For years, I was terrified of credit cards with annual fees, as you may recall from this post discussing the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I’ve since changed my tune.
It’s all about the value you get from the card! While I still plan to hold onto my Chase Sapphire Reserve, I recently acquired the American Express Platinum card, and it has become our new favorite travel credit card. Keep reading to hear why.
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Why The Amex Platinum Card
I became interested in this card when they started running a huge promotion earlier this year, offering up to 175,000 membership reward points to targeted applicants. Gavin applied first but didn’t receive a high offer, likely because he already holds several AmEx cards. Next, I applied, and BINGO – 175,000!
Note that you must complete the full application before you know how many points AmEx will offer you. Once you see your offer, you have the option to stop your application or to continue. To receive the points, you must spend $8,000 on the card within the first six months of holding it.
While the Membership Rewards points can be very valuable, the card also offers a slew of additional benefits that will help you offset that large membership fee. We’ll discuss those in a little bit.
Membership Reward Points
Membership Reward points become especially valuable when transferred to travel partners. Many top loyalty programs accept the transfer (Marriott, Hilton, Delta, JetBlue, Aer Lingus, and Air Canada, to name a few). Combined with transfer bonus deals, you can amplify the value even more.
For instance, AmEx is currently running a transfer bonus of 30% to Marriott Bonvoy. With the transfer ratio normally at 1:1, you can now get 1.3 Marriott points for each AmEx Membership Reward point transferred.
Other AmEx Platinum Benefits
By taking advantage of a handful of benefits (hotel credit, digital entertainment credit, Lululemon credit, and Resy credit), we’re easily able to recoup the $895 card fee and more! It’s easy to anticipate that we’ll end up using other features like the Centurian Lounge access, CLEAR membership, and airline fee credit, boosting the value we get from the card even higher.
Key Benefits include the following:
- $600 hotel credit, $300 semi-annually, must book through AmEx Travel
- AmEx Global Lounge collection (Centurion, Delta (10 visits), Escape, Lufthansa, Plaza Premium, Priority Pass
- $300 Digital Entertainment credit ($25/month) on Disney/Hulu, YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, Peacock, Paramount+, ESPN, NYT, WSJ
- $200 airline fee credit (not travel but food/baggage), must select airline
- $209 CLEAR Plus Membership (auto-renewal)
- $300 Lululemon cash back; $75/quarter
- $120 UberOne credit (with auto-renewing membership)
- $200 Uber Cash when Platinum is applied, $15/month, $20 in December
- $100 Saks statement credits, $50 semi-annually
- $400 Resy credit, $100 quarterly
- $200 Oura Ring credit
Insurance Protection
- Trip Cancellation $10,000/traveler, $20,000/trip
- Trip Delay – up to $500 per traveler if the delay is 6 hours or more
- Baggage Insurance: up to $2000 checked, $3000 checked & carry-on
- Rental Car CDW – decline at rental and charge to card, no Australia, Italy, New Zealand
- Return Protection, up to 90 days post purchase if the seller won’t take them back, $300 per item up to $1000 max per year
There are even more benefits if you spend over $75,000 on the card in one year.
Conclusion
High annual fee credit cards can still be worth the expense as long as you are getting value out of the benefits the card offers. It’s important to keep track of the benefits you use to ensure you’re getting adequate value.
Thrifty Traveler offers an incredible, FREE downloadable spreadsheet that easily lets you do just that. You may recall that I mentioned Thrifty Traveler as a useful travel tool for saving money earlier this year.
If you are interested in trying the service, they have an amazing deal coming up for Black Friday. Use THIS LINK and you’ll receive 50% your first year of a Premium or Premium Plus subscription. The promotion runs from November 24 to December 2, 2025, so set a reminder on your calendar.
Thanks for reading today! If you know someone who loves points travel, please send them this post. Until next time…
