transferable points per dollar on all spend. I pay with my Platinum card only to earn rebates, where applicable (such as at Resy restaurants). It would be reasonable to use the Platinum card to pay for airfare (where it earns 5x), but I rarely do that. As long as I have the Sapphire Reserve® card (see: Is the $795 Sapphire Reserve® coupon card a keeper?), I’d prefer to earn 4x on airfare with that card since it also offers best-in-class travel protections.
Conclusion
Four of the Platinum card’s credits are easy for me to use in full every year. Taken together, I earn more than $895 in credits each year, so I can easily think of the Platinum card as “free after rebate”. For me, it’s worth the small effort to chase these credits because of the card’s many other excellent perks.
Some readers will find that the Platinum card doesn’t have enough easy-to-use credits to justify its annual fee. That’s fine. If you value the card’s other features (airport lounge access, for example), it might still be a keeper, but that will require more thought. If you’re in that camp, I recommend using the spreadsheet in this post: “Which Premium Cards are Keepers?” No doubt, some will find that the card isn’t worth keeping. Cool. If that’s you, cancel the card when the next annual fee comes due. My bet, though, is that many frequent flyers will find enough there to make the card a long-term keeper.
What about you? Is the Platinum card a keeper for you? Please comment below.
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Most frequent flyers? Um, no. If you regularly fly out of an airport with a centurion and it’s convenient to the terminal you usually fly out of,then ok. Otherwise, welcome to coupon hell. Clear is next to useless, the noose is tightening around the airline credits, and hotel credits are just a way to spend more on hotels you otherwise wouldn’t. Oh but those yoga pants!
Pimping cards, pimping cards…. why don’t you guys go back to analysis amd finding sweet spots instead of pimping cards so much these days. Between that and the numerous excessive pop up ads on the site amd now ads on the podcast, you guys have basically become the typical credot card shill blog!
If this is the case, then why are you even on this blog and reading this article? It’s like eating a poop sandwich and saying you don’t like the taste . . . yet you order another one.
Separately, you are so (stinkin’) self-absorbed that you can’t conceive any person in the world could possibly benefit from this card. Because you can’t, no one can. Me me me. Are you a Millennial or Gen Z? Get over yourself.
Maybe you simply don’t have the brain power to figure out how to extract value from the card. Like so many (people) who haven’t figured out the Bilt card.
My wife and I each have the card and we *net* over $1300 per year after clearing the annual fee. We’re each going to pick up a second one.
not agreeing or disagreeing on your take, but ublock origin would help with the ads
No brainer for me
For Wall Street Journal you should include Barron’s, which is what I subscribe to. I love love love Barron’s. And I get it as a perk.
Now about that $200 airline credit…