American Express have just come out with one of their best ever signup offers for the Amex Platinum Card. A whopping 105,000 Membership Reward (MR) Points are up for grabs if you jump through a few hoops. In this article I’ll explain all the benefits of this new offer and show how you could get over £1,000 of value out of it. The Platinum Card is Amex’s flagship card, with a hefty annual fee of £650. But even with this fee you should still be able to make a generous profit. You can sign up directly on their website, either by using my Amex Platinum referral code to get 105K points, or just signing up without to get 100K:
- Referral Code: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/credit-cards/platinum-card/
- No Referral Code: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/credit-cards/platinum-card/
Limited Time Offer (ends Jan 2024)
Amex always have some sort of bonus offer for new customers who signup. And since the Amex Platinum Card is their most premium card it also has the best signup bonus. Usually this would be 35,000 Membership Reward Points (enough for a return flight in Business class within Europe). But currently until 9th January 2024 they’ve increased the signup offer to the highest I’ve ever seen it.
You’ll get 80,000 Membership Reward points after spending £10,000 in the first 6 months. Then a further 25,000 points after your 15 month anniversary. Of course, that is quite a lot of money to spend in 6 months and is only a sensible option if you’re already spending a lot on your credit card. Luckily Amex are also running an offer on the Gold card of 30,000 points after spending £3,000. That card has an annual fee of £195 (but is free in the first year) so is a much more sensible option if you’re unlikely to spend £10k in 6 months.
But in this article I’m focusing on the Amex Platinum Card. As I mentioned earlier, it does have an annual fee of £650 which is quite a tough pill to swallow. But even without the signup bonus I still think it’s worth it. With the signup bonus you can potentially net over £1,000 in rewards if you spend your points correctly. I’ll cover how to get the most value from the card and spend MR points in the next section.
Great Perks – £300 Dining, £100 Harvey Nichols, Lounge Access & More
£300 Dining Credit – Every year you’ll get two £150 restaurant credits, one to use in the UK and one outside. You can use each one anytime throughout the year and it resets every year on 1st January. I like this one as there are loads of really high quality restaurants. Many of the restaurants will cost about £150 for dinner for two so the credit basically makes that free. Full list of restaurants is here.
£100 Harvey Nichols – This credit is split into two £50 credits, one to use between January and June and the other to use between July and December. I personally don’t shop much at Harvey Nichols, but I have been using to buy birthday and christmas presents for my mum, so it’s still useful to me. Judge the usefulness of this perk based on how likely you are to shop at Harvey Nichols.
Free Lounge Access – Besides the dining credit this perk is probably the most valuable to me. When you sign up for the Amex Platinum they also send you a Priority Pass which comes with unlimited lounge access for you and a guest. Some lounges are only accessible by showing the Amex Platinum Card and some only with Priority Pass. You can see the full list of lounges here but basically every large airport in the world will have a few. In 2023 alone I’ve visited at least 15 airport lounges and with them usually costing £30-45 to enter that’s a lot of savings. Of course I wouldn’t visit these lounges if I didn’t have the free access so it isn’t really free money. But I have still been able to get £100s of value out of it.
Travel Insurance – Any travel purchase made through the Amex Platinum Card is covered by Amex’s Wordwide Travel Insurance. It’s quite comprehensive and I’ve personally used it to claim extra expenses incurred on a delayed flight with very little hassle. I’m honestly not sure how it compares to other travel insurance providers but it is a nice to have. Full details are found here.
Metal Card – Just a gimmick really but the Platinum Card is made out of solid metal. It doesn’t really add anything but I like it. It feels fancy and premium.
And there are a few more minor perks though none of them are really worth looking at in depth, the full list can be seen here.
Best way to Spend Points
Amex have a calculator to see how much your points could potentially be worth (image below). However, the values it suggests are only representative if you choose the absolute worst redemption options. It can be tempting to just use your points on an Amazon voucher as it’s easy but I think that would be a huge waste. You can redeem points for gift cards at just 0.5p per MR. But if you shop around with one of the many airlines Amex partner airlines (full list here) you can easily get double or more value. Personally the absolute best value I’ve been able to get is 3.5p per Avios which would make the 105,000 points in this signup offer worth over £3,500+. I made an article about it here and whilst it’s certainly not a practical method, it does show just how much value you can get from MR points. In reality you’ll probably easily be able to get 1p per MR or more of value from your points. That means those 105,000 can be redeemed for £1,050+ if you spend them with airlines.
In my experience the best value for money you can get is by transferring MR to air miles (Virgin Atlantic tend to have good bargains). Generally long haul flights in Business/First have the best value but Premium Economy and even Economy can be worth it too. That’s simply because a return flight in Business can cost thousands.
On the Amex website they encourage you to redeem your points on gift cards or statement credits. But honestly I would say that really diminishes this cards’ value, almost to the points it’s not worth it. Basically, unless you travel a lot and plan to spend points on travel, I don’t think this card is for you. Rather just buy a regular cashback card instead.
Conclusion
Overall I think this new Amex Platinum offer is a very good deal and very lucrative if you make the most of all the benefits. At the very lowest rate you’ll be able to redeem an Amazon Giftcard for 0.5p per point you’ll just get £525 of value. But if you plan to use on flights (especially business class) you’ll get much more. The absolute highest redemption rate I’ve been able to find was looking at a Virgin Atlantic Upper Class flight from London to Los Angeles. Though it is quite hard to find such a good deal as that. I’ve had no issues however being able to achieve a redemption rate of 1.4p per MR point so I would say that’s a good benchmark to use.
Referral Code
If you use my referral code you can earn an extra 5,000 MR points for a total of 105,000 (80,000 after £10k plus 25,000 after 15 months). Just apply through the link below:
(full disclosure, I get 18,000 MR points for every person that signs up through my link, which is a hefty reward by itself).