Card Promotions Amex Platinum Card Benefits, Offers & Discussion

Enjoy a world of travel benefits and 150,000 bonus Amex Membership Rewards Premium Ascent points...​

Learn more and apply for this card:

American Express® Platinum Card

The American Express (Amex) Platinum charge card is one of the best publicly-available cards in Australia for travel benefits.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

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What are the main benefits of this card?

1. Signup bonus: 150,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points (worth 75,000 Qantas Points, Velocity Points, Avios or Asia Miles, among other options) when you apply by 28 January 2025 and spend at least $5,000 within 3 months
2. Earn 2.25 Amex Membership Rewards points per $1 spent on everyday purchases, uncapped. You can transfer these points to 12 airline & 2 hotel programs, including Qantas Frequent Flyer.
3. Enjoy unlimited access to many airport lounges, including Virgin Australia and Priority Pass lounges
4. Gift Priority Pass membership to one additional cardholder
5. Receive complimentary elite status with hotel loyalty programs including Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy, Radisson Rewards & Accor Live Limitless
6. Complimentary international travel insurance
7. Receive a $450 annual travel credit, plus airfare discounts, $400 worth of annual dining credits, subscriptions to The Australian & Wall Street Journal, plus many more exclusive benefits!

Why we like the American Express Platinum Card

Packed full of travel perks, the American Express Platinum Card is one of the best publicly-available cards in Australia for frequent flyers.

With a $1,450 annual fee, this metal card is not for everyone. But the return on investment for the high annual fee is strong, as it comes with a lot of useful benefits! This includes an annual travel credit, dining credits and unlimited access to Virgin Australia, Delta, Lufthansa, Priority Pass, Plaza Premium and Amex Centurion airport lounges.

There are also some great hotel perks including a free annual hotel night, Accor Plus membership, Fine Hotels + Resorts benefits and complimentary elite status with Hilton, Marriott and Radisson.

For points collectors, this is one of the most lucrative cards available in Australia. You’ll earn 2.25 Amex Membership Rewards Ascent Premium points per $1 spent on eligible transactions. Points transfer to most frequent flyer programs at a 2:1 rate, although there are some exceptions (e.g. it's 3:1 to KrisFlyer and Emirates).

You can convert your Amex points to around 12 airlines including Qantas, Virgin Australia, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates and Etihad! Plus, you can transfer points to two hotel loyalty programs for even more redemption possibilities.

To sweeten the deal, new cardholders who apply by 28 January 2025 can also earn 150,000 bonus Amex Membership Rewards points when spending at least $5,000 on the card within 3 months of approval. See our card guide for the full details:

American Express® Platinum Card

The American Express (Amex) Platinum charge card is one of the best publicly-available cards in Australia for travel benefits.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

AFF members are welcome to discuss this card in this thread.

 

[CallMeHoju]

Just logged in to check the available offers on my platinum card and they've all disappeared (same with the reserve card). Anyone else seeing the same?

Plat offers are still there but reserve hidden. I’ve seen this bug in the app before, and they came back in half an hour or so.

Just saw a new BP offer so maybe it’s cause by Amex adding new offers into the accounts

 

[pblackie]

No, mine are all still there. All expire in 2022 though. Were your’s expiring this year?

I was looking for the offers that come and go throughout the year, normally 10+ to select from. Nothing today even the ones that were there yesterday have disappeared.

Post automatically merged: Oct 19, 2021

Plat offers are still there but reserve hidden. I’ve seen this bug in the app before, and they came back in half an hour or so.

Just saw a new BP offer so maybe it’s cause by Amex adding new offers into the accounts

Thanks, I'll check back later.

 

[zig]

Plat offers are still there but reserve hidden. I’ve seen this bug in the app before, and they came back in half an hour or so.

Just saw a new BP offer so maybe it’s cause by Amex adding new offers into the accounts

Sorry- misread your post and thought you were referring to travel credits. The offers are generally discussed in the offers thread.

 

[sudoer]

Thanks, I'll check back later

They are back for me. As mentioned above, there is an Amex Offers thread where this issue was also being discussed.

 

[thatsthatmattressman]

Just logged in to check the available offers on my platinum card and they've all disappeared (same with the reserve card). Anyone else seeing the same?

