The Offer
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Amex is offering an increased signup bonus on their Platinum Mercedes-Benz (MB) card until June 22, 2016.
- Get the Amex Platinum MB and receive a signup bonus of 75,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $3,000 within 3 months
- Annual fee of $475
Multiple Platinum Cards
Can I get the MB Platinum card if I already have a different Platinum card version? And will I be eligible for the signup bonus as well?
Yes, many people have multiple versions of the Platinum card, and it seems that each version is considered a separate product and you can get the signup bonus on each card separately.
As with all Amex cards, you can only get the signup bonus for the MB Platinum card once. The Platinum card is a charge card, not a credit card, and is thus not subject to the (
The Platinum card is a charge card, not a credit card, and is thus not subject to the (possible) limit of 4 Amex credit cards per person.
Card Details
All Platinum cards come with lots of benefits, among them:
- $200 airline incidental credit per calendar year
- Priority pass select
- Fee Credit for Global Entry or TSA Pre✓
There are also a few Mercedes benefits, which probably won’t apply to most of us:
- 5x Membership Rewards points on select Mercedes purchases
- Receive a $1000 certificate each year you charge $5,000 in purchases, good toward the future purchase or lease of a new Mercedes-Benz
- Up to 2,000 excess miles waived at lease-end on leases through Mercedes-Benz Financial Services
- $100 certificate at renewal of your Card account, good toward Genuine Mercedes-Benz Accessories
And you can get a free coffee mug or similar type of item at a Mercedes dealership with the $100 MB certificate (#4 above) which comes after your first purchase and each year thereafter. We wrote more about the $100 accessory certificate in this post.
Our Verdict
This is an excellent deal, albeit with a steep $475 annual fee. While on the standard version of the Platinum card we’ve seen an offer of 100,000 points or higher, we haven’t seen that on the MB version. The 75k offer is especially worthwhile if you value the premium benefits and you don’t currently have a different Platinum card to get those benefits.
If we’ll assume that you can get the $200 airline incidental credit for 2016 and for 2017, all while paying just one $475 annual fee, that offsets most of the annual fee and leaves a net fee of $75. Nice price to pay for 75k Membership Rewards points, even without any of the other benefits.
It’s worth reading the 20 Things Everybody Should Know About American Express before applying.
HT: Reddit
