Overnight, the Ameriprise Financial version of the American Express Platinum card changed its signup offer from the first year annual fee waiver to the standard 60k Platinum bonus. The no-fee offer is still showing on the Ameriprise site at time of this writing, but the link errors out. The card application link on Amex’s own site shows the new offer.
Previously, the card came usually with no signup bonus points at all, but had the benefit of a waived annual fee the first year. That’s a $550 savings. More importantly, some people liked to ‘churn’ the card: while points bonuses are limited to once-per-lifetime, the annual fee waiver worked time and again.
The new signup bonus is the standard bonus on all Amex Platinum cards which is 60,000 Membership Rewards points after $5,000 in spend during the first three months. But the card does have the $550 annual fee, even for the first year.
It’s not all bad: signup bonus seekers are always looking for new flavors of the Amex Platinum card since each one traditionally gets it’s own signup bonus. Overall, it’s certainly bad news for people who were churning this multiple times, but for a first-timer the new offer may actually be better.
Hat tip to r/churning members who discovered this and to Frequentmiler who posted about this as well.
Follow up post: Can I Get the Signup Bonus on Ameriprise Platinum Card if I Already had the Card without a Bonus?
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