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: Since this post was written, additional great offers have surfaced. Please click here to see every option.
Restaurant reservation website Resy has what I would call a show-stoppingly good offer out on the Amex Platinum Card. This one is compelling if you are eligible as I’d say it is arguably the best offer I’ve ever seen on the Platinum card.
The Offer & Key Card Details
For more information and to find application links, click the card names below to go to our dedicated Frequent Miler card pages.
| Card Offer and Details |
|---|
100K points + 10X on dining ⓘ Non-Affiliate 100K points after $8K spend in 6 months + 10x on dining for 6 months (on up to $25K in purchases). Terms apply.$695 Annual Fee Information about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy. FM Mini Review: This card is absolutely loaded with high end perks. Depending upon your situation, those perks may be worth the annual fee or much more. Earning rate: 5X points for flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel ✦ 5X points for prepaid hotels booked through American Express Travel Card Info: Amex Pay Over Time Card issued by Amex. This card has no foreign currency conversion fees. Noteworthy perks: Up to $200 a year in statement credits for incidental fees at one qualifying airline per calendar year ✦ $200 prepaid hotel credit per calendar year valid on Fine Hotels & Resorts and The Hotel Collection bookings ✦ Up to $20 per month rebate for Disney+, a Disney Bundle, ESPN+, Hulu, The New York Times, Peacock, and/or The Wall Street Journal ✦ Up to $120 Global Entry/TSA Precheck fee reimbursement.✦ $15 monthly Uber or Uber Eats credit ($20 in December, use it or lose it each month) ✦ $199 CLEAR (R) Plus fee credit per calendar year ✦ $12.95 (+tax) monthly credit for Walmart+ monthly membership subscription credit when you pay with Platinum card ✦ Up to $100 in credits annually for purchases at Saks Fifth Avenue (up to $50 in credits semi-annually) ✦ Priority Pass membership (Lounges only) with 2 guests and other airport lounge benefits (Centurion and Delta) ✦ Rental car elite status ✦ Marriott Gold status ✦ Hilton Honors Gold status Enrollement required for some benefits. Terms Apply. (Rates & Fees) See also: Amex Platinum Guide |
Quick Thoughts
This offer is downright amazing in my opinion. The Platinum card is always a strong value in the first year, but this new offer takes it to another level entirely, particularly if you’re able to snag it before the end of the year. For the $550 annual fee, look at all you get in the first 12 months between introductory bonus stuff as outlined above and normal benefits assuming you apply this month:
- 75K points after $5K in purchases in the first 6 months
- Up to $300 back in statement credits for restaurant purchases (20% back at restaurants worldwide for the first 12 months up to $300 back)
- Up to $400 in airline fee incidental credits ($200 each calendar year; apply now and you can get this $200 before the end of this year plus another $200 in credits next year)
- Up to $200 in Uber credits over the next year ($15/mo and $35 in December)
- Up to $150 in Sak’s 5th Ave credits ($50 between January and June and $50 between July and December; apply now and use the credit once before the end of this year and then twice next year)
- Up to $40 in wireless services credits ($20 in November and $20 in December 2020 due to temporary COVID enhancements)
- Up to $40 in streaming services credits ($20 in November and $20 in December 2020 due to temporary COVID enhancements)
- 10x at US Gas Stations and US Supermarkets for the first 6 months on up to $15K in purchases
Again, that is show-stoppingly good. That is a total of up to $1,130 in statement credits alone. On top of the bonus points. And the 10x categories. Wow!
If you were able to do the entire $5K spending requirement at US gas stations and US Supermarkets in the first 6 months, you’d have a total of 125,000 points after minimum spend. That is fantastic — and again, that’s on top of over a thousand bucks in statement credits (which I should note clearly isn’t worth a full thousand dollars since you may not be able to use all of the credits or may not naturally use them). Even if you only get half the value out of the statement credits, it effectively wipes out the cost of the annual fee for the first year.
And all of that is to say nothing about standard Platinum card benefits like Hilton Gold status, Centurion lounge access, Delta Sky Club access when flying Delta, Airspace lounge access, National Executive status, access to Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts, and more. If you value any of that stuff, it’s just icing on the cake.
In terms of the value of the points, you can get incredible value with the many Amex Membership Rewards sweet spots. Obviously premium cabin international travel is a pipe dream at the moment for most of us, but if you have faith that the world will eventually get back to normal, these points could be hugely valuable. A couple of examples of great uses if you were able to put together than 125K points referenced above:
- Round trip first class ticket to Japan on ANA booked via Virgin Atlantic (110K total points from the west coast or 120K from the east coast)
- Round trip business class travel to Europe:
- 34K each way for New York, Boston, or Chicago to Madrid in off-peak season via Iberia (68K round trip)
- 88K round trip Star Alliance business class from the US to Europe via ANA
- 50K each way for Delta business class to Europe via Virgin Atlantic (100K round trip)
- Round trip business class travel to Asia:
- From 75K round trip on ANA to Japan or 90K-95K round trip to most of Asia on Star Alliance partners
- Round trip business class to Australia
- From 120K round trip using ANA
- Round trip business class to Africa
- 105K round trip on Star Alliance booked via ANA
And beyond all that, you could book a pretty terrific round-the-world business class trip on Star Alliance via ANA for 115K-125K with stops in up to 8 cities (note that this can cost more or less depending on distance / routing). And then you have some of the sweet spots of the new Aeroplan. Again, see this post for Membership Rewards sweet spots information about all of the above.
