gooselee

Have you read the responses to this thread? Many people get much more than $450 of value from this card in no uncertain terms. Whether a particular individual does or will get that value is, of course, based on how that person will use the card and what things they would have bought on their own otherwise.

I do 100% agree that there isn't much of a prestige argument here. But I think you'll find that most of the people who get the most value out of a card like this don't often take it out of their wallet to make actual purchases.

steve4

I think this is the key factor for me in deciding whether or not to keep this card. My home airport is EWR, and there are no Centurion Lounges here yet, so I have actually cancelled and reinstated this card several times in the past 2 years. Keeping this account open does help my credit score though (Member Since 99).

tymothy

Many? The benefits people are throwing around here as "saving" them money are available on much cheaper cards. Concierge service on Amex Platinum hasn't been any bit more useful than World Elite Mastercard or even the free Chase freedom concierge, in my experience. The Arrival+ gives Regus Gold and Hertz Gold. Amex offers are on all the free Amex cards too.

5% on Fedex could pay for itself if you do a lot of shipping. A lot, a lot of shipping. Even then it's capped at $1000 cashback, which is really only worth a fraction of that considering you're paying with a card with inferior rewards.

Starwood Gold is worth something...if you're the type of person to stay less than 9 times a year in a Starwood hotel so you wouldn't qualify on your own, but still more than once. Outside of that it's worthless. And even then, you're talking about a gift of what, free wifi, $10 in starpoints or a breakfast buffet. coupon at a more expensive hotel you may have decided to stay at because you know you're gold?

Lounge access is nice, but if you're flying enough to take advantage of the lounges, chances are you'll already have access somewhere else.

Unless you're shipping $10k with Fedex, the value of this card for most people, once it's really broken down, comes down to a "maaaaaybe maybe maybe" $450 value. And that's not worth it. If people can really put down a dollar value here as to what they would have paid for these amenities otherwise, I'd love to see it.

VegasGambler

Having access somewhere else is not useful. Having access in the places that you actually fly is useful. If the airline that you usually fly with does not have a lounge in your home airport, but Amex does, then the lounge is valuable.

steve4

In assessing if the $450 annual fee is worth it, I think it's important to consider if and how much you would pay for these benefits on your own without the card (not based on their retail value). For example: A visit to the Centurion Lounge without this card would normally cost $50 (retail value), however, you may value this at a lower rate. Once you total your valuations of all the benefits you would normally use (not the benefits you want to use to make the most of the card), then you can determine if the card is worth it to you.

VegasGambler

Also, I've seen my friend get stuff with the concierge that I'm pretty sure I would not have been able to get with the concierge on any on my cards.

Once, we were in Vegas. We wanted to go to a nightclub at a casino where neither of us played (so, no host to help us). We could not get in. My friend called amex, and 5 minutes later he is on "the list" and we get in.

Another time (I was not there to see this one) my friend wanted to eat at a specific high-priced restaurant. He didn't have a reservation. They told him that there were no tables available. So he called Amex, and the concierge got him a table there and then.

This is hard to put a value on. How often are you going to use it? How much do you care? There is a certain convenience factor here -- it really depends on how much you value this and how much you value $450. $450 is a lot of money to some people, and nothing to others.

gooselee

1. Yes, many. Please review the previous 90-something posts in this thread as well as others within the Amex forum. True, there are many people that do not see the value. However, there are many that very much DO see value. Just because the card holds little value to you does not mean it does not hold value to others.

2. While I do appreciate the benefits, I would agree that Concierge, SPG Gold, National Exec, Hertz Gold, Avis 1st are all minimal benefits for me personally. Fine, take them out of the equation.

3. I don't have a business version, so the Fedex discount is a non-issue. And most of my Fedex charges are paid via corporate account anyway.

4. To answer your question bolded above - Lounge access is a very, very big deal for me. I am ATL based and will requal for PM this year with something like 75 segments. Not as much as some others around here, but still nothing to sneeze at. PM does not give me DL Sky Club access, but does allow me to purchase a membership for...$450. If I did not have the Amex, I absolutely would purchase a SC membership for a number of reasons not relevant to this thread. There your value, right there. Period.

