On Monday I reported that American Express will be offering 10 free inflight GoGo passes per calendar year on the American Express Business Platinum card. Based on how this benefit works on the corporate card I reported that this benefit would be good for day passes and American Express would require cardholders to purchase the passes and then would refund the cost within 30 days. I reached out to American Express to confirm this and they finally got back to me.
Unfortunately the news is not good. Cardholders will get 10 free inflight gogo passes, but they will be per flight segment and not day passes. Furthermore cardholders will not need to purchase the passes, once they enrolled for this benefit the passes will be pre loaded into their GoGo account. You can view my questions and the verbatim responses by the American Express press team below.
Noticed that the American Express Platinum Card is offering a new benefit of 10 in flight gogo passes. Just wanted to confirm these would be applicable on day passes and cardholders need to purchase the passes directly rather than from a third party and they’ll receive statement credit within 30 days of making their purchase?
These are not for one-day passes. The passes are good for a flight segment (one takeoff and landing on the same aircraft, with the same flight number, between 2 cities). The pass will not need to be purchased as it does with the corporate card benefit today – for the new benefit once a Card Member enrolls in the benefit his/her Gogo account gets 10 passes “pre-loaded” for the year.
Also, will additional cardholders also have access to an additional 10 in flight passes?
They will as long as they are using a Business Platinum Card.
Obviously this makes this benefit far less useful and valuable. Ten day passes would cost you $160, GoGo doesn’t sell flight segment passes online but 1 hour passes cost only $5. If you’re considering this card please remember it’s currently possible to get a 100,000 point sign up bonus simply by calling. It’s also important to note that additional cardholders on the platinum card come with an annual fee of $300 per year.
If you have any other questions about this benefit, or other American Express questions in general please let me know in the comments and I’ll reach out to American Express. I’d also like to apologize for getting this one wrong, I always try to confirm information via e-mail before posting but in this case I was unable to within a reasonable amount of time.
So this will be only available for the BIZ Plat, but not personal [Mercedes] Plat?
Yes, this benefit is only available on the business platinum card.
When is this live?
Not sure, American Express hasn’t specified a date. I’ll do another post when it goes live, in the mean time I’ve requested a date from American Express.
It’s a nice extra for sure. Not too bummed about day passes. 1, odds of flying multi-segment flight schedule where all flights have go-go is low. 2 its more valuable than 1 hour passes because most flights worth having internet are typically 2+ hours anyway. 3 internet on a airplane is a frivolous luxury anyway. i never buy it, i just catch up on reading and tv shows.
It’s still a useful benefit, don’t get me wrong. It’s just not as useful as 10 day passes.
Who takes 1 hour flights these days? :). This is still more valuable than $5 to most people I bet. Those of us in DFW go over 2 hours on most flights, so that’s $15/segment right there. Sure you will eat up more of your 10 free ones if you have multiple segments, but oh well. Most flights are direct from DFW :).