American Express Business Platinum

I know, it's ANOTHER high spend business card and in a short amount of time. Plus a high annual fee.

BUT - hear me out! I think it's worth if you can hit the spend and are offered 300,000 points!  Let's talk about the details and current offer for American Express Platinum Business.

American Express Business Platinum

Annual Fee: $895 (Ouch! I know! More below)

Current (Elevated) Sign up Offer: Spend $20,000 in 3 months, earn up to 300,000 points*

Referral Link: Thank you for your support!

Getting the Best Offer: Amex is weird with sign up bonuses! *Notice how the offer says "up to"? Not everyone is going to be offered 300,000 for this card. The bonus offer can and will vary. The same link may produce a one offer on your phone and a different amount of points offered on your computer. 

The good thing is: your credit IS NOT pulled, until you accept your offer! So you can apply, receive your offer and then decide if you want to accept or not.

For this particular card, I would only accept 250,000 points or more.

Once you accept the offer, then your credit is pulled. BUT - the other good things with Amex, is that if you already have Amex cards, your future card applications are typically a soft credit pull (not a hard pull!)

It's always best to check the link in a few different browser and devices (clear your cookies, incognito mode, on your phone), before you apply and accept - to ensure that you're getting the highest offer).

If you get a low offer; clear your cookies, wait 24 hours, and apply again.

5/24 Status: This is not a personal card, it's a business card! Therefore, it won't take one of your 5/24 spots. (If you're not familiar with what 5/24 Rule is, visit this post New to Points, Rule 2)

Why "We" Got This Card:

1. $20,000 is A LOT of money, especially in 3 months. But 300,000 points is A LOT of points! Since we have the spend, it was worth it to get this nice chunk of points! I like to use my Amex Points for flights (booked by transferring to Airline Partners) and to Hilton (which transfer from Amex at a 1:2 ratio, which means your points DOUBLE when you move them to Hilton! Learn more about hotel sweet spots in this post.)

2. Rakuten: aka an online shopping portal where you earn Amex Membership Rewards points instead of cash back. Those points can really add up. In August I received 65,000 MRs from my quarterly Rakuten earnings and used those to book a 70K point one-way business class flight to Europe (with a cash value of $4,700). If you aren't familiar with shopping portals and/or Rakuten, this post will tell me you and also show you how to select points instead of cash back.

Off-Setting the Annual Fee

The signup offer is enticing enough for me to be willing to open the Business Platinum alone. However, the benefits of this card can help offset the hefty $895 annual.

Common-Use Card Benefits:

• $600 annual hotel credit: provided as 2 $300 bi-annual (Jan-Jun and Jul-Dec) credits. You need to book a pre-paid Fine Hotel+Resort or Hotel Collection stay in the Amex Portal during these time frames, but do not have to stay during the time period, in order to get the credit. For example, it's April at the time of writing this post. I could use my $300 hotel credit to book a Fine Hotel+Resorts stay for October of this year! (Learn how I used this benefit in the past here!)

• $150 Dell Statement Credits: enrollment required. Then use card to make a purchase direct with Dell and receive a statement credit.

• Airport Lounge Access: global access to Centurion Lounges and Priority Pass Lounges (This is nice for us because DEN has a Centurion Lounge in the same terminal that Southwest flies from. I hold the personal Platinum card and have lounge access, so now Ben and I could both enter for free. However, we would have to paid for the kids)

• 35% Airline Bonus: Purchase a flight in Amex Travel with points and get 35% points back. Airline Selection Required.

• Hilton Gold Status: This gives you 5th night free when you book 5 consecutive nights on points! Enrollment required (we used this for Costa Rica! This benefit in itself saved us over $500!)

• $200 Hilton Statement Credit: Provided as quarterly $50 Hilton purchases (gift cards are not eligible). Some Hiltons you can use this in the gift shop or coffee shop; you dont need to be staying at a Hilton to use this. Enrollment required.

• Marriott Gold Status:  Enrollment required 

Long-Term Plan

Is this a keeper card for us? No. I already plan to close or downgrade this card after it's been open for 12months so that I don't pay the annual fee again.

I personally find more use out of my Personal Platinum and it's benefits. Learn more here

But I wanted to share this to remind you - when you open a credit card, it's not a marriage! You don't have to keep cards you're not gaining value from (as long as it's been opened for at least 12 months!)

Summary

While this isnt a forever card, it's an amazing sign up bonus and I'm glad we can take advantage to stockpile more Amex Membership Rewards.

If you're on the fence if you could hit the high spend of $20k in 3 months or if you want to pay the $895 annual fee; the Gold Business Card is another great offer with a lower spend ($15k in 3months) and lower annual fee ($375). I actually think the Gold Business annual fee is MUCH easier to offset, because you get $20/mo flex spending. When I held the card in the past, I would purchase a $20 gift card monthly at my local office store and that's $240 "off" of that $375 fee!

If you want to open any of the cards I refer to, I would SO appreciate if you utilized my referral links to open cards. This doesn't cost you anything, but provides me with some extra points and keeps all of my content free! Thank you in advance! You can find referrals for Amex Business Platinum or Business Gold here.

Reminder, if you're viewing this through a Meta app, please open an external browser to apply. This protects your data and gives me credit. If you're interested in business cards, but want more information, as well as directions how to apply for them; read here!

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