Boingo Amex Benefit & How it Saved Me in Europe
Over the past couple of years the features and benefits of the American Express Platinum cards have changed significantly. One big change was the loss of American Airlines lounge access and of course Delta began charging for guests when using their SkyClub. One of the ways American Express made up for this was the building of Centurion Lounges.
Of course Centurion Lounges aren’t everywhere and people were complaining on forums and elsewhere about how they had lost too much. Around that time American Express seemed to focus on replacing internet for business travelers. For example they recently added 10 free Gogo internet passes to their Business Platinum cards and last year they added free Boingo internet on all Platinum accounts.
As you may have heard, Amex also recently added free Boingo internet to the SPG cards as part of their recent refresh. Between the 30K SPG Bonus and the Platinum 100K offer, I’m sure a lot of you now have an eligible card. If you do, I highly recommend registering for a Boingo account. It is a fairly painless process and you never known when you will be somewhere where you need it.
My Recent Usage of Boingo in Europe
On a train from CPH to FRA and for some reason no free WiFi but the train has a Boingo Hotspot. 1st time I’ve used my free Boingo from Amex.
— Shawn Coomer (@milestomemories) August 19, 2015
During my recent trip to Europe, I was hoping to work during our train ride from Copenhagen to Hamburg. Up until this point in the trip, every train we had been on had free WiFi. Unfortunately the Danish train did not, but it did have a hotspot that was run by a local cell provider. Imagine my joy when I saw that they partnered with Boingo. Yay! Work!
Anyway, I knew I had registered a Boingo account with my Amex Platinum card, however I didn’t remember what the username or password was. To be honest I had never used it. Luckily I fumbled around a bit and got into my account. The internet was so fast that I was excited to tweet about it. (Although I got my destination wrong.) I even had a chance to use Boingo again two days later at the bus station in Hamburg when I ran into a similar situation.
Which Cards Are Eligible
The following cards are eligible for free Boingo Internet:
- American Express Platinum (Including Ameriprise, Morgan Stanley & Mercedes Benz versions)
- American Express Business Platinum
- Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card
- Starwood Preferred Guest Business Credit Card
How to Register
Fortunately American Express and Boingo make it very easy to register for the service. To do so, you must open a Boingo American Express Preferred Plan. Here is how:
- Go to: https://amex.boingo.com/ and enter in your 15 digit card number as shown below. When done click “Verify Eligibility”.
- Following the eligibility check, you should see a “Congratulations” screen. Now you simply need to sign up for your account by creating a username and password. Simple and easy!
- Once your account is created you will receive a confirmation. At this point you can download the Boingo app to automatically log you into their hotspots, or you can simply use the username and password you created to login manually. I prefer the manual approach since I don’t like having software running in the background.
Conclusion
The Boingo subscription is definitely not the kind of benefit I would get an American Express card for, but it is nice for situations where you need it. If you recently picked up an eligible card then it truly doesn’t hurt to register. The subscription was always something I thought I would never need until I did. Can you imagine if I wasn’t able to work done on that train ride? What a disaster! 🙂
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SPG is probably one of the best cards out there. Obviously a lot depends on your spending habits and needs, but hard to beat the business card that also offers lounge access. My three favorite general purpose cards right now are Prestige, SPG and Platinum.
Platinum for what category spend ? Prestige I understand it has a lot of category bonus such like 2x on travel and dining, SPG is the most valuable points for non bonused spending.
But what category bonus does Platinum have? Besides the boingo, lounge access and airline credit benefits.
Yep, this is a nice little benefit that you won’t miss until you need it, often at a locally-owned hotel/vacation rental and the occasional foreign airport, coffee shop or train, as you discovered. Last year I had a 5-night stay at a non-chain hotel and easily saved $50 because I had the Boingo account. At some hotspots that have free internet, the Boingo account may get you free access to a Premium-level tier for faster speeds.
But how was the connection speed?
That will vary depending on where you are, however it was fast in this case. On most trains I find that WiFi is slow since everyone is using it. In this case since it wasn’t free to most people I guess less were using it and it was zippy.