The Business Platinum Card® from American Express

Note: American Express is a Frequent Miler advertiser. Please see our Advertiser Disclosure.

Card Details and Application Link
The Business Platinum Card® from American Express
 
 
 
120K points
120K points after $15K spend in the first 3 months. Terms apply. (Rates & Fees)
Click Here to Apply

$695 Annual Fee

 
 

Alternate offer: There have been some incredible targeted offers. Some have received a mailer for us many as 250K points after $30K in elgibile purchases in the first six months (See this post for more detail). Others people are targeted for an online offer of 160K total points: 150K after $15K spend in the first 3 months + 10K when you add an employee card at the time of application and spend $1K on the employee card in the first 3 months. See if you are targeted here.

Recent better offer: 150K after $20K Spend (Targeted)

 
 

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.

Card Type: Amex Pay Over Time Card

Base
Travel
Other

Earning rate: 5X flights and prepaid hotels at AmexTravel.com ⚬ 1.5X points per dollar on eligible purchases of $5000 or more (on up to $2 million of those purchases per year) ⚬ 1.5x on US construction/hardware stores, US electronic goods, and US shipping ⚬ 1X elsewhere ⚬ Terms apply.

Noteworthy perks: Up to $200 a year in statement credits for airline incidental fees ⚬ Up to $400 a year in statement credits for Dell purchases ($200 Jan-June; $200 July-Dec) ⚬ Up to $120 in wireless services credits per year ($10 per month) ⚬ Up to $360 per year in credit with Indeed (up to $90 per quarter ⚬ Up to $150 per year in purchases with Adobe for annual prepaid plans for eligible Creative Cloud for teams and Acrobat Pro DC with e-sign ⚬ $100 Global Entry fee reimbursement.⚬ Airport lounge benefits ⚬ Rental car elite status ⚬ Marriott Gold status ⚬ Hilton Gold status. ⚬ $189 CLEAR fee reimbursement annually ⚬ 35% Airline Bonus: Get 35% points back after you Pay With Points for flights with your selected airline (or premium cabin with any airline). Enrollment required for select benefits

See also: Amex Platinum Guide

Rewards

Amex Membership Rewards points can be incredibly valuable if you know how to use them. In general, if you use Membership Rewards points to pay for merchandise or travel, you won't get good value from your points. One exception is with the Business Platinum card where you'll get a 35% point rebate when using points to book certain flights. This gives you approximately 1.5 cents per point value, which is pretty good. Another exception is with the Business Gold Card where you'll get a 25% point rebate when using points to book certain flights. This gives you approximately 1.33 cents per point value. If you don't have either card, then your best bet is to transfer points to airline miles in order to book high value awards. More details can be found here: Amex Membership Rewards Complete Guide.

Application Tips


Amex Application Tips



  • Safe to Apply: Amex is the safest bank for trying your luck at earning a new welcome bonus offer. They don’t usually issue a hard pull when denying your application, and if you already have an Amex card, they won't usually issue a hard pull when approved for another one. Plus, they’ll now warn you during the application process if you’re not eligible for the bonus.

  • Lifetime Rule: If you've ever had the same card before, you are most likely prohibited from earning a welcome bonus offer for the card if you apply now. Fortunately you'll be warned during the application process if this is the case. Amex is known to "forget" that you've had a card after about 7 years.

  • 90 Day Rule: You can get at most two credit cards within 90 days. This rule does not apply to Pay Over Time (charge) cards.

  • 5 credit card max: Amex usually won't approve applications for new credit cards if you already have 5 or more Amex credit cards or 10 or more charge cards.

  • Better Offers: You may be able to get a better offer than the best available public offer. Details here.

  • Hard inquiries combine into 1 when approved same day


Check application status here.
If denied, call reconsideration: 877-399-3083 (new accountholders); 866-314-0237 (current accountholders)

How to Meet Spend Requirements

In order to meet minimum spend requirements, people often look for options to increase spend in ways that result in getting their money back. These techniques are referred to as "manufacturing spend". American Express has terms in their welcome offers that exclude some manufactured spend techniques from counting towards the minimum spend requirements for the welcome bonus offer. For example, most new cardmember bonuses have terms like this:
Eligible purchases to meet the Threshold Amount do NOT include fees or interest charges, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards, person-to-person payments, or purchases of other cash equivalents.
That said, many techniques for meeting minimum spend are perfectly fine. Here are some techniques that are safe for meeting Amex minimum spend requirements (click each link for more information):

Related Cards (Membership Rewards)

Card Offer
The Platinum Card® from American Express
 
 
 
150K Points
150K after $6K spend in 6 months. Terms apply. (Rates & Fees)

$695 Annual Fee

 
 

Info about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy.

Alternate offer: Resy Offer: 125K after $6K spend + 10x dining for 6 months on up to $25K spend

Recent better offer: 125K after $6K in the first 6 months + 15x when you Shop Small in the US and at restaurants worldwide on up to $25K in eligible purchases in the first 6 months [Expired 1/20/22]

 
 
The Business Platinum Card® from American Express
 
 
 
120K points
120K points after $15K spend in the first 3 months. Terms apply. (Rates & Fees)

$695 Annual Fee

 
 

Alternate offer: There have been some incredible targeted offers. Some have received a mailer for us many as 250K points after $30K in elgibile purchases in the first six months (See this post for more detail). Others people are targeted for an online offer of 160K total points: 150K after $15K spend in the first 3 months + 10K when you add an employee card at the time of application and spend $1K on the employee card in the first 3 months. See if you are targeted here.

Recent better offer: 150K after $20K Spend (Targeted)

 
 
The Platinum Card® from American Express Exclusively for Morgan Stanley
 
 
 
100K points
100K after $6K spend in first 6 months. Terms apply. (Rates & Fees)

$695 Annual Fee

 
 

Info about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy.