Sometimes the Offers section becomes temporarily unavailable .. it will load grey with dark blackbold font .. i am guessing maintenance or system interruption.. is that what it shows in your Offers area? Can you provide a screen shot?

And yes IHG, Marriott, Small Hotels, Avis, Hertz etc. offers loaded overnight

 

[pblackie]

Sometimes the Offers section becomes temporarily unavailable .. it will load grey with dark blackbold font .. i am guessing maintenance or system interruption.. is that what it shows in your Offers area? Can you provide a screen shot?

And yes IHG, Marriott, Small Hotels, Avis, Hertz etc. offers loaded overnight

Offers are all back now, thanks everyone for your replies.

 

[thatsthatmattressman]

Looks like a new filter has been added to the top of Offers refine by section

 

[Daver6]

Looks like a new filter has been added to the top of Offers refine by section

View attachment 262477

They should add a filter for sneakers

 

[s1mba]

Hi, hoping to get some help here. I about to get the platinum charge card for my business. Main benefits for myself and business partners is that we can use the points for holiday flights. However, i understand that the card can only be open under 1 partner's name. In this case, how do we share points with other partners who want to use the points collected for flights or upgrades? For eg. They might be travelling Emirates and need 100K points on Emirates freq flyer for upgrade. How does one transfer the points to other? Is there such a thing? Can you transfer points to other's FF programs? Also, can all the partners use all the other benefits (like lounges, etc), or is it just limited to the person who the card is registered to?

We will all be getting supplementary cards to use, but it will be all under 1 person's account - as was advised by the representative.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Infrequent traveller]

Hi fellow AFFs,

Would like to have your comments/advices on maximising value of Fine Hotels & Resorts booking.

The T&Cs prescribe only one US$100 property credits (in most cases) for any one stay. As I am looking for a 2-night stay in the same property, I am wondering if I can book it separately as 2 consecutive one-night stays under the respective names of the hotel guests (me and my wife). We both have an eligible Platinum Charge card (under the same account).

Not sure if this approach has been tried with success before, and how the hotel staff/management would take it. I don't want to get in to a fight to get that extra US$100 credit but that extra would be really handy in my brief stay at the hotel.

TIA for your comments and ideas.

 

[daft009]

Hi, hoping to get some help here. I about to get the platinum charge card for my business. Main benefits for myself and business partners is that we can use the points for holiday flights. However, i understand that the card can only be open under 1 partner's name. In this case, how do we share points with other partners who want to use the points collected for flights or upgrades? For eg. They might be travelling Emirates and need 100K points on Emirates freq flyer for upgrade. How does one transfer the points to other? Is there such a thing? Can you transfer points to other's FF programs? Also, can all the partners use all the other benefits (like lounges, etc), or is it just limited to the person who the card is registered to?

We will all be getting supplementary cards to use, but it will be all under 1 person's account - as was advised by the representative.

Thanks for your help.

If it works the same way as the personal cards and I suspect that it does then the supps will be earning for the master card holder. You would have to do the bookings for everyone but it depends on the FF program T&Cs

 

[sudoer]

The T&Cs prescribe only one US$100 property credits (in most cases) for any one stay. As I am looking for a 2-night stay in the same property, I am wondering if I can book it separately as 2 consecutive one-night stays under the respective names of the hotel guests (me and my wife). We both have an eligible Platinum Charge card (under the same account).

Not sure if this approach has been tried with success before, and how the hotel staff/management would take it. I don't want to get in to a fight to get that extra US$100 credit but that extra would be really handy in my brief stay at the hotel.

The terms state that 'back-to-back stays within a 24-hour period at the same property considered one stay' so you would need to alternate the name on the booking, but yes it can be done. Lots of info & experiences here:

FHR back-to-back booking questions. - FlyerTalk Forums

American Express | Membership Rewards - FHR back-to-back booking questions. - My wife and I are both Amex Plat. If we will be staying in a FHR hotel for 2 nights, is it okay for me to book the first night and her to book the second night? Would we get 2x amenities? We have a Fri-Sun in Rome...

www.flyertalk.com

 

[Daver6]

The terms state that 'back-to-back stays within a 24-hour period at the same property considered one stay' so you would need to alternate the name on the booking, but yes it can be done. Lots of info & experiences here:

FHR back-to-back booking questions. - FlyerTalk Forums

American Express | Membership Rewards - FHR back-to-back booking questions. - My wife and I are both Amex Plat. If we will be staying in a FHR hotel for 2 nights, is it okay for me to book the first night and her to book the second night? Would we get 2x amenities? We have a Fri-Sun in Rome...

www.flyertalk.com

Interesting. I had never considered this. Worst case scenario is the hotel makes you change rooms. If they do, I'm not sure I could really be bothered.

