Amex Platinum - fee just gone up from £300 to £450

mat5664

The Amex Platinum used to be a decent card for a frequent traveller, despite the £300 fee. Full annual travel insurance, priority pass membership, delay benefits, upgrades etc.

Last year they watered down the insurance benefit and reduced the max age of coverage from 80 to 70.

Now they have the cheek to put up the fee from £300 a year to £450 a year with less benefits. I was going to get one, as I am currently a supplementary card holder on my mother's a/c, but she is cancelling due to the insurance age changes.

No way I am paying £450.

chattychappy

I used to have Amex Plat but got fed up with their constant changes to insurance policies, benefits etc. PP became less useful as I fly business class more and generally get better lounges than what PP offers.

They promote themselves as a one-stop-shop for business travellers. But I am exactly that. And because of that, it just doesn't fit. The loading means it is an expensive payment card. (The airmiles don't outweigh the loading IMHO.) I would rather source my own insurance for my own particular needs. Plus once I've got it, it's valid for a year. Amex are inclined to change T+Cs at a time to suit them, which doesn't suit me when I'm travelling so much.

As for their flight offers - well, they never touched any of the deals I get. I tend to buy tickets in the UK as well as overseas depending on what's cheapest. There are alot of discount business class tickets available these days which works out cheaper than Amex-type upgrade deals. Every time I called their travel agency they were clueless.

Anyway, just bundling services together and "selling" it as a one-size fits all service just doesn't work for me.

Roger1

I agree with chattychappy. With the recent insurance and other downgrades, I was already considering dropping the card. If the fee increases - and so far the increase is for new applications, not renewals - I'll need to make a firm decision.

I already have 'free' European insurance with my Nationwide FlexAccount. I have increased cover to worldwide for £20, plus £80 for pre-existing conditions for the two of us. Not the same cover, sure, but probably good enough, and I don't have to pay for foreign spend with my AmEx and incur the don't-call-it-3%-it's-only-2.99% surcharge.

colino

Amex used to be an excellent product with fantastic service when you most needed it. Now with the range of cards they do they are just another CC company.
Put it another way, how often have you used their emergency services (which once truly were fantastic) and how many alternatives, saving £450p.a. can you turn to now?

Gurj247

Interesting thread, i was considering upgrading my gold card to the platinum one when mine comes up for renewel, but reading the above I don't think that i shall be doing that now, as it seems the benefits just are not there. Oh well £300 saved (£300 because thats all i was willing to pay if i went for it)

Ben8282

Many, many years ago when I first obtained an Amex chargecard, it really was essential for an international business traveller and the Amex slogan 'don't leave home without it' was, in this sense, very valid.

However, the situation is changed. Visa/MC have become much more widely accepted. 30 years ago a hotel in a developing country would probably have looked at my Access card and shook their head but have happily accepted Amex. These days, a more likely reaction would be 'Oh, Amex. They charge too much commission. Havn't you got a MC or Visa?'.

I gave up my Amex charge card some years ago as a result of paying a huge annual fee (higher than the £450 referred to here) and having to have arguments with restaurants, car hire companies and even an airline to force them to accept the card. On each occasion the excuse offered was the excessive commission charged to them by Amex.

Eventually I downgraded the card to green. Despite having been a cardholder for around 20 years, Amex then turned against me. It appears if you complain about the annual fee as a reason for downgrading the card, Amex assume that it is because you can no longer afford the fee and react accordingly.

I accept that the insurances are good, but are they actually worth the annual fee to you?

So long as you have a credit card with no interest bearing balance and a sufficiently high credit limit to transfer your Amex spending to it. I think you may be better off.

As for Amex travel service, have only used them once. Arrival at destination about 2330. Ticket issued incorrectly to wrong destination and hotel booked in a city in a different country for the same night. Amex travel service staff totally unable to understand why this was a problem and did not want to accept responsibility or discuss the obvious question of how they imagined I was going to get from the ticketed destination to the hotel.

