NOTICE: This post references card features that have changed, expired, or are not currently available
Amex Platinum cards come loaded with elite perks: airport lounge access, hotel and car rental elite status, 100% rebate on a CLEAR membership, emergency medical transportation & evacuation, and much more. They also come loaded with credits and rebate opportunities. Personal Platinum cards offer annual Uber credits, rebates on Fine Hotel & Resort bookings, digital entertainment rebates, Walmart+ rebates, etc. Business Platinum cards offer rebates for Dell purchases, cell phone service, and select software. Both types offer up to $200 per year in rebates for airline incidental fees. That’s all great, but these perks and rebates come at a steep cost: $695 per year.
What if you want Amex Platinum perks, but you don’t want to pay for them? Sure it’s possible to earn back the annual fee with each Platinum card’s grab bag of rebates, but it’s a burden to try to do so year after year. In this post I’ll present another strategy to consider…
First Year “Free After Rebate”
At the time of this writing, there are 4 different Platinum cards available to the U.S. market:
- The Platinum Card® from American Express (sometimes referred to as the “vanilla Platinum”)
- The Platinum Card® from American Express for Schwab
- The Platinum Card® from American Express Exclusively for Morgan Stanley
- The Business Platinum Card® from American Express
The key idea here is that each Platinum card’s first year annual fee is well worth paying in exchange for the ability to earn a big welcome bonus (which requires being approved for the new card and meeting the spend requirements for the offer). If you value Membership Rewards points at only a penny each, a 100,000 point welcome bonus, for example, is worth $1,000. That more than covers the Platinum card’s first year annual fee. In fact, with the Schwab Platinum card you can redeem points for 1.1 cents each to your Schwab investment account, so 100,000 points are worth $1,100 cash; or with the Morgan Stanley Platinum card you can redeem points for 1 cent each, so 100,000 points are worth $1,000. Since Platinum card welcome bonuses tend to be around 100,000 points or more these days, let’s call the first year “free after rebate“.
Rotate Platinum Cards
If you accept the first year “free after rebate” notion described above, then it should be possible to get four years of Platinum for “free after rebate” by rotating through each card year after year. Each year you can sign up for a Platinum card, then cancel after a year and sign up for a different one. Example:
- Year 1: Sign up for the vanilla Platinum card
- Year 2: Sign up for the Schwab Platinum card and cancel the vanilla Platinum
- Year 3: Sign up for the Business Platinum card and cancel the Schwab Platinum
- Year 4: Sign up for the Morgan Stanley Platinum card and cancel the Business Platinum
Note that I purposely put the Morgan Stanley Platinum last because it has some features that make it a desirable last Platinum card to have. More about this later in the post.
Caution: Amex doesn’t like to offer welcome bonuses to people who cancel their cards year after year. To do the above technique, it’s important to also have one or two other Amex cards that you use regularly without cancelling. Otherwise, when you go to sign up for a new Amex Platinum card, you may get the dreaded pop-up saying that you’re not eligible for a welcome bonus offer.
Retention Offers
The above plan will only give you four years of Platinum for “free after rebate,” but you should be able to extend this by quite a bit through retention offers. At the end of each membership year with your card, call Amex to cancel your card. Often they’ll present you with a big retention offer try to get you to keep the card another year. For example, here are a couple of retention offers that I accepted in 2021 (I wrote about these here):
- Business Platinum: I was offered a $595 statement credit for keeping the card another year. There was no spend requirement for this offer.
- Schwab Platinum: I was offered either $650 or 60,000 points after $4K spend in 3 months. I took the points.