Recent better offer: 100K points + 10x when you Shop Small in the US & at restaurants worldwide [Expired 1/20/22]

 
 
American Express® Gold Card
 
 
 
90K points
90K after $4K spend in first 6 months. Terms apply. (Rates & Fees)

$250 Annual Fee

 
 
American Express® Green Card
 
 
 
50K Points + up to $150 back
50K after $2K spend in first 6 months plus 20% back as a statement credit on restaurant purchases worldwide for the first 12 months up to $150 back. Terms apply. See Rates & Fees

$150 Annual Fee

 
 
American Express® Business Gold Card
 
 
 
70K Points
70K points after $10K spend in 3 months. Terms apply. (Rates & Fees)

$295 Annual Fee

 
 

Alternate offer: Some are targeted for an offer of 130K points after $10K in purchases in the first 3 months. You can see this post for more details Targeted Business Gold offer for 130K (Highly YMMV)

Recent better offer: 70K points + up to $300 in statement credits: 70K points after $10K spend in 3 months + up to $150 in statement credits for US shipping purchases and up to $150 in statement credits US advertising purchases. [Expired 4/7/21]

 
 
The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express
 
 
 
15K points
15K after $3K spend in 3 months. Terms apply. (Rates & Fees)

No Annual Fee

 
 

Alternate offer: Some people have been targeted for an offer in their online account for 50K points after $15K in purchases in their first 12 months.

Recent better offer: 20K after $3K spend in 3 months (Expired 6/21/17)

 
 
The Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card from American Express
 
 
 
15K Points
15K after $1K spend in 3 months. Terms apply.

$95 Annual Fee

 
 

Info about this card has been collected independently by Frequent Miler. The issuer did not provide the details, nor is it responsible for their accuracy.

Alternate offer: Some people click through and find that they are targeted for an offer of 30K points after $2K spend in 3 months.

Recent better offer: 30K after $2K in first 3 months

 
 

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Frank

Greg,
I want to add P2 as an authorized user (they call it an employee card) to my business platinum card for the purpose of allowing me to transfer my MR points to her airlines or hotels.

Online I can do this and am given a choice:

  • Employee Business Platinum Card @ $300 annual fee
  • Employee Business Gold Card @ $45 annual fee
  • Employee Business Green Card @ $0 annual fee

I want to minimize the cost, but I don’t know if the Green card allows me to transfer my points to her airlines/hotels. I am pretty sure the other 2 are OK. I know $45 isn’t much but why pay every year unless necessary.

What do you think?

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Greg The Frequent Miler

Go green. Yes it will allow point transfers. Keep in mind that it takes 90 days before point transfers are enabled.

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Frank

Thank you Greg! What would we do without you?

The only reason for the Gold Business card would be the 4x on dining (I don’ buy much in the other categories. But I can usually get 3x there and often even 5x anyway.

Decided: I will take the environmental option.

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Greg The Frequent Miler

Actually the AU / employee cards have the same earn rate as the primary Platinum card. Their names Gold and Green are deceiving because the benefits don’t correspond with the cards with the same names that you can sign up for separately

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Frank

Oh, great, now I feel even better. And thanks for the fast response – I will count the days to 90.

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Frank

I have a business Platinum card (well, more than one actually) but I would like to add P2 as an authorized user so that I can transfer my points to one of her hotel or airline accounts.

Is there a way to get a bonus for adding her?

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Greg The Frequent Miler

Yes, often a bonus shows up when you log into your account. If not, call Amex and ask.

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Frank

I recently found an offer online for more than 100,000 points for this card. It had the language about once in a lifetime and I had this card about 5 or 6 years ago, but this is for a different business. No warning came up when I applied, so I went ahead and was approved. How confident should I be that I will get the bonus? Any way to confirm this? I would hate to spend $15K and get no bonus.

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Vince

There are available referral links for the Amex Business Plat for 110K points with 15K spend. additionally some 5x categories for the first 3 months (gas, office, shipping, wireless). This must be the highest SUB ever for this card? the 5x categories are generally covered by other cards (Ink cash, freedom Q2, etc), so that is a wash. But I am going to guess you would say that this is a no brainer for those in the hunt for MR points

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Greg The Frequent Miler

That’s very good, but 100K offers for the business Platinum card are common. This is better than the usual, but not by a huge margin in my opinion (unless the 5X stuff is meaningful to you).

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Frank

I know you can pay federal taxes but what if you spend $5,000 on taxes? Will you get 1.5 x points? In other words, would this count as an “eligible” expense? Has anyone done this?

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Greg The Frequent Miler

Yes that will work. Note that the credit card processing fees are often charged separately and so you’ll need to pay at least $5K for taxes themselves for that payment to qualify. In other words, it wouldn’t work to pay $4950 in taxes + ~$100 in fees since each of those “purchases” are less than $5K

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Frank

Great, thanks. We will see.

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Frank

Greg, why do you always say Federal Taxes and not also State Taxes (I know that not all states allow credit card payments). Would this be an issue with AMEX?

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Greg The Frequent Miler

Only because there are services that allow you to pay federal taxes for about 2% in fees. Options for paying state taxes vary by state. I don’t believe Amex would have any issues with it

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Frank

Thanks.

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Art Leyenberger

Frank-just thinking out load and maybe you’ve already thought of this- The AMEX BBP card gives 2% on everything (irrespective of amount charged) if I’m not mistaken (I just got it). Why not use that?

Last edited 23 days ago by Art Leyenberger
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Frank

Because I need to complete the spend of $15K in 3 months for 150,000 MR points. Otherwise I would use my BofA Premium VISA and get a small profit (2.625% cash back).

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