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Do badly chosen American Express promotions cheapen their brand?

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I accidentally started a mini-debate at Flyertalk yesterday when I criticised a new American Express promotional offer.

If I take a look at my American Express Platinum account online, two new cashback deals have appeared:

£20 cashback when you spend £100 at Premier Inn (expires 16 December, 5000 cardholders only)

£50 cashback when you spend £100 at Thistle or Guoman Hotels (expires 16 December, 10000 cardholders only)

These offers follow on from the classic:

£10 cashback when you make any transaction with Ryanair (expires 31 October)

Whilst I have these offers on my Platinum card, you may well find them showing under your BA or SPG Amex account.  The Thistle / Guoman deal would probably work on a large bar bill or a restaurant meal, depending on how it is processed by the hotel, and for one of their regional hotels represents a pretty decent deal.

The issue I raised at Flyertalk was this – ‘Is Amex diluting the Platinum card brand with offers like these?’

Or, looked at another way, is offering someone a discount at Premier Inn really a good way of convincing them that Amex understands their Platinum customers and that their £450 fee is well spent?

I booked two nights in an upmarket hotel yesterday using the American Express Platinum ‘Fine Hotels & Resorts’ programme.  That is the sort of benefit that I expect and appreciate from Platinum – it got me free breakfast and a guaranteed 4pm check-out, which I needed.

Let’s be clear.  I don’t have anything against Premier Inn (I stayed in one last year and was very positive about it) or Ryanair, who I flew many times when they used the airport nearest my parents in law.   I stayed in enough dingy B&B’s when I was younger to appreciate the revolution in low-cost lodging that Premier Inn, Travelodge, Holiday Inn Express etc have brought about.  I also grew up in an era when flying was too expensive for the average family, and I admire Ryanair’s part in changing that.

What I don’t understand is why American Express fails to understand how deals like this distort the Platinum brand.  You could argue that ‘the more the merrier’ – Amex should throw out as many deals as it can negotiate and if the majority are irrelevant to your lifestyle then so be it.  However, you can also argue that Amex should be presenting me with a carefully curated set of offers.

(Here is another way of looking at it.  If Ryanair or Premier Inn attempted to advertise in Vogue or GQ, they would be told to go away.  Publications like that understand that their advertisers help the set the tone for the whole package and need to be curated in the same way as the editorial.)

The irony, of course, is that – as a card company – Amex knows exactly where its Platinum cardholders shop and is better placed than any other luxury brand to serve up promotions which hit the spot perfectly.  But they don’t ….

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Comments (82)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
    14 Oct14 October 07:26

    It’s actually 34.9%! 30.5% is the simple (uncompounded) rate 🙂

    MasterCard have World and World Elite/Signia as their premium brands. Platinum has few (if any) restrictions on usage these days.

  • Simmo says:
    14 Oct14 October 07:28

    Is any offer a bad offer?

    Imagine if you were a heavy user of these companies and heard that you didn’t qualify because you are a Plat instead of Gold!?

  • Andrew says:
    14 Oct14 October 07:29

    These promotions are targeted to some card holders – I have the Platinum Card and the premier BA card and have NEVER been offered a single one of these promotions. I have to track them down on the card member offers website or on FourSquare and load them to my card that way.

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:
    14 Oct14 October 07:33

    The way I see it, they are pushing travel and fashion (and a couple more general) merchants, which I bet are popular categories with cardholders. Discounts across the price spectrum incentivise cardholders to try new brands.

  • Volker says:
    14 Oct14 October 07:44

    Last year HfP wrote about AVIS offering Porsches for passengers at Frankfurt’s First Class Terminal. The T&C stated that “at least two credit cards, one of which must be gold, have to be provided as security for the reservation.” Doesn’t that say it all? 😀

    • grex9101 says:
      14 Oct14 October 16:31

      A “gold” credit card means nothing. Hell, I used to work in retail some years ago in a pretty dodgy area, and have the local plebs had “platinum” MBNA Visa’s at the time. I seem to recall the minimum income required was somewhere in the region of £7.5k per annum, there’s people on this forum that clear that in a month!

  • Boi says:
    14 Oct14 October 07:57

    Maybe there are a lot more platinum card holders using cheap merchant than you thought!

  • windowseat says:
    14 Oct14 October 08:01

    To be honest, I am more likely to fly with Ryanair and stay at a Premier Inn than I am going to spend money on some of the luxury items highlighted in the Amex lifestyle magazine. So yes, bring these offers on.

    My take is that Ryanair has signed up to the Amex reward deal as part of its campaign to try and move perceptions of the airline upmarket, and to get people to notice that it has stopped doing some of the things that (in their words) pissed people off.

    My beef with the Platinum card is that some of the more memorable higher value rewards – a free night at a Melia was one of the best – have become a bit thin on the ground.

    Overall I think that Amex know a sizable segment of their customer base very well. We collect points and have a pavlovian attraction to special offers – which is why some off us are reading and commenting on Head for Points posts at 8.00am in the morning!

  • coupsta says:
    14 Oct14 October 08:13

    how can it devalue the brand?, too many range rovers, Mercs, Audis and Bmws in Aldi’s and Lidls should tell you what you need to know. Also, many 2nd home owners fly ryanair across europe. Method in their madness?

    • Jason says:
      14 Oct14 October 09:24

      Every card holder is different, down to partners holding supplementary cards.
      I will go into tesco and spend £200 pre ordering games, I’ll never buy, in my quest for 20,000 cc points.
      My wife wouldn’t dream of doing that, however, she appreciates the effort when she boards the flight and turns left.
      Speaking of the Morrison offer, was gutted to find it was only online after I’d bought £40 of pizza express gift cards.
      It also depends how much time you have, and inclination, to search out these deals!

    • Lady London says:
      14 Oct14 October 11:09

      Yes I’ve been a Lidl shopper for 17 years and I’m now really Ryanair-ed to see all the Mercs Audis and BMW’s that are now crowding out the carpark instead of Waitrose (where I do the rest of my shop).

      I got a laugh on that from Lidl HQ on that when I had to contact them about something recently.

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