Before calling, you should have a rough idea of how many points or how much cash back would make it worthwhile to keep the card for another year. If you average just one good retention offer for each Platinum card as you rotate through, you can extend the “free after rebate” streak to 8 years. For example:
- Year 1: Sign up for the vanilla Platinum card
- Year 2: Accept retention offer and keep the Platinum card for another year
- Year 3: Sign up for the Schwab Platinum card and cancel the vanilla Platinum
- Year 4: Accept retention offer and keep the Platinum card for another year
- Year 5: Sign up for the Business Platinum card and cancel the Schwab Platinum
- Year 6: Accept retention offer and keep the Platinum card for another year
- Year 7: Sign up for the Morgan Stanley Platinum card and cancel the Business Platinum
- Year 8: Accept retention offer and keep the Platinum card for another year
Outlive Lifetime Rules
Amex has “lifetime” rules against getting a welcome bonus for a card you’ve had before. It’s been widely reported, though, that in practice you can qualify for a welcome bonus offer again after about 7 years. In some cases, the timespan is even shorter. See this post for much more on this topic: Bending Amex’s Lifetime Rule.
In other words, it might be possible to start the Platinum card rotation again with a new welcome bonus offer every year.
The Morgan Stanley Finale
Both the Schwab Platinum card and the Morgan Stanley Platinum card are available only to those with investment accounts. With Schwab, it’s super easy to open an account. With Morgan Stanley, it’s easy to open an Access Investing account, but you do need to fund it with $5,000. So, the barrier for entry with Morgan Stanley is a little bit higher. On the other hand, the Morgan Stanley card has a couple of qualities that make it a great choice to be your final long term keeper card: 1) The first authorized user is free; and 2) It’s possible to get the annual fee completely rebated every year…
Free Authorized User
The Morgan Stanley Platinum card lets you add one Platinum authorized user for free. The person with this card gets all of the elite-like perks that come with Platinum cards, but none of the statement rebates or credits. For example, the authorized user won’t get their own $200 in airline incidental fee credits, but they can use their card to get into participating airport lounges (such as Amex Centurion Lounges, or Delta SkyClubs when flying Delta).
$695 Annual Rebate (Engagement Bonus)
By jumping through a few hoops with Morgan Stanley, it’s possible to get the Platinum card’s full annual fee back every year. Full details about how to earn this engagement bonus can be found here: Morgan Stanley Platinum Card Fee Free (how to earn the $695 Annual Engagement Bonus).
If you ever get tired of cycling through the various Platinum flavors year after year and would prefer to keep just one account open, this is the one that is probably the best fit for those who can meet the requirements for Morgan Stanley’s annual engagement bonus.
Preserving Points
If you decide to cancel your Platinum card each year and sign up for another one, it’s important to make sure that you don’t lose your points. One way to do that is to sign up for a second Platinum card before cancelling the first. A better option is to simply keep another Amex card that earns Membership Rewards points. Two fee free options are the Amex Everyday Credit Card and the Blue Business Plus. The latter is a great option in general because it earns 2x on all eligible purchases, up to $50,000 per year (then 1x).
More:
You must have a business (but you probably do): In order to apply for a business credit card, you must have a business. That said, it's common for people to have businesses without realizing it. If you sell items at a yard sale or on eBay, for example, then you have a business. Similar examples include: consulting, writing (e.g. blog authorship, planning your first novel, etc.), handyman services, owning rental property, renting on airbnb, driving for Uber or Lyft, etc. In any of these cases, your business is considered a Sole Proprietorship unless you form a corporation of some sort.When you apply for a business credit card as a sole proprietor, you can use your own name as your business name, use your own address and phone as the business' address and phone, and your social security number as the business' Tax ID / EIN. Alternatively, you can get a proper Tax ID / EIN from the IRS for free, in about a minute, through this website.
Is it OK to use business cards for personal expenses? Anecdotally, almost everyone I know uses business cards for personal expenses. That said, the terms in most business card applications state that you should use the card only for business use. Also, some consumer credit card protections do not apply to business cards. My advice: don't use the card for personal expenses if you're not comfortable doing so.
Best Uses for Amex Points
In general, the best use of Amex points is to transfer to high value airline partners in order to book international flight awards. There are some situations, though, where you can get good value in other ways. For details see: How to use your Amex Point fortune.