 

[s1mba]

If it works the same way as the personal cards and I suspect that it does then the supps will be earning for the master card holder. You would have to do the bookings for everyone but it depends on the FF program T&Cs

Interesting, wonder how it would work with lounges and all. If its a business card, i am sure there are many businesses that have multiple partners. It would assume that it would not be fair to have only 1 named partner/director allowed to use the benefits? Esp, when the business spend will be $1m annually.

Anyone else in this situation?

 

[daft009]

Interesting, wonder how it would work with lounges and all. If its a business card, i am sure there are many businesses that have multiple partners. It would assume that it would not be fair to have only 1 named partner/director allowed to use the benefits? Esp, when the business spend will be $1m annually.

Anyone else in this situation?

Lounge access is per card holder so supps too, but no guests allowed

 

[daft009]

learnt something new today...
when you use the "make a payment" in the amex app or amex website, its limited to $100k max.
my payment was scheduled in the app but they didnt take the funds out, and now i find this out.
its rare i go over 100k in a single billing cycle

next statement came in and I was slugged a ~$3.3k late fee.
a quick phone call and they reversed it 100%!

never been late, just the $100k+ payment not going through as scheduled stuffed me up... i know better for next time!

 

[Berlin]

Hi everyone and my apologies if this question has been covered elsewhere already but I can't find it using the search function: I used to pretty much rely on the Amex Platinum charge card travel insurance for the past 15 or so years. Yes, like all insurance companies they are a pain to deal with and try every trick in the book to avoid making a payment but I've gotten quite generous hotel stays and luggage replacements due to delayed or canceled flights over the years so I cannot really complain.

I never had to resort using the insurance for hospitals or the likes but always relied on it to be honest. Now with travel finally opening up post Covid, I wonder if I can continue to do so. I believe that Chubb (is it still Chubb?) won't cover any Covid related expenses so given you could easily contract Covid overseas and then you'd be forced to isolate and re-book your return flight or whatever the circumstances might be, that's a HUGE potential expense (not even talking about possible medical expenses if one were a rare 'breakthrough' case with severe symptoms despite being double jabbed). Looking at other insurance options, I see none that simply 'upgrade' you for the Covid cover but rather only fully priced travel insurance packages that might include some form of Covid-related cover.

Now my key question is- doesn't this render the Amex insurance completely and utterly useless if one needs to take out an entire additional travel insurance policy just to cover potential Covid-related expenses? Or can we expect that most travel insurance policies, the Amex charge card one included, will amend their policies sooner or later to cover you in a case where you get yourself the Covid bug while overseas?

Any tips and pointers would be very helpful as I think there would be immensely huge costs involved if one contracted the virus overseas and there's not insurance cover whatsoever for the associated costs.

 

[sudoer]

Not my key question is- doesn't this render the Amex insurance completely and utterly useless if one needs to take out an entire additional travel insurance policy just to cover potential Covid-related expenses? Or can we expect that most travel insurance policies, the Amex charge card one included, will amend their policies sooner or later to cover you in a case where you get yourself the Covid bug while overseas?

IMO yes, the included travel insurance is currently useless for international travel without covid coverage, but I do expect that high end CC travel insurance policies will eventually cover covid for vaccinated travellers, shortly after annual multi-trip policies with covid cover are made available. (to my knowledge none for Australians yet)

I expect it would take a year or two to get to that stage, bespoke policies would be needed for coverage in the meantime where the insurer can take into account the country you are travelling to, what that country's vaccination/case/death rate looks like, and what the medical costs would be if you were hospitalised from covid.

 

[bullerdude]

Correct the Amex travel insurance wouldn’t cover you for a Covid related issue as they (Chubb) have declared it a foreseen circumstance.

As the do not travel warnings are being removed from smart traveller website I expect we will see some updated/new policies come available to deal with travel as Covid remains.

Some other card insurance don’t have total exclusions and may provide some cover.

 

[celph]

Has anyone recently applied for an additional card (the one for the primary holder), apparently they have been discontinued?