American Express Membership Rewards - AMEX Companion Fares are the deals good?

Just had a business meeting with AMEX, and they mentioned the Plat Charge Card Companion Fares for Business Class. As I'm in Australia and My travel would be from Australia to London.

Really want to get a guide to see if its worth forking out the $900pa fee to get the business class Companion fare. Assume its 2 for 1 offer! Is there anyway in finding out more details, like can one fly on Qantas are the fares on compaion fare eligible for FF points/miles status etc.

Welcome any feedback
Cheers
;)

See https://www124.americanexpress.com/cards/platinum/airprogram.jsp .

The "free" ticket does not earn miles.

Funny - I was JUST about to post a question on this.

I'm looking at fares from Chicago to Tel Aviv, and when I spoke to a rep at Amex Travel today, she claimed that the "full fare" that they charge on such tickets are NOT regular, published, full-fare tickets. She said they're quoted to her via a system set up directly with partner airlines, and that the wouldn't show up in any of the GDS systems.

Now, this sounded suspicious to me, but the reason it came up is that I couldn't locate the fare she was quoting on www.expertflyer.com. To wit, the fare she quoted was in excess of $9000, and the highest full-fare ticket on the same carrier that I could locate on Expert Flyer was around $7600. There was no combination of taxes, etc., that I could figure to reconcile the situation.

Now, that's of course not necessarily a deal-breaker IF the price they ultimately charge is better than what you can get by purchasing two business-class tickets individually. At least in the cases I've been looking at, it seems to comes down to this:

I can find discounted--nonrefundable--business class tickets that are cheap enough to purchase 2 for a meaningfully smaller amount than Amex wants on its 'full fare' tickets for 2. BUT, I haven't been able to find a way to fly two people, in business, on refundable tickets, for less than Amex is charging in its program. The main drawback seems to be, as noted, the loss of miles for pax #2.

If anyone can correct my interpretation, I'd be grateful. I too am trying to figure out whether this is worth it for me.

be interested to hear how you go Jakebeth..I'm not to worried about earning on points and status on the companion fares.

on anonther note very interested to see that you use expertflyer.com. looks like a good tool. I wonder if there is any Australian FF people that use this tool to price and suss out the situtaion in the australian fares market??

Cheers

be interested to hear how you go Jakebeth..I'm not to worried about earning on points and status on the companion fares.

on anonther note very interested to see that you use expertflyer.com. looks like a good tool. I wonder if there is any Australian FF people that use this tool to price and suss out the situtaion in the australian fares market??

CheersI'll do my best to post an answer once it's resolved. Unfortunately, my travel plans are almost certain to turn more on whether or not my colleague will still be interested in traveling to Tel Aviv when the time comes. I'm hopeful the fighting will be over soon... :(

There's an interesting twist here for me, though. On one hand, it might seem obvious to go with the Amex ticket in order to protect refundability. That said, at the moment at least, some airlines appear to be waiving refund rules when TLV itineraries are involved.