Platinum Perks Detailed
Perks for all Platinum cards
| Flight & Airport Benefits | Benefit Description |
|---|---|
| 5X through American Express Travel® | Earn 5X points for prepaid hotel and airline bookings via American Express Travel® |
| $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? |
| International Airline Program | Save money when booking select premium cabin international flights originating in the US or Canada. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Airport Lounge Access: Centurion Lounges | The cardholder is allowed free entry. Guests are charged $50 per adult, or $30 per child aged 2 through 17. After $75K of eligible spend in a calendar year, the cardholder is permitted 2 complimentary guests per visit. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Airport Lounge Access: Airspace Lounges, Escape Lounges, Plaza Premium Lounges | Cardholder plus two guests are allowed free entry. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Airport Lounge Access: Delta Sky Clubs | Cardholder is allowed 10 Sky Club visit-days per year. After $75K of eligible spend in a calendar year, the cardholder is permitted unlimited visits through the end of the following calendar year. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Airport Lounge Access: Priority Pass Lounges | Registration is required to obtain your Priority Pass card. Member plus 2 guests are allowed free entry. This version of Priority Pass does not cover Priority Pass restaurants. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Airport Lounge Access: select Lufthansa Lounges | Free access to Lufthansa Business Lounges (with confirmed ticket) or to Senator Lounges (with Business Class ticket) in the satellite building of Terminal 2 at Munich Airport and in Terminal 1, Departure Area B, at Frankfurt Airport. Valid only when flying Lufthansa, SWISS or Austrian Airlines. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| CLEAR® Plus credit | Get up to $209 per year reimbursed for CLEAR® Plus subscriptions. See also: 5 ways to get CLEAR® Plus for less. |
| Global Entry or TSA Pre fee credit | Get reimbursed for the cost of Global Entry once every 4 years or TSA Pre once every 4.5 years. This benefit is also available to authorized users. |
| Hotel Benefits | Benefit Description |
| Fine Hotels & Resorts | Book high-end hotels through Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts and get: room upgrade, daily breakfast for 2, 4 pm late checkout, noon check-in, free wifi, and a unique property amenity. Also: Earn 5X Membership Rewards for prepaid bookings. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| $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. |
| Hilton Honors Gold Status | Registration required. Hilton Gold members receive food & beverage waivers or free breakfast, room upgrades when available, and other perks at Hilton hotels. This benefit is also available to authorized users. |
| Marriott Gold status | Enrollment required. Gold members receive a welcome gift (bonus points) with each stay, room upgrades when available, 2 pm late checkout, and other perks (details here). This benefit is also available to authorized users. |
| Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) Sterling Status | Enrollment required. Enroll to get Leaders Club Sterling Status from The Leading Hotels of the World® |
| Other Travel Benefits | Benefit Description |
| Emergency Medical Transportation Assistance | Call the Premium Global Assist Hotline: 1-800-333-Amex (toll free), or 1-715-343-7977 (direct-dial collect). This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| National Car Rental Executive status | Registration required (Enroll here). Book midsize cars and select any car from the Executive Aisle for no extra charge. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Hertz Rental Car Privileges | Registration required (Details and enrollment form found here). Privileges include President's Circle Status, discounts, plus a four-hour grace period for rental car returns. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Avis Preferred status | Registration required (Details and enrollment form found here). Preferred status offers priority service at the counter, discounts, and a one-car class upgrade for groups C-E (Intermediate, Standard, and Full size). This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Cruise Benefits | Pay for your cruise with your Platinum card and receive $100 to $300 per stateroom shipboard credit plus additional amenities unique to each cruise line. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
| Miscellaneous Other Benefits | Benefit Description |
