AmEx Platinum Card offer- 100k points - worth it for me?
 

Hi everyone,

I received the above offer in the mail and am trying to decide whether it is worth the $450 fee. (You need to charge $1,000 within four months for the 100k points, which isn't an issue.)

The only AmEx I currently have is one I use at Costco and hardly charge anything on it. I mostly use my AA Mastercard and charge quite a bit; in fact, I currently have accumulated about 250,000 "not from flying" AA miles that I have not used. (I will use them next year for two first class tickets to Europe.)

I understand the 100k AmEx points is a lot, but I also see that American is not a partner. However, I can possibly use the points for some hotel stays while in Europe. (I realize that I don't know enough about the rewards one gets with AmEx so I'll try to do some investigating along those lines.)

Is it worth taking advantage of this offer, and possibly even switching some of my "typical" charging over to this card instead of my AA Mastercard? For a person like myself who doesn't travel much but does do "big splurge" family vacations every 2 years (but never really have time to get to a Lounge!), would the benefits of an AmEx Platinum really be worth it? How about the no exchange rate fee? Is that a big deal considering I'm going to Europe next year, but then may not travel internationally again for a while?

Just trying to determine if a Platinum Card is worth that large fee for a "regular person" like me.

Thanks for any advice!

Although I haven't used any MR points yet, as I am still a new Plat cardholder, I have thought about this when signing up for the 50K offer. Lucky you!

Why do you have to fly AA if you're redeeming? I know it would be nice to have AA miles because they count towards liftetime status, but you can convert MR to ANA or AC, and fly on Star Alliance planes. If it's an award, it shouldn't matter much if it's AA or not since you don't earn EQM anyway. I'm assuming you'll be redeeming it for premium cabin flights. ;)

But if you don't fly much, then the lounge access portion of the $450 fee may be lost to you.

Well at minimum you could change it 100,000 points for $1000 in gift cards to numerous retailers/restaurants for only $450 annual fee. Thats a good deal in itself if you want to just sign up and cancel. You will get your best value transferring into airline programs but if you dont travel that much it may not be worth it to do that.

You can transfer your miles to BA which currently has a bonus promo going where you get 40% (I think) bonus BA miles for your transfer. That would net you 140k miles on BA which are good on AA since they are a partner. However, the miles are diluted a bit because you would be using them on AA instead of BA.

Thanks for the responses.

Millere...actually I don't believe you can use BA miles on Int'l AA coded flights, but no big deal. Flyme's point is valid....I don't necessarily have to use AA since I'm not getting miles; I'm just used to them and they have the best schedules for me.

I guess I was just wondering if this card is worthwhile for non-frequent flyers.

Yes, I would still say its worth it because as I mentioned before 100k MR points = $1000 gift cards to many retailers or restaurants so that pays for itself right there. You could then cancel the card after that and they should prorate you an annual fee refund.

You did say you might use it for hotels. Hotels are usually always bad value for points, but amex does have a few different hotel group partners you can transfer the points to.

That's good to know, thanks. I don't stay in many hotels because we are big timeshare users, but I need to find a hotel in London and I don't even know how to go about finding the best deal on one (and one that is decent, to boot). I will have to do some research on that as well.

Wow, is this a targeted offer? I just applied and was approved for the Plat card with 50K bonus points offer. You are getting a sweet deal.

Yes it was...it was personalized. But I have to say that they did an excellent job of targeting, because I never would have considered the card at all had I not gotten the offer, and after some simple Googling, if I had gotten a lesser offer I also would not have bothered. The only reason I am even considering it is because the point value is very good. So I guess they accomplished what they set out to do!

You could earn 25% more AAdvantage miles for the same amount of spending if you were to use the Starwood Preferred Guest credit card rather than the card issued by Citi.

Yes, you can. AA and BA now offer full reciprocal earning and redeeming on all routes with no exceptions. This changed in late 2010 when their transatlantic joint operating agreement was granted an anti-trust exemption.

can always cancel prior to the second annual fee. of course need to transfer the miles out prior.

