American Express currently has an offer for 175,000 Membership Rewards® Points (instead of the typical 80,000) on the Platinum card after you spend $8,000 in the first 6 months of membership.
A note on the website implies this is a limited-time offer: "This offer may not be available if you leave this web page and return later."
https://www.americanexpress.com/u.../platinum/
Note: This offer may not be available for everyone.
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One thing I am more interested in is airport lounge access, specifically Delta; I know they cut back a LOT on these types of access routes (CC benefit) in the past couple of years.....
And another data point for the offer, I am in CT and currently at work. Direct clicking the link gives a 125k offer but using incognito gives the 175k offer. Not sure if they know I am at work, or if it's the CT location.
I transferred 110K AMEX points to get 286K HH points, and I booked the stay for ~95K HH points per night. The equivalent cash rate for the hotel was around $865/night after taxes and fees, or $2630 total. So I got a redemption rate of 2.4c per AMEX point, which is about as high as you'll get for hotel stays. Flights are where you start to see crazy redemption rates of 6c - 20c pp. I got two nonstop business class flights for 150K AMEX points transferred to ANA (ANA has since increased the price of their rewards flights, sadly) between IAD and HND. Those flights are usually 12K/person (just priced them out now), so I got $24K in fares for 150K points, or 16.6c / point. But I will note that new redemptions will be at least 30% worse unless you fly first class (it got the smallest increases across the board) and booking ANA with points is a legit pain in the ass, because the value is so good.
EDIT: I had misremembered that the rest of my redemptions were using the Sapphire Reserve for Hyatt points, and not all Hilton. But there were a slew of pretty great redemption deals for Hilton in Tokyo and Kyoto when I was looking; I just chose some Hyatt properties for location and/or novelty (I had heard great things about Andaz, and wanted to see it for myself, for example). So that's why my total point redemption (AMEX 260K) doesn't quite line up with the totality of my stay. I used around 70K Sapphire Reserve points for the remainder of my stays at Hyatt, since their redemption rates for international hotels are crazy good.
Just Disney+ & Hulu 🤢🤮
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The issue I have is that my home airport isn't large. There is a lounge, but it's one of the off brand ones. So, any time I can really use lounge access is when I connect through a larger airport (mostly DTW, ATL and MSP).
lol same. I just got the gold for my wife
Last year and me this year. Nearly 200k points for both of us and I've mostly done Home Depot for several DIY projects.
Just an example - if you already pay around $20 a month (or more) for Disney/Hulu/ESPN+, well you get $20 per month for that, so $240 per year. Walmart+ (which includes Paramount+) is free, $200 credit for a 2-night hotel stay at certain hotels, which you can find in the $200-300 per night range, so equal to or nearly a free night.
And did i mention transferring to airline points? Booking with Amex travel is generally not the way to go unless you are equivalent to price on the open market (because then you get the 5x points). But if you're trying to make it to Europe or somewhere in Asia, you really can get great benefit transferring points to airlines. One way Virgin LAX to London can be as low as 9,000 points ($90 !) + $80 in tax or round trip 18,000 points + $363.
CLEAR is free (~ $200 per year) .... Centurion Lounges, Priority Pass (works for lounges, but usually not eatery discounts in terminals), Delta Lounge if your ticket is above the cheapest level, $50 Saks 5th Avenue credit 2x per year, $200 airline credit (you choose USA-based airline every January and lock it in) for bags, seat upgrades, lounges etc. And tons of offers to save some money if shopping at certain retailers / hotels, etc. No to mention great customer support and various other perks....
Even if you don't travel THAT much, this is a great card to at least have for a year or two .... plenty of people get retention offers of 20k-50k points by calling in to cancel the card before a year is up....
When I first became a customer of the Platinum card my annual fee was ~$395/year and the return on the fee (*if* you took advantage of services) felt to be about a 3-1 return. By the time the card became a $700/year card the services are more like a 1.5:1 return (and when I utlimately got rid of it.)
The travel benefits are not nearly as strong as they used to be and you will not be finding any deals booking through Amex Travel (which is how you get the benefits.) First Class upgrades went from pretty common place/easy through Amex to rarely ever.
By the time I terminated the card I was booking through standard travel websites and paying a fair amount less for flight, rental and hotels when booking outside the Amex ecosystem.
The 'prestige' of the card has been dilluted over the past 20 years and doesn't really open any doors in my experience anymore.
I will say, still one of the cooler cards out there in regards to presentation of delivery and the card material - but definitely not $700 cool.
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