| Cell Phone Protection | No need to enroll. Pay your cell phone bill with your Platinum card. Max $800 per claim, $50 deductible. This benefit is also available to Platinum authorized users. |
Additional Business Platinum Perks
| Benefit | Benefit Description |
|---|---|
| 2X Membership Rewards® | Earn 2X Membership Rewards® points on eligible purchases in key business categories, as well as on eligible purchases of $5,000 or more. Details: Earn 2X on up to two million dollars of eligible purchases per calendar year, made in any of the following categories: (1) U.S. construction material and hardware suppliers, (2) U.S. electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers, (3) at U.S. shipping providers, or (4) eligible purchases of $5,000 or more. |
| 35% Airline Bonus | Get 35% points back after using Pay with Points for flights booked through Amex Travel with your selected airline, up to 1,000,000 points back per calendar year. |
| Redeem points for 1 cent per point | Requires an American Express business checking account. |
| $120 Wireless Credits | Enrollment required. Earn up to $10 back per month when you use your card to pay for wireless telephone service. |
| $200 Hilton Credits | Enrollment required. Earn up to $50 back per quarter when you use your card directly with a Hilton property. |
| $1,150 in Dell Credits | Enrollment required. Earn up to $150 in credits each calendar year for all purchases at Dell.com, plus an additional $1,000 back when spending $5,000 in a calendar year. |
| $360 Indeed Credit | Enrollment required. Earn up to $90 back per quarter for purchases with Indeed |
| $250 Adobe Credit | Enrollment required. Earn up to $250 back per year on $600+ of U.S. purchases with Adobe |
| $1,200 Flight Credit | After spending $250,000 on eligible purchases in a calendar year, unlock up to $1,200 in statement credits for use in the next calendar year on flights booked on AmexTravel.com. |
| $2,400 One AP® Statement Credit | After spending $250,000 on eligible purchases in a calendar year, unlock up to $2,400 in statement credits for use in the next calendar year on monthly fees for American Express One AP®, American Express’ digital accounts payable product that automates supplier payments on one platform. |
Additional Consumer Platinum Perks
| Benefit | Benefit Description |
|---|---|
| 5X on flights | Earn 5x on flights booked directly with airlines (with Business Platinum cards, you must book through Amex Travel to earn 5x) |
| $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 |
| Active Military Fee Waiver | Amex will waive consumer card fees (including annual fees) for US active military personnel. Call the number of the back of your card and tell them you are serving on active duty military and had heard that AMEX offers to handle your account in accordance with the Military Lending Act (MLA). This may work to waive authorized user fees too. |
Additional Schwab Perks
| Benefit | Benefit Description |
|---|---|
| Invest with Rewards | Liquidate Membership Rewards points for 1.1 cents each when deposited to your eligible Schwab account. |
| $100 to $1,000 statement credit | Receive a statement credit each year based on your qualifying Schwab holdings: $250,000 invested = $100 statement credit; $1,000,000 invested = $200 statement credit; $10,000,000 invested = $1,000 statement credit |
Additional Morgan Stanley Perks
| Benefit | Benefit Description |
|---|---|
| First authorized user free | Add one Platinum authorized user for free. |
| Invest with rewards | Liquidate Membership Rewards points for 1 cent each when deposited to your Morgan Stanley brokerage account. |
| $500 anniversary spend award | Spend $100K in a cardmember year to get $500. If you spend exactly $100K per year, that amounts to a bonus of half of 1 cent per dollar spent. |
| Annual Engagement Bonus | Platinum CashPlus clients can get an Annual Engagement Bonus equal to the Platinum card's annual fee. |
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Greg, on the Morgan Stanley card: I just received an email saying “Effective December 1, 2022 Access Investing will no longer be offering the ability to open new accounts”. This will NOT impact existing accounts.
That looks like the Morgan Stanley Platinum card will lose the full $695 rebate for new investors.
But as interest rates rise the value of this “free” Platinum card is diminished due to the $30,000+ investment requirement (including the $25K in the cash portion with zero interest) and most likely a weak return on the Access Investments portion. Right now it’s easy to get 2% on a savings account, though that is taxable.
It may be time to drop it next time mine is up for renewal.
