Amex Platinum Charge Card ?

pleasedelete

Amex insurance used to be great but they changed the terms for much of it. It has to be booked on the card- flights and hotel. Many airlines charge a hefty fee for Amex- add those fees up if you are a frequent traveller and you could get a pretty decent insurance.

I have natwest private banking black account- it and amex plat overlap a lot on benefits.

chattychappy

InsideInsurance wrote: »

There is an oddity of the card, particularly here in the UK (each countrys is different).

So, to have it, you are "supposed" to be a big jet setter, staying in top hotels, buying from top brands, flying frequently etc.

The highlighted perks however are about free status, free lounges and free insurance. If you are a jet setter though you'll already have status and that will get you into the airline lounges which tend to be better than the public ones that Priority Pass get you into anyway or you'll be flying youll be flying business anyway so get access directly.

Yep, that was my experience. PP generally offers you the lowest grade of lounge and in some terminals it can be so far from your gate that it's not worth the walk. Once I got FF status with the airlines I flew with, I got into their own lounges which are often better, and more useful in the case of flight delays as the staff can help with rebooking etc. Recently I've been flying in business class more anyway. Depends on the airport, of course, but in general airlines who take £5K or more off someone for a business/first class flight don't want them to have to mingle with pax who pay £20 for a day pass and drink as much as they can 'cos it's "free". It really comes down to the airport - I remember at the old Don Muang airport in Bangkok, PP used to get you into the First Class Louis Tavern lounges which weren't bad.

In the case of the insurance, I found Amex would make changes to the policy when they felt like it, albeit on notice. At one point this resulted in my family member being left uninsured overseas. At least when I purchase insurance separately, I know the policy won't change for the duration.

Amex is not as widely accepted as other cards, particular in parts of Asia I tent to frequent. And of course, "real" business travellers know very well that they do not need to have their foreign transactions loaded by 3% (roughly).

My suggestion would be to look very carefully at the tangible benefits and decide if they are really worth it. Ignore the puff. Bear in mind that an airmile welcome bonus is all very well, but spending miles on flights you want isn't always very easy. £450 hard cash gets you more than a couple of Easyjet flights and will even cover the cost of coffee onboard and lounge before hand.

planteria

i know people who are certain that this is the best card for a high spender to use, and say that the CS is outstanding.

ive never had a charge card with them, and use Amex Cashback Creditcard (i have a version no longer available) and find that to be great. i might be missing out, but im not paying a fee, so it always feels right to just stick with what i have and keep racking up the cashback (2.25% in 4 days:D)

and interesting stuff, II. yes, the Harrods card is certainly tough to get. the only way to get a Centurion is to have the Platinum and spend £250k/yr to prompt an invite, i understand:search: and then they up your fee significantly too.

vns

I honestly don't see the difference between the Platinum and Gold being worth it:
https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/content/compare-cards/?card=card1&card=card2

Gold £125/year(first year free)
Platinum £450/year

Major differences in benefits of Platinum vs Gold
P: 30k points on £2k spend (35k if you get a friend to refer you)
G: 20k points on £2k spend (22k if you get a friend to refer you)

P: 1point/£
G: 1point/£, with double at supermarkets & petrol

P: Concierge service

P: unlimited Lounge access
G: two free passes


Hope that helps put the annual fee into perspective.

I personally don't think the £450 fee is justified against the £125(with first yr free).

chattychappy

planteria wrote: »

i know people who are certain that this is the best card for a high spender to use, and say that the CS is outstanding.

I found Amex CS on Amex Plat chargecard overrated. Dial this for this, dial that for that and end up in a queue anyway. The only time I needed them for anything remotely "special" they failed completely. Other people's experience is different though - but I do wonder if after obtaining an Amex card and paying the fees, they don't want to believe it's nothing special.

One of the weirdest coincidences happened (10 years ago) when I phoned them up to help with a somewhat unusual flight ticket. Got redirected a couple of times to an apologetic girl who said she couldn't help. I then phoned MBNA (who had some sort of travel agent thing going at the time). Their's was a 0800 number! Ended up being redirected to very same person.... and she could help this time. We had quite a chat and she told me that her firm had a number of outsourcing deals. Amex had a number of restrictions, she said, which meant they often turned people away.

lisyloo

G: two free passes

You can purchase additional lounge entries for £15 with the Gold card.