Did try to use them on a second occasion. Needed to travel in a hurry and called for the reservation/ticket. This was pre-online booking. It was a very straightforward reservation for a full fare business class round-trip ticket on which they would receive a 3 figure commission amount from the airline. No discount, special offer etc. Their reaction was to try to charge me for issuing the ticket ... £25 maybe? Told them that I was only calling them because I thought they might as well have the commission but it would be just as easy for me to buy the ticket at the airport. They insisted I had to be charged. Told them to cancel the booking and booked directly with the airline.

chattychappy

Ha ha ha, Ben what you said sent a shudder up my spine. (I had the first one around 1986.) The few times I tried the travel service I was offered pretty unexciting pricing. If I mentioned I'd seen cheaper elsewhere, I got a rather snooty response about the Amex service being "different". Even more silly: when my assistant tried to use Amex to book a flight ticket, they told her they needed my authorisation because she was only a supplementary cardholder. I was in a different time zone and not reachable. So she walked over the road to a normal travel agent and used the same card in their machine without a problem, as you'd expect!

Ben8282 wrote: »

30 years ago a hotel in a developing country would probably have looked at my Access card and shook their head but have happily accepted Amex.

Surprised at this though. In my experience (at least in Asia), countries and merchants took up Visa/MC long before they took up Amex (if ever). One reason was that it always used to be the case that merchants had a direct relationship with Amex - so Amex had to have a presence in a country and build up a network before Amex cards could be accepted. This was different to Visa/Mastercard where it was just a case of a local bank signing up to a network and their customers then immediately gain access.

MPH80

Just had the confirmation of the price rise through the post today.

It made sense when I took it out this year as it was £300 for the insurance + lounge access. But then you got the 40,000 points after spending £1500 - so that was worth £200 back. Effectively £100 for family travel insurance + a year's lounge access.

The benefits difference appears to be that you can now get Cathay Pacific Marco Polo membership ... which translates as getting access to OneWorld lounges (which presumably includes those at T5!) - oh and you can now take a guest in under the priority pass card.

Those are useful to me. I fly out of T5 regularly - and either way - normally with a business colleague who won't have lounge access.

There's a bunch of other 'enhanced' benefits if you book through the Amex Travel service.

But it's not £450 of value. A 50% fee increase for membership in one more programme seems a little harsh

M.

chattychappy

If considering it re Marco Polo, you'd want to check whether the tier of membership of Marco Polo gives you lounge access: 1) when NOT travelling with Cathay/OneWorld; 2) whether you could take your colleague in; and 3) whether membership at that tier is maintained, or whether it is introductory only (ie you have to fly the miles to maintain).

brightonman123

seems nothing much has changed, in the few years since i as at Amex!

Musicmanuk

Why are you all complaining about the fee increase, if you cant afford it, then you clearly lied on the application form of your income.

The benifits clearly out way the annual fee, even at £450, the benifits are substantially lower than if you had to pay for them individually, in addition it works out at just £1.23 per day, I suspect most people spend more than that per day in Starbucks, Costa coffee every day, whilst getting their caffeen fix, it's also cheaper than the gym membership that a lot of people pay for and never end up going.

So stop your complaining, if you don't want to pay the membership fee, shut up and leave, remember the annual fee is not for the card it's for the membership.

People that question the fee increase clearly can't afford it and just want it for posing in their wallet, A person with money would not even be going their and waisting his time on such minute sums of money........

Amex is the only company that when your in the doggy doo's will get you out of it, no matter where you are in the world, other companies offering charge cards don't give you the same protection as a credit card, refund you straight away and give you no preset limit, Amex also,will send you a card where ever you Are in the world within 24 hours, All the other companies say, "You will receive your new card in the next 10 working days" which is sent to your home address, what good is that if your in the doggy doo's?

So before you complain, think before you speak.......

American Express is still No 1 and their to help when you really need it.