American Express Membership Rewards - Why Not Go From Platinum to Costco Platinum?

I've carried the Amex Platinum for years.

Recently a knowledgable friend mocked me for not carrying the Costco Platinum American Express. He said it had the exact same benefits PLUS cash back.

Can this really be true?

It seems so from the website, but there are so many details that it gets confusing.

I've carried the Amex Platinum for years.

Recently a knowledgable friend mocked me for not carrying the Costco Platinum American Express. He said it had the exact same benefits PLUS cash back.

Can this really be true?

It seems so from the website, but there are so many details that it gets confusing.

Though I could be wrong, I do not think Costco platnium gives you membership rewards. Its one or the other, not both.

It's NOT a platinum. It's more like Optima. If you compare the benefits of the Costco vs. Platinum you'll notice all sorts of things missing - like access to Airline clubs, Starwood Gold, etc.

Though I could be wrong, I do not think Costco platnium gives you membership rewards. Its one or the other, not both.

Fascinating. I missed that point. A good question to be asking is which is more valuable, the miles or the rebate.

Based upon the highest likely (at least for me) conversion of Amex miles to a reward ticket (a Virgin Upper Class ticket to europe at 80,000 miles -- though it's very hard to actually book one) I come out with an Amex mile being presently worth 7 cents.

Comparing a Plat card with MR at 7 cents per $ spent to a Costco card which would convert to an average of 1 cent per $ spent....

In the real world, I was unable to book my Virgin ticket in Upper Class, but I was able to book economy class to Hawaii (there were also no First Class seats available) so the calculation is $750 seat for 35,000 miles or 2 cents per mile.

Do others come out with similar numbers, higher or lower?

Please let me know if you think I am wrong or right, but purely based on Member Rewards vs. cash-back, it seems like a theoretical lousy deal to go with the Costco card and pretty much of a wash in real world travel.

Virgin Atlantic Upper Class tickets are typically available for $3,600 or less, which makes the value about $0.046 per point. If you are interested in redeeming for Virgin Atlantic flights you should enroll in Virgin's Flying Club and link your Membership Rewards account to your Flying Club account. Then, when you login to Virgin's website you will be able to search for award seat availability, and if you find a flight you can transfer the points instantly to complete the booking online. If you book online there is a 2,000 mile discount which means you need only 78,000 miles for the trip.

Evidently you have The American Express Platinum Card (https://www124.americanexpress.com/cards/platinum/?Card_name=Platinum&link-CARD_SELECTOR), which is a charge card carrying an annual fee of $395. Your friend has one of the Costco co-branded credit cards. There are substantial differences in these products aside from the rewards, compare (for example) the amounts of automatic flight insurance, the assistance provided if something goes wrong while travelling, etc. In my experience there is also a huge difference in the quality of the customer service staff.

However, if the only difference which is important to you is Membership Rewards you may wish to consider changing to, say, The Preferred Rewards Green Card (https://www124.americanexpress.com/cards/loyalty.do?page=preferredrewardsgreen&Card_name=PreferredRewardsGreen&link=CARD_SELCTOR) which would give you the identical rewards program, but with fewer ancillary benefits and a much lower annual fee.

dennis

I recently redeemed MR points for Virgin Atlantic Upper Class Suites for next August. What worked for me was to sign up in the Flying Club, use the Virgin Atlantic web site to search for award availability, then book the award by phone.

The MR to Virgin Atlantic transfer does appear to be instant normally, but the computer link was down when I made my booking. That meant that the MR points-to-miles transfer wouldn't go through either on the web or through a CSR. But the CSR could book my award tickets and have them held for a few days (I forget how many). That meant that I could reserve my tickets even though I had zero VS miles in my account, then wait until the computer link came back online to do the actual transfer. After the miles transferred, I called to complete the transaction.

My impression was that Virgin Atlantic would hold award tickets if asked, so this didn't seem to be a special case as a result of the computer link outage. I like booking by phone (rather than online) even without any computer problems, as I don't see a way to do the hold online without sufficient VS miles in my account. That eliminates the small possibility that the tickets might be booked by someone else between the time that I see the availability on the web and the time I actually get the points to transfer to VS miles.

Virgin Atlantic's web site is currently showing the lowest cost for Upper Class Suites to be $4122.00 for my itinerary. An award ticket cost 80K miles, so that's a bit over five cents a mile.

I've carried the Amex Platinum for years.

Recently a knowledgable friend mocked me for not carrying the Costco Platinum American Express. He said it had the exact same benefits PLUS cash back.

Can this really be true?

It seems so from the website, but there are so many details that it gets confusing.

Your friend isn't as knowledgable as he puts about. Tell him to try booking a "Platinum" experience from the Amex travel page and see how far he gets.

I've got one of the older Costco Amex "Plat" cards. The benefits are no where near a regular Amex Plat.

Your friend isn't as knowledgable as he puts about. Tell him to try booking a "Platinum" experience from the Amex travel page and see how far he gets.

I've got one of the older Costco Amex "Plat" cards. The benefits are no where near a regular Amex Plat.

No Airline lounge access. No companion ticket (admittedly, a perk of questionable value). Many other things that don't come with the Costco card.