Amex Platinum and the Big Rethink

by Robert McGarvey

If you hold an Amex Platinum card – guesses are there are around 400,000 of us, but Amex does not confirm these numbers – it now has become unavoidable that you do a big, deep rethink: Is this the card that best suits me?

If you don’t have it but are mulling applying – there’s a lush 100k miles sign up bonus right now – do the same rethinking because nowadays there are options at the lofty Plat level, notably the Chase sapphire reserve. The era of Plat hegemony is over.

That rethink maybe is all the more urgent because, as the pandemic loosens its grip on our psyches, many of us are facing up to the reality that we will be doing less business travel for the foreseeable future. How much less, for how long? I do not have a crystal ball that can answer those questions. But for now I am assuming I will do minimal business travel in the remainder of this year and I did none in the first half.

I mention that because for years I justified paying for Amex Plat as a business expense that made tedious business trips a mite more tolerable. The club access alone justified the cost but then Amex lost access to all but Delta clubs among the domestic carriers and the Centurion, while lovely, were few in number and then became vastly too popular. The Centurion became the Venice of airport lounges or maybe it embodied that Yogi Berra line, nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded. But, for me, the pleasure of Centurions had vanished amid overcrowded lounges and a scarcity of seats.

Then there’s the question of guest access at Centurion. Amex plans to begin charging for guest access (up to $50 a head) but not until February 2023 – so if air traffic in fact picks up and stays up, as some pundits predict, the Centurion will remain as inviting as a 6 train at 4pm on a Friday night in July at Lex and Grand Central, at least until the guest head count falls in 2023.

The final shoe dropping is the big fee increase – from $550 to $695 as of July 1, 2021. Remember, too, the card cost $450 in early 2017. That’s a 54% bump in just four years.

And does the card still fit my evolving lifestyle, the post pandemic me?

Yes, Amex does conveniently calculate that I saved $250 using the card this year on purchases at BestBuy, HomeDepot, Goldbelly, and there’s another $200 in Uber credits plus miscellaneous givebacks on PayPal purchases for another, say, $100. Add in the free cellphone protection, free Global Entry, etc.

There’s also a new $240 annual digital entertainment credit which will cover my NY Times subscription. And a $100 Saks credit.

Very probably there is $695 in perks.

But do I want these perks? Really?

What I keep choking on however is what seems a good deal – a new, monthly $25 credit at Equinox, the fitness club, and that money can be used at an in person club or an online service. The latter costs$40/monthly so net $15 to a Plat cardholder. Here’s the deal however: I am more like to get my hair dyed green and my nose pierced than I am to use Equinox, not that I have a problem with the club, just that it has little to do with who I am and what I do (and my personal exercise is to tie on a pair of $100 walking shoes and walk, which I did for 10 miles this a.m.)

A lot of the Plat perks seem, well, like stuff we laugh at the characters in Babbitt when they crave similar shiny objects in their day.

It was all so much simpler when Plat gave me airport club access and I flew enough where that mattered.

Now the Amex club access is tarnished, Priority Pass benefits seem to have shriveled for cardholders. Restaurant lounges are excluded.

To renew or no? I can renew at the old rate when my term comes up next month.

But going forward is this new lifestyle card – because that is what Plat now is – right for me and my lifestyle?

And do I really want to spend time tracking and logging the perks and benefits which do change? I want a credit card that works for me. Not vice versa.

I just am not sure about renewing. But I will be by next year. Ask me then.

Awards travel update: I used Amex miles, converted into Delta miles, to buy two round trip comfort class tix from PHX to MAD in September. Cost was around 190,000 miles, which worked out to about a penny a point. But, hell, a lot of those miles were earned buying groceries at Whole Foods, paying dentist bills, vet bills, and other routine, mundane charges. A free trip to Spain in return is an ok deal in my mind. Even if I fell far short of my 2 cents a mile target.

6 thoughts on “Amex Platinum and the Big Rethink”

  1. Exactly. Mine renews this month, and I am really in 2 minds. Likewise, I am renewing this time, and if my traveling hasn’t picked up by next year enough to be using the lounges and hotel credits, I will downgrade to Gold before the renewal next year. The lifestyle perks are largely useless to me. I like the membership rewards program, but that would continue the same with Gold. And if I’m only traveling once or twice a year, I can happily pay for lounge access and still save plenty. Let’s see what the next 12 months brings.

  2. I’d opt-out
    Hard to justify a $695 fee for a ‘lifestyle’ card
    You can downgrade to Gold ($250) or Amex EveryDay card (free!) to keep your Membership Rewards miles
    If your target really is 2% in returns on the points – get the Citi DoubleCash card that pays – 2%!
    I played the Amex game for many years, but dropped my fee-card several years ago when my corporate card switched to a Citi managed program. I have not looked back since – certainly not for nearly $700

  3. Morgan Stanley brokerage issues an AMEX Platinum card and reimburses the annual fee if you have an account of sufficient value with them ($1,000,000 minimum).

    1. If you cruise a lot like we do, keeping the card is a no brained. We get a $300 onboard credit and a bottle of champagne an unlimited number of times per year. Add that to all the perks you already noted like $200 for Uber, CLEAR pass for two people, NYT, Saks, Priority Pass in foreign countries, choice of airline to get incidentals reimbursed, free shoprunner deliveries, etc and it is WELL worth it for us!

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