I guess everyone needs a hobby! Very interesting but allot of work to save a few hundred dollars a year. Sort of depends on how you value your time and how much enjoyment you get from maximizing these opportunities.
Stuck in pop up hell at Morgan Stanley.
Access investing account online opening is frozen, says it ran into a problem and a team member might reach out. It has been weeks and no one has. Can’t go backwards, can’t go forwards…can’t open another account because it say there is an account pending. It doesn’t bode well for a banking relationship.
Phone or office have offered no help or solutions…seems they don’t care
Anybody have any idea on how to use the biz plat wireless credit with Verizon without losing the auto pay discount? Apparently buying Verizon GCs in store doesn’t trigger the credit anymore.
[…] Get Your Amex Platinum “Free” Forever After Rebate: We’ve discussed how valuable the American Express Platinum card is multiple times. They offer amazing perks and rebates that help offset the high annual fee. If there was a way to keep the Platinum perks “free” every year would you do it? […]
haven’t had a MS card, i should wait til Dec of this yr to apply or go for it, right? that way, could get a free AU card for wife to access CL lounges after Feb 23
Hard to answer that for you: depends on how much value you’ll likely get before December vs the lost value of an additional January calendar year for earning credits.
I’m worried the MS Plat deal won’t last if it keeps getting outsize attention. They already pulled first-year engagement bonus for Access Invest clients. If they have to pay Amex AU fees for too many low-revenue clients, they might institute an asset or spend minimum for the perk…
Ok, crazy as this sounds but HOW do I open a Morgan Stanley brokerage account? The website is full of garbage articles and fancy things but nowhere does it have an “open account here” button.
I just want to invest in a few mutual funds and get the Platinum.
Lol, just found it by answering a bunch of third grade questions. So far, not impressed.
MS does not have self managed account, so you can not pick what to invest. They do it for you.
Regarding their website, I think it’s great, better than any bank I experienced before.
Thank you, I’m moving forward with this today.
I have done exactly this over the last few years, and have “landed” on the Morgan Stanley flavor for the reasons discussed. Yes it takes a good sized deposit with Morgan Stanley to make the card fee-free (essentially $30k), but that just ends up being a significant chunk of my emergency fund, so I don’t expect a significant return on it anyways. I can confirm that monthly ACHs in/out of $5k trigger the fee waiver on the Cash Plus account. The whole setup takes probably an hour of total time between online signups, the phone calls to open the Cash Plus and link everything, setting up bank links and automated monthly transfers. But now it’s fully automatic and everything works as intended.
This also wouldn’t work if you landed in popup jail.
I think the big issue with ANEX Plat cards in the $75k spend requirement to bring in guests to Centurion Lounges, starting in 2023. Are there any tricks to bring in guests without spending $75k in 2022?
Authorized user cards (if you travel with the same people frequently).
Ya, that is a good point. It’s crazy that authorized users / employees on the Biz Plat cost $300 per card but you can get 3 for $175 on the personal Plat cards. Wish the pricing was the same across all Plat cards.
That’s one of the reasons Greg points to the Morgan Stanley card as the “keeper” — first AU card is free. But yeah, when things settle down from the recent super offers and our family is deciding whether to keep a Platinum at all long term then A/U cards will probably be part of the solution.
Be careful what you wish for: they could make it 3 for $900 on the personal cards. 🙂
The only problem is you can’t open AU for kids. So if you are traveling with kids, you are out.
Fair point. The minimum age is 13 I think?
Open authorized user cards for your travel companions so they have their own Platinums.
OK I love the idea! But there is no way AMEX is ever allowing that. They would see this as a gaming of the system and shut you down. I would give you one full rotation tops before they were on to you
Also in the discussion here – two player mode needs to be discussed. Flip back n forth between who holds the cards. Wife n I usually travel together
until they no longer let you use the centurion lounge with guests.
I have a feeling this is going to be the Main Event topic on this week’s podcast…