Honestly, I think the 75K offer would be amazing whether paired with the restaurant statement credits or with the temporary 10x bonus categories. Getting both is what makes this offer kind of nuts. People sometimes get targeted for a 100K offer on the Platinum card, but as shown above, if you’re able to do even just $5K in the 10x bonus categories, you’re well ahead of that offer. If you’re able to max out the full $15K at US Supermarkets and US Gas stations, you’d have at least 225,000 total points ($15K x 10x = 150K plus 75K welcome offer = 225K points). Again, that would be nuts even without all of the other stuff above — with all that this card is looking delectable.
Keep in mind that Amex allows a welcome bonus once per lifetime on most cards in most situations. However, you can have each flavor of Platinum card once — so if you have had the Schwab Platinum or Morgan Stanley Platinum card before, you are still eligible for this one. Read more about the different flavors of Platinum card in this post.
H/T: Danny the Deal Guru
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
So I just tried to apply for this offer and got the pop-up which i didn’t expect at all. I’m at 2/24 with my last card being an AMEX Gold last year. The weird thing is during the application process i signed in to fill in my details and it said i was pre-qualified. This is upsetting since my Reserve fee just came due. I tried again without signing in and still got the popup.
[…] Firefox showed me a 75K offer. Same with Microsoft Edge. Not interested. I can do better than that even without a targeted offer. Chrome, though, showed me the magic 100K + 10X offer! (Later the 100K + 10X offer showed up in […]
[…] told me at the beginning of the week that we’d see an offer for any credit card as good as the Resy offer for the Platinum card that we reported the other day, I wouldn’t have believed you. If you’d have followed that by telling me that some […]
i got the same response Eric got…based on your history with credit card balance transfers, American Express welcome offers, introductory APR offers, or the number of Cards you have opened and closed, you are not eligible to receive the welcome offer.
We have not yet performed a credit check. Would you still like to proceed?
Note: Your application will be considered withdrawn if no action is taken on this page.
I’ve never even had a AMEX Platnium card before
got the 100,000 offer for both P2 and myself and both denied!
we have never had the card before and we don’t have that many AE cards, Credit score 835!!!!
[…] version of the offer does not include the restaurant statement credits that we wrote about the other day (and that I shared more extensive thoughts about in this morning’s post). However, I think […]
[…] really brought this train of thought to the forefront for me was the killer Amex Platinum offer that we reported the other day. It is by far the best offer I’ve ever seen publicly available on the Platinum card and it […]
Does anyone know till when is this offer on?
Thx
No, nobody knows.
I applied for a the cash preferred about 10 days ago and didn’t get approved, the reason was “to many recent accounts”
(Last card I got 3months ago with chase)
And they advice to wait 30 days and re-apply since I have a good FICO.
Think that I will be told the same thing with this card?
Thx
Stupid question, but is there an easy way to check if we’ve had this card before? I know I’ve had the Ameriprise version (multiple times) when it was free, but not sure I’ve signed up for the plain version.
You can try Amex chat, but they have been known to have been wrong before.
ugh…
Eric, based on your history with credit card balance transfers, American Express welcome offers, introductory APR offers, or the number of Cards you have opened and closed, you are not eligible to receive the welcome offer.
We have not yet performed a credit check. Would you still like to proceed?
Note: Your application will be considered withdrawn if no action is taken on this page.
I’ve never even had a AMEX Platnium card before 🙁
same happened to me… did you try calling them???
Going through this Resy link means no way to pile on here with a Refer-a-friend 15,000 MR point bonus (P1 -> P2)? I am seeing 75K now on the referral (was 60K) this summer via Refer-a-friend.
Correct. You can wait to see if the referral offer changes. It might, though I’m doubtful that it will include the $300 in restaurant statement credits.
Over a year ago I upgraded a long held gold to a platinum with a pre-approved offer. If I downgrade now back to gold, would I qualify for this offer including the SUB?
Nope. Lifetime language says that you are not eligible for the bonus if you have or have had the card before. It’s not only about whether you have the card right now and it doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve ever gotten a bonus on it before (you could have signed up and missed the spending requirement and never gotten a welcome bonus and you’d still be disqualified because you would have had the card before). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!
Having an electric car means this is almost useless to me. Amex isn’t crazy about gift card purchases at gas stations right?
Do you also not eat groceries or at restaurants? 🙂
Amex isn’t crazy about gift card purchases to meet spending requirements. If I buy gift cards with the 10x bonus, I’d expect the points to get clawed back and be pleasantly surprised if they aren’t. That’s not to say that I think they’ll definitely get clawed back in all situations, just that I wouldn’t count on GCs working, especially while working on the initial $5K for 75K.
Is this worth doing if I am currently waiting a few months to get under 5/24 and also have the 5X for a year on groceries from the Chase Freedom card?
Would it warrant my downgrading the CSR in December for a pro-rated refund (renewal was in July) if I can still use some or all of the travel/grocery credit and Doordash credit before that?
Would one workaround just be to buy grocery store gift cards in the grocery store? For example, buy Safeway gift cards at Safeway and then use those gift cards later on.
Maybe, although I personally wouldn’t spend more than usual on groceries in order to avoid drawing Amex’s attention.
I’ve only had (and have since cancelled) the Mercedes platinum card. I assume this is a different product, correct?
Yes, this is different product. That said, when they phased out the Mercedes Platinum, they transitioned those card holders to this vanilla Platinum Card. Assuming you canceled while it was still the Mercedes version, then you’ve never had this and are eligible for it. If you kept the Mercedes Platinum after they discontinued that card and sent you a new regular platinum card without the Mercedes branding, then it’s possible you wouldn’t be eligible as you would have had the vanilla Platinum before.