Amex Platinum Cards Improved Bonuses
American Express increased the annual fee on the Platinum card today. What was already an expensive product, is now even more so with a fee of $695. However, with the new fee there are also new bonuses available that can earn you tons of points. These bonuses are available on all three Amex Platinum cards, which include the plain version, Schwab and Morgan Stanley. Let’s see how these new offers work and how you can find them.
Offers
- Earn 100,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $6,000 on purchases on your new Card in your first 6 months of Card Membership.
- Plus, earn 10x points on eligible purchases on your new Card at restaurants worldwide and when you Shop Small in the U.S., on up to $25,000 in combined purchases, during your first 6 months of Card Membership. That’s an additional 9 points on top of the 1 point you earn for these purchases.
- Annual Fee: $695
You can see these offers at the following links:
- Schwab Amex Platinum
- Morgan Stanley Amex Platinum
- Amex Platinum Card
- 100K offer is available for everyone publicly and through referral links
- There are 125K public links easily available if you just google Amex Platinum and there is even a 125K off via referral that can net the referrer up to 45K themselves.
Application Rules
The Schwab Platinum Card now has a different language on the application page.
Welcome offer not available to applicants who have or have had this Card or previous versions of the Platinum Card.
I think it still means the same thing, that you are eligible for a bonus from each version of the Platinum Card. It would say “other” and not “previous” versions, if rules really changed. But we do not have any data points, so it is something you should be aware of.
And as usual, there’s this part:
We may also consider the number of American Express Cards you have opened and closed as well as other factors in making a decision on your welcome offer eligibility.
Conclusion
This is a great welcome bonus for either Platinum card. You can get as much as 125,000 Membership Rewards when you spend $6,000 within 6 months. Then you can also earn up to 250,000 Membership Rewards through Shop Small in the U.S and restaurants worldwide. This might be difficult to maximize, but lots of merchants usually qualify as Shop Small, so it will be lots of trial and error to find a store where you do lots of spend.
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The so called extra benefits are lame…
“Welcome offer not available to applicants who have or have had this Card or previous versions of the Platinum Card.”
I dunno. Sounds to me like “previous versions” could mean any other Platinum. Like, for example, the old Mercedes Benz Platinum, or the regular or whatever. They might be wanting to cut back to people that have never had the platinum card of any kind before. That would likely save a lot of “cashing out”, even what with the lower rate that has been talked about.
Like you say, no DP yet, but I have a bad feeling on this one.