Amex Plat - 150K Bonus Point; Gold - 90K Referrals

pm me a code for the 90k

Flight credit is mostly BS, tied to US airlines only, on ancillary charges and one airline per year.

This is fine but not every one is taking a uber every month. Should an annual credit.

Thats also BS

This one is kinda nice but most of these services are already offered for free thru other channels. Not real value

I’ll agree with you on the hotel credit, since it’s only a select few very expensive hotels - only booked through Amex. Fairly difficult to take advantage of and the $200 is barely saving on these hotels.

I disagree on the rest though.

  • I’m not sure why you would get a Plat if you can’t take advantage of the flight credit… its a travel card after all. Checked bags are $35 each way on most airlines, so you only need to check bags on 3 flights to get it. Seat upgrade on a round trip flight will cover the $200 too. Sometimes it even triggers on very cheap flight tickets too. This is arguably the easiest benefit to hit.
  • Uber credit also works on uber eats. 1 delivery meal per month doesn’t sound too outrageous
  • Where you getting Disney+, Hulu and SiriusXM 100% free forever? Please let me know!
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Another perspective: I have a terrible time using up the airline credits, and I travel a lot more than the average person.

That might seem paradoxical but I fly one airline (AA) almost exclusively, and with frequent flyer status I never encounter those types of fees (no fees for checked bags, seat selection, same-day flight changes, etc.).

AA gift cards used to trigger the credit, but those are no longer eligible for reimbursement.

For me, the only way left to claw back this $200 “airline credit” with AA is paying for a meal at an Admirals Club, which is only practical on longer layovers… and even then most of the time I’m getting a meal on the arriving flight anyway.

Hello There!

That benefit plus others would of been worth the annual fee
Plus the fLeX of the card

My verizon plan offers Disney, Hulu bundled together for free.

I fly any airline which is cheap . On average I fly between east and west cost once to twice a month, not including any vacations. I have credit cards for all the airlines so my bags are free, but even if they weren’t, I rarely ever check in bags. and EVEN if I did, I don’t know which airline I am flying. Its impossible for me to select one airline.

Uber credit is fine thu, I think its most useful to a lot of people.

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gonna get me an AMEX and become an alcoholic — living the American dream

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That’s fair. If you frequently fly 1 airline almost exclusively, you’d probably be better off with one of their own cards.

It’s not fair to call a credit cards perks “BS” or “not real value” just because your personal situation doesn’t fit it. If you have other cards or other means of gaining the benefits of Amex Plat… just don’t get an Amex Plat. This thread isn’t titled “Why everyone needs an AMEX Plat/Gold”.

  • Not everyone has Verizon and looking around, it would not appear all that AMEX covers is offered for free in a widespread fashion by other means. I can’t find anything that covers Peacock and SiriusXM for free - which AMEX does.
  • If you fly once or twice per month on a similar route, I’d struggle to believe you’re not on the same airline 2-3 times in 1 year. You can select the airline right before you book your flight, pick the airline your booking with and you got at least one flights worth claimed.
  • Why is it BS for AMEX to cover checked bags and fees via $200 credit, but it’s not BS for your airline credit card to cover checked bags and fees? It’s the same perk at the end of the day.
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I’m mildly looking into the platinum card since Amex is opening a lounge at DCA this fall. My family would use a lot of benefits so the cost would be reasonable, especially for the first year, if the lounge was nice. But their lounges often have had such bad over crowding issues now that I doubt the lounge at DCA is going to be a relaxing place to wait out a delay.

I dont think you are wrong. My biggest gripe with the airline credit is that you have to stick to one airline. To maximize it, unless someone only flies one airline (which I know a lot of people do), and checks in bags etc, it is not much useful. And I am someone who flies atleast 75k miles a year (wife flies another 20-30k miles) , and I don’t have a good way to reimburse myself for those $200 credit, maybe im unlucky or maybe that credit isn’t designed for someone like me

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Have you looked at the additional value that you’d get from having higher-tier status by consolidating to just one airline?

Beyond just earning more redeemable miles for every dollar spent, there are intangibles like reaching a live phone agent a lot more quickly when needed, priority rebooking when something goes terribly wrong (when 180 people are impacted by a canceled flight, I don’t want to be #90 in line for the limited options that exist), and of course, complimentary upgrades (but perhaps you’re buying premium cabin space already).

While it’s generally not necessary, I’d rather spend a bit extra and fly with my one and only airline.

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To everyone their own. I appreciate the feedback and Yes I have strongly considered it but its hard to put a $$ amount. For 2 reasons:

(I have 1k thru United, althu that will unfortunately expire end of this year.). I try to stick with United but here is the reality

  1. 4/5, the price delta is too great to be worth it.
  2. Have a very specific time window where I need to fly and land. As such the options become limited. You’d think that an airline would operate the same flight every week but nopes. ( covid threw in a lot of regular changes)

Here is an example of needing to fly from NYC to SFO after 8pm on a Friday workday Jun10 as of today:

Here is the same for Jun 17:

I’d like to stick to one airline but $100 is $100.

Also, I absolutely see the value of being from a regular member to 1k on United. However, on all other airlines, I absolutely know I will not be able to hit the upper tier status, maybe mid-tier and those benefits are kinda mild. Not worth it, atleast the last 2 years when fares have been really cheap.

And as you can see, the fares are kinda insane (for the record, I just flew from west coast to south asia for $900 RT , and right now, I am getting similar fares for a domestic 3-4 hour flight)

Polaris > D1 on this route, but JFK > EWR.

Polaris is sweet man, and Im running out of upgrade passes that I accumulated pre-covid on that route. Down to my last 3 :frowning:

There are ways to use this relatively easily. UA members are buying travel bank and getting reimbursed. DL - you can split the ticket purchase with a giftcard and it will reimburse if you can keep the Plat card charge under $250.

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Glad to know it! Will definitely try that, I thought Amex was tough on travel bank etc

Status match (challenge)?

I did that at the start of covid, got matched to AA and one more airline (I forget), but then they ask you to fly 20k miles in 3 months to maintain the status or something, which I wasn’t able to hit. :frowning:

Personally, I really miss the pre-covid days when I was making 6-8 international trips in J. 3 flights and you hit 1K and then its just a huge upward trajectory. And I have on multiple times been really REALLY impressed how good United’s 1K help desk is.

During Covid, I definitely flew SFO - NYC in Polaris for $79 one way, that was awesome!