4a. For the same $450 I'd spend on a SC membership, I get a credit card that includes SC access, Priority Pass, Centurion lounge access, Boingo access (which comes in very handy at overseas airports), additional purchase/warranty protections for large purchases, higher rental car coverage limits, and a $200 fee credit that is essentially straight cash back in my pocket. Plus the convenience of it all being bundled in one package for me.

There are lots and lots of things about this card that are completely worthless to me, but I still find value in it on my own, and I recognize that others may similarly not care about lounge access and warranty protections, but get lots of benefit from the elite statuses, cruise privileges, IAP, and other features.

TL;DR - Stop taking the judgments you've made for yourself and universally applying them to others' situations.

mia

Currently $200 of the annual fee is refundable through the Airline Fee Reimbursement benefit, which means the card costs only $250.

I would not use this benefit to offset any of the Business Platinum annual fee because OPEN Savings is offered with all American Express Business cards, including those with no fee.

mre5765

My situation is that most of my short haul return trips are out of SJC or SFO, and most of my long haul trips connect through DFW. Thus the card gives me access to lounges that I use that are superior to the United Club. The fee credit knocks the price down to $250, in theory, but one has to have planned to pay at least $200 in fees. The SPG gold membership and boingo membership are handy. The Centurion lounges offer food and drink that are superior to anything an airport has.

If you can't frequently use the non-UA priority club memberships or the Centurion lounges, then I would skip it or wait for another 100K MR offer.

VegasGambler

This is exactly what I'm doing. A blog post that I found about the one that was offered a couple of years ago said that it excluded people with gold cards though, which worries me because I have a PRG. I only got it because it had the fee waived for the first year and a reasonable standard sign-up bonus (25k). I figured that it would be good to use while I waited for the 100k Plat offer. If it prevents me from getting it, I'll be upset.

I really hate all these cat and mouse games with credit card bonuses. I wish I could just call them and negotiate a deal with them. I'd be completely fine with a higher spend -- I'm not planning on churning here.

fliesdelta

If you were planning on having those expenses, sure.

In our case, there are four of us in our family, and this year we all got Global Entry, which was refunded, so that's $400 right there. Since I went with the Ameriprise fee-free Plat, that was a great bargain.

Same with the $200 in DL purchases, and keep in mind we can do it again after Jan 1st.

Will I renew it in the Spring at the anniversary date? Probably not, the GE is good for five years, and even accounting for the $200 airline reimbursement, that's still $250 AF.

Some folks like the prestige... quite frankly, I don't care what my credit cards look like, but that's a very subjective thing.

mia

There is no need to incur any fees. You can qualify for the reimbursement by purchasing airline giftcards or similar. We have a separate thread for each eligible airline. Here are a few:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...s-aa-only.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...s-dl-only.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...s-ua-only.html


Those were American Express' terms for a period, but no longer.

CRAZ8

This week I used my Fine Hotels and Resorts benefit to get a fourth night free. With the free breakfast, I saved $450 off the cheapest possible rate I found for that same room on the Starwood web site. I saved $950 off the regular rate at that hotel, and I could find no other way of getting discounts at this property.

In addition, I was upgraded two levels, and this would have been worth another $500 for the nights we were there. In reality, we probably wouldn't have paid for this.

In summary, depending on what parts are worth it to you, my Amex Platinum saved me either $450, $950, or $1450 on my stay.

This single stay pays my annual fee.

VegasGambler

Very nice. I guess if you normally stay for 4+ nights at expensive hotels, that is another good reason to get the card.

VegasGambler

Do you know what their current terms are for current cardholders? It seems that I can't even get the standard 40k offer.

If I go to the website (it knows from my cookie that I have a PRG) the platinum card just has a button to "upgrade" with no bonus points.

If I go to the website in a different browser (so it does not know I have a PRG) it shows me the 40k Welcome Bonus offer, but in the offer terms, right at the top, in bold, it says:

It says "may not be eligible", not "will not be eligible". This still doesn't look good. If they won't even give me the 40k, I figure that my chances at the 100k are pretty slim.

Do I really need to cancel the PRG in order to get a Platinum with a sign-up bonus?