New To Amex? Get Over £1,000 Worth Of Value With The Platinum Card In Your First Year

American Express is running its biggest ever sign-up bonus for new customers to the American Express Platinum Card. Until 25th October you’ll receive 60,000 Membership Rewards points if you spend £6,000 in your first SIX months. In addition to this, you will receive a £200 credit to spend on anything you like at American Express Travel.

If you have held or hold a personal card from American Express in the past 24 months you aren’t eligible for a sign-up bonus from an American Express card. There are two major exceptions to this:

1) British Airways American Express Premium Plus Card

You cannot of held or currently hold an Avios earning card in the last 24 months to be eligible for a sign-up bonus. You can hold another personal American Express card and still be eligible for the sign-up bonus.

2) The Platinum Card

You cannot of held or currently hold a personal Membership Reward points-earning card in the last 24 months to be eligible for a sign-up bonus. You can hold another personal American Express card and still be eligible for the sign-up bonus.

This is my experience using the points system and is not a recommendation of any financial product. There are other credit cards that can earn you travel points including Avios Barclaycard, Tesco Credit Cards (by exchanging Clubcard points for Virgin points, hotel stays and more) & Virgin Atlantic credit card. If you use one of my referral links to an American Express card upon you being accepted I will receive points, this varies between 9,000 – 18,000 depending on the card I refer you from.

The Platinum Card is now a Credit Card…

In case you missed the memo The Platinum Card is now a credit card rather than a charge card. Existing cardholders are unaffected by this change. If you want a credit card rather than a charge card as an existing cardholder you would need to make a new application and cancel your existing card.

The card has a representative APR of 439.9% including the annual fee. The representative APR when you make purchases on the card is 26.0%. You will of course pay no interest as long as you clear your statement balance in full each month.

The only change to the benefits is that you are now restricted to ONE free supplementary card as opposed to FIVE on the charge card.

What are the 60000 points worth?

As soon as you hit the spending target of £6,000 in 6 months you’ll receive 60,000 membership reward points which can be redeemed for various different things…

They can be redeemed for 60,000 Avios (flights) this will give you enough points for a Business Class return (taxes + fees) will be due to Zone 5 locations including Dubai, New York & Montreal. To view all the locations and options you have see here – https://pointsuncovered.com/avios/how-many-avios-does-a-flight-cost-in-2021/

You can also use them for a varied selection of hotels
Hilton usefully provides a points explorer which will handily tell you where you can go within your budget per night in points – http://pointsexplorer.hiltonhonors.com – converting your membership reward points into Hilton would get you 120,000 points

With Marriott you can use their Points Redemption list to find out where you could travel for 90,000 Marriott Bonvoy Points (60,000 membership reward points converted into Marriott) – https://points-redemption.marriott.com/category-change – you can filter via location & sort via the number of points required.

Thirdly you can use them for a variety of experiences
Marriott (would give you 90000 points to spend on experiences) – https://moments.marriottbonvoy.com/
For example, this would get a package for 2 to See Genesis Perform from the Marriott Bonvoy™ Luxury Suite at The O2 currently at 50000 points.

Hilton (would give you 120000 points to spend on experiences) – https://experiences.hiltonhonors.com/
For example, this would get you 2 tickets (50000 each) to Lancashire Cricket Partners Cricket Day, 3 x BMW PGA Championship – VIP Hospitality Tickets (40000 each) or 2021 LV= Insurance Test Match: England v India Hospitality (package for 2) currently at 90000 points.

As COVID restrictions continue to ease we should see a reemergence of more experiences.

Alternatively, they can be converted into Nectar points (Avios first for a better conversion rate) you’d get 96,000 Nectar points worth £480 (Sainsbury’s, eBay, Argos etc.) You could also redeem for a £300 voucher (Amazon, M&S & many more) or £270 off anything on your credit card bill amongst many others things. Explore all the other possibilities here – https://global.americanexpress.com/myca/intl/rewards/emea/action?request_type=un_Rewards&Face=en_GB

£200 travel credit

The £200 American Express travel credit is also triggered when you hit the spending target of £6,000 in 6 months. You can book flights or pre-paid hotel stays via the Amex Travel website or on the phone & the first £200 spent will be refunded as a statement credit.