Other people's experience is different though

I think it depends entirely on your spend/travel patterns but the main point here is that you need to price it up for YOU.
On the downside I found many places I couldn't use it on-line (dive stores, motorcyle stores, even major insurance companies).
We have argued this before but that was my real experience which I provided links for and I'm not a low spender or live in the stix and some were major companies.

I found the lounge access really good recently for a flight that was delayed.
But then again I know I can buy that for around £20 so I can very easily price up what that benefit is worth.

I would suggest people check the travel insurance closely before relying on it (and you should with your travel ins anyway).

chattychappy

lisyloo wrote: »

I would suggest people check the travel insurance closely before relying on it (and you should with your travel ins anyway).

The best thing about buying insurance directly is you can choose exactly what you want. Eg I always exclude baggage, need longer trip lengths, don't need winter sports etc etc. By getting anything financial product as part of a bundle, you risk not getting exactly what you want. Also, as I mentioned, Amex have a habit of changing policy conditions.

With Amex I arrived back in the UK to get a letter from them saying they were changing the rules regarding pre-existing medical conditions. This would take effect a month after the date of the letter, but wouldn't effect trips started before the effective date. I'd been away for 3 months. My mother had just started a trip. Net effect: she wasn't covered. I rang them to see if they would nevertheless cover her. Nope. And no other travel insurance company would touch her as she'd already started her trip.

Now if something HAD have happened, I would have argued it out. But this to me was indicative of the rather arrogant "service" of Amex at the time.

ECR

I have the platinum card and am very happy with it, but it is only the One World sapphire status that makes it worth the fee for me. That is no longer included for new customers, and once mine expires, I'll downgrade to the Gold card with £125 fee.

Lounge access via unlimited priority pass is nice, but the gold card gives two free visits with additional visits at £15.

Add in 20,000 avios, no annual fee and double supermarket points for the first year, and the fact that it sometimes is on Quidco or Topcashback with £60 cash back makes Gold look a very attractive colour.

zerog

ECR wrote: »

I have the platinum card and am very happy with it, but it is only the One World sapphire status that makes it worth the fee for me. That is no longer included for new customers, and once mine expires, I'll downgrade to the Gold card with £125 fee.

Lounge access via unlimited priority pass is nice, but the gold card gives two free visits with additional visits at £15.

Add in 20,000 avios, no annual fee and double supermarket points for the first year, and the fact that it sometimes is on Quidco or Topcashback with £60 cash back makes Gold look a very attractive colour.

You can downgrade immediately as the CX Gold card does not require the plat to remain active.

InsideInsurance

vns wrote: »

Hope that helps put the annual fee into perspective.

I personally don't think the £450 fee is justified against the £125(with first yr free).

It depends what you value.

The free status can be useful, I travel a lot and so have status with the airlines that my clients use but they have a weird and wonderful list of approved hotels globally and very few are the big players hence the bonus status for hotels (historically Hilton and presently Starwoods) is good. I also used these to get Diamond status with Hyatt's matching promotion.

Most of the benefits, as per my other post, are really the things they dont make as big a deal about, like free upgrades/ events etc and it really depends on how much you value these.

For example, we recently stayed at one of their Fine Hotels & Resorts. I looked online via Kayak etc and the best rate I could get for the middle tier room grade was something like £180 per night and we were staying 3 nights.

Contacting AmEx as it was part of FHR and they quoted £190 per night however had a 3 nights for the price of 2 plus as a FHR hotel it had a $100 credit for food/drinks etc plus free upgrade subject to availability. When we got there we were bumped from the middle tier room to an upper junior suite which would normally have been an extra ~£300 a night had we paid for it directly.

So we effectively paid £315 for the 3 nights that would have otherwise have cost us £540 for the room type we wanted or £1,440 for the room type we got.

In this case I wasnt too bothered for the room upgrade so would count the saving as £235. In other cases I have booked lower than I want and gambled on the upgrade to get us to the room type we wanted.

I travel probably 6 times a year or so, mainly short breaks, and most cases AmEx manage to deliver some benefits and fairly often sizable ones. Again though it depends on the sorts of places you like going to and what you value.



Without doubt the card pays for itself each year, it does still annoy when they cut benefits without changing the charges/ introducing replacement benefits and this year I will consider cancelling it however that is more a protest vote than because it doesnt still represent value.