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Note that the offers mentioned in this post have since expired. See our Best Offers page for current offer information.
To borrow a popular phrase, Stop the madness! If you 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 would instead see a targeted offer for 100K plus 10x back on $15K at US Gas Stations and US Supermarkets, I’d have laughed you out of the room. And so when someone told me yesterday that they say an offer on the Amex Platinum card for 125K points after $5K spend in the first six months that also includes 10x at US Gas Stations & Supermarkets on up to $15K in purchases in the first 6 months (since expired), I facetiously responded with the line, “Screen shots or it didn’t happen lol.” Sure enough, it did. Some people are targeted with this 125K offer — and I can’t imagine seeing this and not applying for it.
Holy guacamole. Mama mia, that’s a spicy meatball. Hat tip to reader Erik L for the screen shot. This offer was found via the Amex prequalification tool.
The following is a summary of all four current (these bonuses were current at the time of writing but have since expired) welcome bonuses being reported on the Amex Platinum card. The next few sections summarize the points portion of the offer. For more details on the awesome perks of the Platinum card, which can include more than $1100 in statement credits in the first 12 months, jump down to “Sweet Amex Platinum statement credit and perks no matter which offer you use” or keep reading below the offer summaries.
The “only 75K” + 10x offer (offer expired)
Many other blogs are reporting what I’ll call the “only” 75K offer, which only includes 75K points after $5K in purchases plus 10x at US gas stations and US Supermarkets . It’s actually not that this offer is bad – indeed, in a normal week, this offer would be a big deal. It’s just that there is a better public offer, which is why we never reported or listed this deal.
The “only 75K” offer made better by referral (offer expired)
If you can’t get the 100K or 125K offers listed below and you would rather have points than the restaurant credits of the Resy deal, you could help a friend pick up a nice bonus. This works particularly well if you’re playing with a spouse/significant other. Since Amex lets you generate a referral across cards these days, Player 1 can find his/her best referral link (some cards offer a bonus of 25,000 Membership Rewards points when you refer others) and refer Player 2. In some cases you may see the “only 75K” offer through a referral. If your other household player is picking up 25K points for referring you, that becomes much less crummy indeed.
Note that you may only see the 60K offer when clicking through a referral link, but it’s probably worth trying each browser on your computer.
The public 75K + $300 in restaurant credits offer (offer expired)
This is the offer we had listed on our Best Offers page until the 100K offer (below) became available to everyone. We always make an effort to list the best publicly-available offer (that is to say an offer that everyone will see when clicking through) on our best offers page / individual card pages.
In this case, our link goes to restaurant reservation website Resy, which has what appeared to be a phenomenal offer for the Platinum card (I use the past tense here only because of the even better targeted offers below):
- Get 75K points after making $5K in purchases in the first 6 months
- Get 10x at US gas stations and US restaurants on up to $15K in purchases in the first 6 months
- Get 20% back on restaurant purchases worldwide for the first 12 months up to $300 back
We wrote more about that offer here. The nice thing about this offer through Resy is that it is easily available to anyone by applying via the link to Resy that you find on our Platinum Card page.
The amazing 100K + 10x offer (offer expired)
As if the above wasn’t good enough, people began reporting an even better targeted 100K deal yesterday (update: this is now available to everyone!). Both Greg and I took a swing at it and successfully snagged the following offer:
- Get 100K points after making $5K in purchases in the first 6 months
- Get 10x at US gas stations and US restaurants on up to $15K in purchases in the first 6 months
This version of the offer does not have the restaurant statement credits of the Resy deal about but instead replaces that with the additional 25K points added to the welcome bonus.
When this post was first written, the 100K offer was targeted, but now it is available to everyone. Click here to find an up-to-date link to the 100K offer.
The incredible 125K + 10x targeted offer (offer expired)
Some people are seeing an absolutely incredible offer via the Amex prequalification tool or the CardMatch Tool. For those who are having trouble reading the fine print in the screen shot at the top of this post, this targeted offer includes:
- 125K Membership Rewards points after you spend $5K on purchases in the first 6 months
- 10x at US Gas Stations and US Supermarkets on up to $15K in purchases for the first 6 months
If you were able to max out the $15K in 10x spend, that would be 275,000 Membership Rewards points. Uh, wow. That more than mitigates the $550 annual fee given that, as Greg pointed out this morning, those points could be cashed out via the Schwab Platinum (maybe you pick that card up next year after you’ve got more points than you know what to do with?) for $3,437.50. For anyone aware of the myriad of Membership Rewards sweet spots, those points could be worth much more with partners whenever travel resumes.
Sweet Amex Platinum statement credit and perks no matter which offer you use
As I’ve written about several times now this week, by applying now for an Amex Platinum card, you can get more than $1100 in credits in the first 12 months on top of the points:
- 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)
- As Greg pointed out in this morning’s post, you may also be able to get credits for Variis by Equinox (though I didn’t see this offer in the new Platinum account today)
And as I’ve noted several times this week, the Platinum card also comes with other terrific standard benefits like Hilton Gold status, Centurion lounge access, Delta SkyClub access when flying Delta, and more. See our Amex Platinum Complete Guide for more.
Note that if we knew that these amazing offers would be around in December, we probably would have held off on applying as it could potentially be possible to get an extra set of airline fee credits in January 2022, but we just don’t know whether these offers will be around and they were too valuable to ignore. If you’re a gambler, you might wait it out until December.
Bottom line
Some people are finding a prequalified offer for both 125K points after $5K spend in the first 6 months and 10x at US gas stations and US supermarkets on up to $15K in purchases for the first 6 months and that offer is absolute insanity. As I argued in yesterday morning’s post and will talk about on tomorrow’s podcast, I think that some people are making the mistake of looking at the 10x categories as an all-or-nothing proposition. If you can’t spend the full $15K in the temporary bonus categories, who cares? Before this week, the best offer I ever recall seeing on the Amex Platinum card was for just 100K after $5K in purchases with no 10x bonus categories. Given that most purchases on the personal Platinum card only earn 1x, most people would only end up with 105K total points with that 100K targeted offer (which, before this week, was considered to be such a good offer that many of us check for every few months hoping to see). If you are targeted for the 125K offer, I think that’s the best offer we’ve ever seen on the personal Platinum even if you don’t spend a dime at US gas stations or US Supermarkets. On the other hand, if you’re able to spend $5K in those categories (which works out to about $193 per week, which is probably at least close to a realistic grocery and gas figure for a large segment of readers), you would end up with 175,000 points. That is amazing.
To find the 125K targeted offer, you can go to the American Express prequalification tool. Again, this is a targeted offer, so most people likely won’t see it. However, it’s always worth a shot. The 100K offer that Greg and I found is also an awesome deal, but the 125K offer would obviously take the cake. I tried a few devices in my household before I saw the 100K offer. I knew my wife was wrong when she told me to throw those old laptops away.
Any way you slice it, these offers are the rare type of thing that we just don’t expect to see again and wouldn’t wait on because we don’t know whether they’ll be around for long.
H/T: Readers John and Erik L and Doctor of Credit
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