Last updated 19 December 2012
Whilst this thread now has 200 pages, you will be pleased to know that pretty much everything you need to know is contained in this first post!
The fee for the Amex Plat is £450 and the sign-up bonus is 52,000 miles. However, you can cancel once you have spent the £2,000 and banked your bonus points, and receive a pro-rata fee refund so the net cost of the miles will probably be only £75-£100.
If you do not have BA status, the card potentially offers good value even at £450 because of the free Cathay Pacific Gold card for one year. This is equivalent to BA Silver and gets you access to all BA and OneWorld-partner lounges plus priority check-in, extra baggage allowance and free seat selection.
At present, you cannot get the bonus if you already have a BA, SPG, Costco, Nectar, Harrods, Platinum, Gold or Green Amex.
Quidco - at present (November 2012) Quidco offers £80 cashback for getting the Platinum card and a smaller 50,000 point bonus. For now, you are better off taking the Quidco route and not getting a referral.
You will receive 52,000 Membership Rewards points for taking out a Platinum charge card and spending £2,000 in your first 3 months. 52,000 MR points can be converted to 52,000 Avios or a variety of other airline and hotel programmes.
HOWEVER .... you MUST be referred by an existing Platinum, Gold, Centurion or Green card holder.
The way the referrals work is that the referrer arranges (via the Amex website) for you to receive a referral email. You MUST use the link in that email to apply, otherwise the referral will not track. This means that Quidco cashback cannot be combined with this promotion.
The original referrer will also receive a very generous bonus - 25,000 Membership Rewards points, so 25,000 Avios (or a big chunk of miles or points in many other airline and hotel schemes)!
Details of the referral bonuses can be found here:
http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/mg....shtml?page=CM
If you need a referrer, the FT'ers below are existing Amex charge card holders and are willing to refer you (as am I of course!) - please PM one of them with your real name and e-mail address. It is up to you whether you:
a) pick one at random or
b) consider their contributions to FT and post counts before picking one, or indeed
c) simply advertise yourself at the end of this thread as being open to a referral and wait for a flood of Private Messages!
If you want to be added to this list, please PM me. This list was refreshed in March 2012 to remove people who were no longer active FT members, but I would still recommend that if you do not receive a response within 24 hours, you should choose another referrer.
0hnoes
2002ad
21H21J
absoluy
Adexis
aerodude
Air_Bear
AkhilStyle
alanjrobertson
Alvador
alvintc
Amarone
apuleius
BAWatersideGuy
beastbmw
britbronco22
chistery
clubman
darthlemsip
David-A
dc2447
dunas_dog
E14 26C
easterisland
Ed Artrocker
Enigma368
fdm1000
Flyerstarter
flyingnomad
Freddie Laker
goldcardhunter
GWH
happeemonkee
Henry8601
higham44
hingeless
InFF
Jamjaw
janders
janed9388
Jetstreamer
JimboandtheJetset
jonathanev
jonnykanzen
k3bab
k3v
kingcedz
larryflyer
lifebuoy
londonLHR
louie-m
magicmat
Marwanie
mdj1
mjung
nanirina
Nubs
Olly-
OrchardTravel
Paralytic
pauldb
peterc2609
pjh981
Private Pyle
pteron
Purdey
quitecontrary
Raffles
RedVee
Roger
roughlad
rupert_s
Scotsman
scozer99
se1lad
shiony2013
Shuttle-Bored
SouthWesterner
spellinn
srbrenna
Stewie Mac
sulaco
tangey
teflon
timlai
topcatk
trvllvr123
tusabrat
ukgooner
uk1
ups
WEEBOBBY
Where am I today?
where2travel
Work-Shy
xxxxx
YorkieFlyer
Here is the link for making a referral:
http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/mg...r&om_lid=amex4
Do I qualify for the card?
Amex continues to mess about with the small print on who qualifies for this offer, literally changing the rules every month of late. As of 31 August 2012, the referral form says that you cannot have the bonus if you currently hold any other Amex-issued card, which would include the BA Amex. A £40,000 income is also required.
(The Amex Preferred Rewards Gold charge card has a looser restriction. Anyone can apply for that as long as they have not had a Plat, Gold or Green Amex in the last 6 months. This means that a BA Amex is not a problem. The Gold Preferred Rewards card is currently fee-free for the first year and offers 22,000 points for being referred or 20,000 points plus £10 Quidco for a direct application, as long as you spend £2,000 in the first 3 months. £20,000 household income required. If you are interested in this, the same list of people above can also refer you for that.)
What are the benefits?
You will find full details of the Platinum Card benefits on the Amex website, but they are substantial. The Cathay Pacific gold card is possibly enough in itself to justify the £450 fee for the first year. (In answer to various queries, you apply for the Cathay card at
http://www.americanexpress.co.uk/platinum)
You also get travel insurance for you and your family - plus insurance for up to 5 other people, and their families, to whom you give supplementary cards. You get full car hire insurance. You get SPG Gold, 1 year of Hilton Gold and 1 year of Club Carlson Gold. You get the 'full' Priority Pass for lounge access (no pay as you go fees required, 1 additional free guest allowed per visit) and one of your supplementary card holders can also have a 'full' Priority Pass. And so on. It is a decent package for the traveller. One thing you do NOT get, unfortunately, is a discount on the BA Amex fee - this benefit was scrapped a few years ago.
Once you have the card, you could also refer your spouse if this promo is still running at that point. This would net you the full 77,000 points (25,000 for you as referrer plus the 52,000 for your spouse / partner for signing up) into your household account for the additional £450 fee. You could also cancel this card relatively quickly once you had got the points banked and get a partial refund on the £450 fee, since your spouse / partner can have a free supplementary card on your account anyway and so can still benefit from all the card privileges. The T&C's of the Plat card confirm that partial fee refunds ARE given if you cancel and many FT'ers have done so.
The expiry date for this promotion keeps getting moved back, but it will stop at some point!