Mia, thanks for this info. Is the Starwood Preferred Guest Card to which you are preferring the Amex Starwood? Why would anyone bother to use the Citi card then? (Is there a spending to miles conversion cap on the Starwood card? I know that there are different caps on the Citi cards which is why we have the platinum one, otherwise some of our charges would exceed the cap.)

Thanks for the lesson in this.

Yes, that's the card.

0. The 25% SPG bonus applies only if points are transferred in blocks of 20,000 from Starwood to AAdvantage. For someone who charges a small amount per year the bonus is only theoretical.

1. Citi offers very aggressive new account bonuses, and because they issue cards on three networks (Amex, Mastercard, VISA) and issue both personal and business cards it's often possible to earn multiple bonuses.

2. Not every merchant accepts American Express.

3. MasterCard World and VISA Signature cards have a "no preset spending limit" feature. American Express credit cards do not (although there are anecdotal reports of American Express allowing some SPG cardholders to exceed their limit without penalty).

4. If you are a CitiGold account holder Citi may waive the annual fee on an AAdvantage card. American Express seldom waives fees.

5. The Citi card offers discounted award redemptions which are sometimes attractive.

6. Some people prefer the convenience of having miles deposited in their AAdvantage account every month.

7. Marketing by Citi and American Airlines.

Wow...going through old mail I just discovered that I also have a Gold Amex/50,000 point offer. How funny! I wonder why they are suddenly so interested in me. At any rate, that seems like a better deal since the Gold fee is cheaper, but I'm really wondering if I should be getting sucked in by this whole thing in the first place!

yes, you should:D

If you will use all the service and benefits that come with the card then it will be worth it. Most of the benefits are travel related, I think it will be worth it if you do a lot of traveling.

My 2000th post. While my first post was not asking for help, this one is.
Could you post or PM the offer number / url for the 100k when you click on the email? Thanks.

Also can anyone tell me if there are any bonuses for upgrading from a premier rewards card to a Platinum charge card?

I would jump at this deal if you're planning an AMEX Platinum Card. Do you receive a 2 for 1 companion ticket?

I believe the 100k offer is targeted to the OP.

To my knowledge, AMEX doesn't give bonuses for upgrading, just for new accounts. If you wanted the Plat with one of the bonus offers you likely would have to apply for a new card.

You shouldn't pass this one. This offer is the best one can get from Amex.

as noted in an earlier reply th 100k bonus is worth $1k in gift card

after the first year if you are hesitant on paying the $450 annual fee because you're not making full use of the benefits you can always downgrade to gold premier rewards and not lose the MR points you've accumulated, right? ;)

You can get Amex Blue Credit Card (which is free) and keep the accumulated points ;)

FYI
 

+1
and remember the travel insurance is excellent on Amex, so when you go to London you have free/inclusive travel insurance too.

You have all convinced me that this is worth at least trying. Thanks for the help!

Haha...I wonder if I can do the gold card offer too, get the 50k points, and then cancel that one. They would probably paste a huge red flag on me for that....

100,000 amex rewards points is potentially worth nearly $1,500 in $$$
Transfer 100k points to delta with 50% bonus
Cash out in amex gift cards at 11,000 points per $100
Use squareup.com to swipe the gift cards (at 2.75% but whatever)
You'll net approx $1,300 in your bank account

Amex PERSONAL platinum 100k mr point sign-up bonus
 

I've been lurking for a couple months now, but thought I should share something I just came across. I apologize if this is posted elsewhere.

Reading FT, a couple months ago I applied for and got the Platinum Card with the 50K MR sign-up bonus and recently had them transferred to Delta for the MQM + 50% bonus. Thanks to FT for that tip!

