American Express Membership Rewards - What's the catch on Amex Plat Companion Tickets?

I am thinking about getting an Amex Platinum, specifically for the free companion tickets. This sounds too good to be true. If it really works, the $395 annual fee is well worth it!

The only "catch" is that you get the 2-1 based on full unrestricted business class fare, which is the most expensive fare. When you factor in the 2-1, it still comes in less than discounted business fares with restrictions. So, it is a good deal, but not as good as you might think!

Regardless, if you do a lot of international business travel, the card is well worth the $395.00 fee.
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I guess I will have to see if I can use the promo on intl flights when i purchase an unrestricted ticket on my corporate fare plan. We have negotiated corporate fares with airlines like BA.

I called Amex once to ask about this and they said it was fine, but I am going to check again.

-S

One other catch is that while your ticket is unrestricted, the free companion ticket comes out of a limited availability bucket. I almost think it is the award bucket but am not sure. This means your companion will not earn any frequent flyer miles and if it is peak season you may not be able to fly on the days you want due to the restricted availability of the companion ticket.

Also, if you want to use this for BA, be forewarned that they did not renew with AMEX so as of right now they are not a part of the program anymore.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Froggy:
I guess I will have to see if I can use the promo on intl flights when i purchase an unrestricted ticket on my corporate fare plan. We have negotiated corporate fares with airlines like BA.

I called Amex once to ask about this and they said it was fine, but I am going to check again.

-S</font>

As I understand it you MUST purchase the ticket through PTS at the fare quoted (which means beyond-full-to-exploding-full-fare). If they're willing to give you the corporate discount on a two-fer, more power to you but I can't imagine why they'd do it.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TWAforever:
One other catch is that while your ticket is unrestricted, the free companion ticket comes out of a limited availability bucket. I almost think it is the award bucket but am not sure. This means your companion will not earn any frequent flyer miles and if it is peak season you may not be able to fly on the days you want due to the restricted availability of the companion ticket.</font>

Actually, based on my recent experience on CX, both tickets come out of restricted inventory. However, it's not reward inventory, and is a class that's commonly used for other discount business class tickets. At least on CX, these seats don't seem hard to get at all, unless the flight is almost sold out.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">As I understand it you MUST purchase the ticket through PTS at the fare quoted (which means beyond-full-to-exploding-full-fare). If they're willing to give you the corporate discount on a two-fer, more power to you but I can't imagine why they'd do it. </font>

Actually, I think you can purchase the two-fer tickets through your own travel agent, although they must coordinate through PTS. I have no idea if you're able to get your corporate discount. It would not surprise me if you could, as one of the main target markets for this amenity appears to be to allow businesspeople to take their spouses along for free when the employer pays for their ticket.

I think the companion ticket also pays taxes on the ticket as well. I do not know if that taxes are based on if paying full fare or paying with miles or some voucher thing.