In the US, they have lots of competition and the consumer is king.

They will give you what they need to give you in order to keep customers and keep making money for themselves, not an inch more.

American-issued Platinum and Centurion have no foreign currency conversion fee anymore, as an example. And Centurions get crazy gifts. Sometimes they have received 1000 US$ gift vouchers which is almost half the annual membership fee.

Contrast that with Hong Kong for example, you pay 2.7% Forex conversion fee and get a plastic photo frame or a card holder as a gift (about a 10 dollar value by the looks of it). Yet you pay the same fees.

I had a a Platinum IDC Amex from Europe a few years back. Same fee as the US-based Platinum charge card would have been but no signup bonus, 2.7% (or was it 2.5% ?) forex conversion fee and doing a charge-back in case of fraud was a difficult task.

Basically it all depends on how much they have to give you in order to remain competitive. In HKG they get away with giving us nothing. In Europe it's sort of in the middle and in the USA you get the most bang for your buck. If I could do a Global Transfer to get my card issued in the US, I would.