The American Express Platinum charge card currently represents the easiest way to put 50,000 or 52,000 Avios into your account at, potentially, a cost of under £115!

This is the official Amex home page on the card - https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/c...platinum-card/

The American Express Platinum is currently offering its best ever sign-up deal. The card comes with a £450 annual fee and comes with 50,000 Membership Rewards points for signing-up and spending £2,000 in the first three months. This increases to 52,000 points if you are a referred by another Amex Platinum or Gold cardholder.

50,000 Membership Rewards points are good for:

50,000 Avios - potentially more if the recent 40% / 100% transfer bonuses are repeated!
50,000 Virgin FC miles
100,000 Hilton points
75,000 Alitalia miles
50,000 Finnair miles
50,000 Iberia miles
50,000 Asia Miles
50,000 Etihad miles
50,000 Delta miles
62,500 Flying Blue miles
2,333 Jumeirah Sirius points
50,000 SAS miles
50,000 Singapore Airlines miles
150,000 Club Carlson points
25,000 SPG points

What are the benefits?

You will find full details of the Platinum Card benefits on the Amex website, but they are substantial.

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. (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, Accor Gold and 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.

£450 is too high for an annual fee!

Don't panic! Once you have spent £2,000 on the card and banked your 50,000 Membership Rewards points (and transferred them out) you can cancel the card. 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. If you cancel after 3 months, for example, your net cost would only have been (1/4 of £450) £112.50.

If you do cancel, you should keep your hotel status cards and the Cathay Gold card until they expire. However, your Priority Pass lounge cards will be cancelled because they are directly linked to your Platinum card. (PP cards are scanned like a credit card when you use them, and so can be rejected by the machines.)

For day to day long-term spending, this card is not too good. You earn 1 point per £1 spent, but this compares poorly to the 1.5 Avios per £1 you can earn with the BA Premium Plus Amex. There is also no equivalent to the 2-4-1 voucher offered with the BA Amex.

Who qualifies?

There are three criteria for applying for this card:

1. You must have a household income of £40,000
2. You must not have held an Amex Platinum, Gold or Green card in the last six months *
3. You must be able to spend £2,000 in the first 3 months to trigger the bonus

The bonus points, for most people, post as soon as the transaction which takes you over the £2,000 of spending, excluding the annual fee, posts to your Amex account.

Please note that this is a CHARGE CARD and not a credit. You must settle your account in full every month.

How to apply:

There are two options when applying for the card.

1. If you apply via www.quidco.com, you will receive £80 cashback and the usual 50,000 Membership Rewards points

2. If you are referred by a fellow FT'er, you will get no cashback but you will get a higher bonus of 52,000 Membership Rewards points. (The person who refers you will also receive 25,000 Membership Rewards points.)

At present, because the Quidco cashback is so high, it makes more sense to go down that route than take a referral.

If you did want to ask a fellow FT'er to refer you, here is the web-page for making a referral - http://www.americanexpress.com/uk/re.../default.shtml

The following list of FT'ers have offered to make referrals. If you have a Platinum or Gold Amex and want to be added to this list, please PM Raffles. It is up to you whether you pick a name at random or consider an individuals post count or general FT contributions before picking one. This list was updated in March 2012 to remove FTers no longer active on the forum. However, if you do not receive a response to your referral request within 24 hours then I would ask someone else.

0hnoes
2002ad
21H21J
absoluy
Adexis
aerodude
Air_Bear
AkhilStyle
alanjrobertson
Alvador
alvintc
Amarone
apuleius
BAWatersideGuy
beastbmw
britbronco22
chistery
clubman
copperfield27
cornishsimon
crystak
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
mrmarf
MrMutton
nanirina
Nubs
Olly-
OrchardTravel
PanGalactic
Paralytic
pauldb
peterc2609
pjh981
Private Pyle
pteron
Purdey
quitecontrary
Raffles
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

* Full disclosure: There are two places on the Amex website where it says that you cannot get the bonus if you have ANY existing Amex card. However, the main Platinum webpage, linked above, says that only charge cards are a problem. Various FT'ers who hold a BA Amex have also successfully applied for the card and received the bonus without any problems.