I recently discovered that there was another promo (back at the time I was applying for the Platinum Card) giving away a 100k MR points sign-up bonus (but not highly publicized?), so (based on another site's tip) last night I wrote to MR indicating that I was a little disappointed that I only got 50k MR points, and I felt a little short-changed. Reference for that 100k MR point sign-up bonus was Offer ID: 3882 (which I mentioned in my secure message to MR).

This morning I got the additional 50K MR points deposited in my account instantly! I guess YMMV, but it's worth a shot for another 50K MR points

How interesting. Thanks for the tip however I am surprised they just popped 50k MR points into your account just like that. Good luck to those who try

wasn't the 100k bonus targeted?

i know the other website u are talking about as i was one of the starters of that thread. everythign he said is correct if anyone wants more information they can pm me

@patriots68: I'm not sure, but I assume the 100k deal was targeted. I indicated as much in my message to Amex MR: that others had been targeted with a 100k sign-up offer while I only had the 50k offer. I made it clear that I knew I was not entitled to the extra 50k bonus points.

@myb821: Thanks for starting and continuing to spread the info! I am grateful.

I just received my AMEX Platinum this weekend and I was thinking of trying this exact thing once I hit the spend mark. I've been watching the thread on the 75k MR bonus for the Gold PR card and it seems most untargeted people were successful in requesting the extra miles after applying for the 10k or 25k bonus.

Thanks for the info on your success. I'll post back once I give it a shot.

Thanks for the bonus ID! Worked like a charm and I had the extra 50,000 points within a few hours of requesting. This puts me at $5,000 in monies from Amex/Delta in the past few months (I've been transferring points from AMEX to Delta, redeeming Amex gift cards at Delta, and cashing those out using Squareup). Delta has had some great 25-80% points bonuses!

sorry guys who pmed me i didnt know there was a limit to the pms i can send since im new so i cant respond to u guys

What is Squareup?

Squareup is like a credit card processing terminal you can do from your phone. It just cashes out visa/mastercard/amex cards. The fee isn't outrageous, but it still puts a small dent in the earnings.

For those who cashed out over 10 $100 amex gift cards it becomes more of a convenience to pay a small fee to use it.

As far as contacting AMEX, which department did you guys contact?

I am curious, what exactly did you write to AMEX?

Just the following "I recd 50K points and now I found out that Amex was offering 100K points with bonus ID XXXX. Now I am not happy about it and wondering if you will be willing to give 50K extra points as they are offering to others"?
(Of course, I will writing more formally when I write to them)

In my family, 2 plat cards and 1 gold card were recently opened. If I can get extra bonus points for all the cards, then that will be really amazing!

Send the request to the secure message system on Amex and send it to Social Media. I did this same thing in a similar situation. I redeemed 150,000 points for 3 nights of hotel certificates for my honeymoon. Just recently all the hotel certs went to 20% off so the same certs were 40,000pts. I emailed Amex and asked if they could make a one time exeption and credit me back the extra 30,000 points I paid and they agreed without a problem.

P.S. before anyone questions why I would redeem for hotel certs since they are typically bad redmeption here is the answer. I spoke to the hotel ahead of time and since it was our honeymoon they agreed to give us a guaranteed upgrade to a nice suite which would have cost us about $950 a night in BDA. Plus, weddings are not cheap, so anything to defray the overall costs helps! Used miles for the flights there also.

Good luck to those who try and get some extra points using the sign up bonus ID.

Where are you staying in BDA? That is, if you don't mind me asking :D. Perhaps, I could make some recommendations of things to do. Perhaps, I may just stumble onto the island because I have the luxury of doing so and maybe buy you a beer as a cheers!

I believe when you signed up for the 50k you must have signed up prior to the 100k expiration date. If you signed up afterwards, I doubt they will give it anyway. ymmv.

no true i have sent a msg to AMEX asking them for the 100 K points but since i upgraded to Platinum from Gold i was not eligible, if i apply for a new card and get approved i will dif get the bonus points.