To trigger the travel credit you need to spend at least £200 in one transaction and the credit expires 12 months after qualifying for it.

What about the annual fee?

It does have a CHUNKY £575 annual fee BUT you may find the benefits worthwhile for you, particularly in the first year if you are eligible for the sign-up bonus. You can cancel at any time for a pro-rata refund of the annual fee. You won’t lose your points either, just transfer them to whichever scheme you want before you cancel. If you kept your card for 6 months you’d receive a £287.50 refund on the annual fee.

What other benefits does the Platinum Card have?

The main benefits we use are…

You will get 2 free Priority Pass memberships, one with the main Platinum card and one with your first FREE Platinum supplementary cardholder. These are valid at any airport lounge in the Priority Pass network. Each card can bring in one FREE guest, each additional guest will cost you £20. You can view what airport lounges accept Priority Pass here – https://www.prioritypass.com/

For as long as you hold the card you will also receive elevated status in various hotel programs. Gold in Hilton Honors, Gold in Marriott Bonvoy, Gold in Radisson Rewards & Gold in MeliaRewards. We talk about what benefits these statuses have here – https://pointsuncovered.com/hotels/free-hotel-elite-status-from-uk-credit-cards/

Full travel insurance: You receive travel insurance for yourself and your family as long as you are under 70. You can insure ONE other person and their family by giving them a supplementary card on your account. Some benefits require you to pay for your trip on a UK-issued personal American Express.

Each £1 spent on the card will give you one membership reward point. Travel bookings made through the American Express Travel website will give you two membership reward points per £1.

Alongside this, the Platinum card also offers car hire insurance among other things. You can read more about the benefits here – https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/charge-cards/platinum-card

How can I get over £1,000 Worth Of Value from the Platinum Card?

• The sign-up bonus of 60,000 membership reward points which at worst can be converted into Nectar points (Avios first for a better conversion rate) for 96,000 Nectar points worth £480 (Sainsbury’s, eBay, Argos etc.) When using the points for flights you should get at least £600 worth of value with our 1p valuation of Avios.
• £200 credit for American Express Travel
• £100 Harvey Nichols Credit (£50 every 6 months)
• £300 Dining Credit (resets January 1st) – which means you should be able to get TWO lots before you cancel – £600

Let’s take the conservative option here and say you redeemed your membership reward points for Nectar giving you £480 worth of value. Add £200 for the American Express Travel credit, £680. You can use the Harvey Nichols £50 credit twice (one before New Year, once after), £780. Then finally the dining credit let’s say you only used the UK credit (half the total) rather than the credit for restaurants abroad. You can claim this twice (it resets on January 1st) would give you a grand total of £1,080.

This is before factoring in any of the other benefits e.g. travel insurance, hotel status & priority pass etc!

Don’t forget on top of all this American Express pro-rata refunds annual fees on cancellation. So you could either close your card or move to a free one once you’ve used the benefits you want. Let’s say you kept the card for 6 months. That would mean a pro-rata refund of half the annual fee (£287.50) which means your total outlay for the benefits above would be just £287.50. A very healthy profit of just under £800!

Will I be eligible to get the card?

There is no minimum income requirement for the card. As long as you are a UK resident that is 18+ with no history of bad credit you have a good chance of being accepted!

Can my partner, family member, or friend get one too?

Of course! There are NO limits to how many people in your household can have a card. If you got one card you could then refer your family member/friend etc for extra points (12,000 from the Platinum card.) This way the points soon stack up! If you (referred) and one other person you referred got the Platinum card and met the spending target (make sure you are both eligible) you’d have 142,000 membership reward points when pooled together!

To get a referral (you will receive 5000 extra bonus points for meeting your spend target on the Platinum Card) go here – https://pointsuncovered.com/amex-referral-link-uk/

If you don’t want to be referred or just want to read more about the Platinum card go here – https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/charge-cards/platinum-card/

Are you tempted by the increased sign-up bonus AND increased time to hit your spend target?