American Express Membership Rewards - Questions about UK amex Platinium Credit card

UK platinium credit card benefits....

The priority pass benefit.... is that permament or done annually.

I am already SPG gold but i understand that this will make me SPG gold permament which would be great.... Do i just give them my existing number or start up with a new one?

I travel around a lot so what other useful hotel and car rental benefits in the US and Europe (mainly) would there be for me as I still havent received my big thick book yet!

Thanks!

The Platinum credit card has no benefits - it's the Platinum charge card that does - which are you talking about here?

UK platinium credit card benefits....

The priority pass benefit.... is that permament or done annually.

I am already SPG gold but i understand that this will make me SPG gold permament which would be great.... Do i just give them my existing number or start up with a new one?

I travel around a lot so what other useful hotel and car rental benefits in the US and Europe (mainly) would there be for me as I still havent received my big thick book yet!

Thanks!

Priority Pass is permanent and is renewed annually automatically.

SPG Gold is permanent but sometimes SPG and Amex do not talk to each other properly so your status drops. A quick call to SPG gets you instantly put back to Gold.

See my l-o-n-g post in the other 'UK Amex' thread currently running for full details on other benefits. I have personally never got any car rental benefits from the UK Plat Amex - I think they have now dropped the CDW car rental insurance waiver benefit, but am uncertain on this (I got a letter in the post but didn't fully memorise it as its not something I use).

The Platinum credit card has no benefits - it's the Platinum charge card that does - which are you talking about here?

Its a an AMEX platinium Credit card.

Its a an AMEX platinium Credit card.
The American Express Platinum credit card, which I think has no annual fee and offers cash back, has very little in common with the American Express Platinum charge card. The latter is the one that has a £275 annual fee.

All of the Priority Pass, SPG Gold etc. are associated with the charge card. I don't think you get any benefits of note with the credit card.

All of the Priority Pass, SPG Gold etc. are associated with the charge card. I don't think you get any benefits of note with the credit card.

We THINK (but no-one has yet proved it) that the Plat CREDIT card may now get you the BA Amex for free, saving £120 per year. This is because the wording in the T&C's has changed from 'Platinum charge card holders do not pay' to 'Platinum card holders do not pay'. But YMMV quite a lot.

It is also (see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1087717218,37843,) the best 'cashback' credit card currently available in the UK. But how many people on FT have a credit card that gives cashback instead of miles? :D

I've got both the credit and charge card. First year I had the credit card only and got about £130 cash back. I've now switched all my spending to the charge card, although I am thinking I should probably switch back in favour of the pounds over the MR points. I worked it out that I could pay for the charge card (£275) with the cash back from the credit card quicker than if using MR points!

Anyways, during the year I only had the creidt card and I did get a sofitel gold card (yet to stay at one of their hotels!), and still I got a renewed gold card just a few weeks ago -is this a charge card or credit card benefet?

Chris

Priority Pass is permanent and is renewed annually automatically.

True..

PP has an expiry date on it and is indeed replaced. But just as a warning.. If you cancel your platinum card, Amex immediately notify PP. From that moment onwards you will be billed (GBP15) for each lounge access. You won't continue to get free lounge access until expiry of the PP card. The charge will be charged to your cancelled platinum card account or any other amex account that takes over.

In fact, its worse than that. When I cancelled Amex, I ceased using PP. But I started getting billed for lounge accesses I'd made several weeks earlier. I called Amex and they helpfully said it was nothing to do with them and it was up to me to take it up with PP. (I didn't really accept this, but nevertheless...) I called PP and they were helpful and issued credits. It seems that PP just get a notification from Amex about a status change, and this means subsequent lounge access notifications get charged. Nobody bothers to check the dates. The PP rep said that many lounges only forward their stuff to PP monthly or even quarterly..)

I had long since stopped using Amex as I found every time I wanted something a little "special" they failed. Even fixing billing areas (from when I upgraded from gold) seemed to take ages. The thing that annoyed me the most was the cost of using it overseas. For foreign travel I use a Nationwide Visa card - there is no 2.73% charge - and the underlying forex rate seems the same. I got fed up with Amex getting an extra 2.73% on all my foreign spend.

I kept Amex/plat on for medical insurance and PP only. In the end I cancelled it because I was no longer resident in the UK. When I phoned them they pushed me into accepting a free "gold card for life". I said OK. I'm wondering if they'll try charging me for that a year later...