The business version of the American Express Platinum card will be getting an increase in its annual fee from the current $450 up to $595 in Februrary. (The personal version of the Amex Platinum had its $450 annual fee increased to $550 a while back.)
The following new benefits are being added (my commentary in the following bullet points):
- One year of complimentary Platinum Global Access from WeWork ($2,700 value), a network of premium workspaces around the world. With Platinum Global Access, enjoy over 300 workspaces in 75+ cities and 20+ countries.
- This is a valuable benefit for someone who will make use of this, but pretty useless for the majority, I think.
- The wording “one year of complimentary access” makes it sound like it’s a temporary benefit, not an ongoing benefit of the card. This is similar to the ZipRecruiter benefit on the Business Gold card, though that benefit is for new cardmembers only while this one is being given – for at least one year – to ALL cardmembers.
- Up to $200 in statement credits annually for U.S. purchases with Dell on your Business Platinum Card.
- We’ll have to see how this comes out. If it’s a monthly $15-$20 benefit (a la Uber), it’s not too useful. If it’s a twice-annual $100 credit (a la Saks) it might be a bit useful, but obviously worth way less than a real $200 value. We’ll have to wait and see.
- $100 hotel credit on qualifying charges at hundreds of properties in The Hotel Collection (up from $75) for new reservations made after January 1, 2019 when you book through Amex Travel.
- Meh
All these changes will take place in February 2019, including the annual fee change. When your card renews in February 2019 or beyond, you’ll get hit with the higher $595 fee. And the new benefits will go into effect then as well. The changes were just sent out via email to all current business Platinum cardholders.
Overall, this is a terrible change for most people as the WeWork benefit only helps someone who can make use of that, and Dell benefit will probably be just marginally valuable for most people, while the $145 fee increase is large and real for everyone. Additionally, it sounds like the WeWork benefit is a one-year thing, as noted.
They are clearly shifting to try making their business card attractive to ‘real’ businesses, not an eBay pop-up shop. I just think they aren’t doing too well a job since these kind of benefits are very business dependent; they should have a suite of options, e.g. you choose either WeWork or ZipRecruiter or etc.
The $450 annual fee is still showing for public applications. If you don’t value the new benefits, it’s worth locking in the lower rate before it increases. I’d assume we have until February, but who knows – it’s possible new applications will change sooner.
The current public signup offer is 75,000 points after $20,000 in spend (50k/$10 then 25k/$10k). The current referral signup offer is the same, so you’ll want to use a referral (or self referral) to signup for this. Another option would be to go through the Affinity portal for an additional $50 bonus. It’s possible to call in and get 100,000 points for $10k offer, readers report having success with this as recently as last week, so it’s worth a shot.
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