Starting today, you will receive 5x points on all airfare purchases with your The Platinum Card® from American Express – this is only valid for flights booked directly with the airline or with American Express Travel. This is a great addition to a card that has only offered 1x point on every single purchase in the past. This card is now potentially the best card to use for purchasing airfare, if you only care about the number of points you’ll earn.
Now, if you care about any other protection a credit card might give you for flying, I highly suggest NOT using this card! When it comes to purchasing airfare, I personally suggest using a credit card that will give you travel protection. Many credit cards (such as most Chase cards) will cover costs incurred from having a family emergency and needing to cancel your vacation, costs incurred from a flight delays/cancelations, lost baggage, etc. Of course there are stipulations to the above reasons and they need to fall within the covered protection category, but overall, the protection you receive from some non-American Express credit cards far surpass the 5x points you’ll receive from the Amex Platinum card.
Or, you can always roll the dice and hope that the 5x points earned offset the lack of travel protection. I know many will never use travel protection benefits, so it might be a moot point for you! Overall though, I am very happy to see American Express enhance this card. There are some very nice benefits you receive for just having this card (i.e., $200 airline fee credit, Centurion Lounge access, etc.), and I am glad to see a spend bonus added as well.
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Still worthless! In my opinion.
What about 5X on gas for (rental cars)
What about 5X on rental cars?
What about 5X on dining at hotels AND airports?
What about 5X Uber, Lyft, train, metro etc?
To me, all those are consider travel in my book when traveling.
Also, they didn’t include $1M on travel accident insurance like the CSR. Platinum is only $500k.
What about the annual credit?? This is the most important feature, they could a least match the CSR to $300.
New applications still at 40,000 or 50,000, no 100,000 offer is out there at the moment.
I downgraded my Platinum yesterday.
If you want to compete with your rival, you need to do BETTER, not less.
Question: to what AmEx card did you downgrade your Platinum … was it Everyday? I am in the same situation. Thanks.
I downgraded back to the PRG
Thank you. I hadn’t thought of PRG but it looks like a better option than the Everyday.
It depends what you are going to use the card for. Everyday with annual fee would be my 1st option because:
-3X Points on U.S. supermarkets
-2X Points at U.S. gas stations
-1X Points on other purchases
-If you use the card 30 or more times on purchases in a billing period, you’ll get 50% more points. Heck of a deal!!!
I don’t want to apply for the everyday, so downgrading to PRG was my best option, I get:
3 X points for airfare purchased directly from airlines
2X points at US restaurants
2X points at US gas stations
2X points at US supermarkets
1X points on other purchases
and $100 annual credit. I was only getting 1x on gas, groceries with Platinum, boo!
@c00mtg – I absolutely agree with you. The Chase Sapphire Reserve has many more features and benefits. However, this is still a sign up offer and unfortunately many people are not currently able to apply for Chase cards due to the “5/24” rule.
Yeah, that rule is another story. Many good and loyal responsible customers are loosing on the offer because of that 5/24
I’m confused. I thought Amex Plat comes with travel insurance on travel booked with the card. Are you saying there is another card out there that provides better coverage?
@spgguy – Most of the Chase cards provide travel insurance.
AMEX Platinum offers $500k and CSR offers $1,000,000. CSR also offers dental coverage in that amount…weird, but you never know when you will need it. Good to have.