Today is July 16th, which means that its the day that the changes to the American Express Platinum Card benefits come into force.
To say that Amex’s changes to the Platinum card this year have been unpopular is putting it mildly. What used to be a fantastic package for the frequent traveller has been severely downgraded, due to two key changes.
Firstly, the travel insurance, which used to be fully comprehensive in almost every respect, has been downgraded sharply. Travellers over 70 are no longer covered, which is a blow for people who used to give their parents supplementary cards for the free cover. (Amex Plat’s insurance benefits also apply to the 5 people to whom you give supplementary cards – one Platinum supplementary card and 4 Gold cards – plus their immediate families.)
More importantly, perhaps, is that to receive many of the insurance benefits Amex now require you to have paid for your flights and hotel with a qualifying American Express card (a ‘qualifying card’ is basically an Amex-issued Amex), unless the establishment does not accept Amex. Whilst this is not always a problem, it is an unwelcome restriction. It is especially annoying for people who have a ‘no FX fees’ credit card, like the Post Office card, since using an Amex effectively adds 2.99% to the cost of their travel.
Secondly, Amex has increased the fee from £300 to £450, an aggressive move in any circumstances and almost laughable given the downgrading of the insurance.
In an attempt to deflect some of the criticism, Amex has brought in some new benefits. The main one, which was actually introduced quietly late in 2011, is one-year of free Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Gold membership. This is very, very useful if you do not have British Airways status, since Cathay Pacific is a OneWorld alliance member like BA. Cathay Gold is equivalent to BA Silver, and gets you many of the same benefits when flying BA – most importantly, access to British Airways lounges whatever your class of travel.
You also get free seating on BA, use of business class check-in, extra baggage allowance and priority waitlisting. Just about the only benefit of BA Silver that you don’t get with a Cathay Gold is access to fast-track security lanes at Heathrow Terminal 5. Note that this is only available for the main cardholder and not any supplementary ones.
However, at the end of the day, this appears (according to the Amex website) to be a one-off benefit. In a years time, you’ll still be paying £450 and you won’t have the Cathay card.
The other changes to the Amex Platinum benefits start today. These are:
- 1 free guest when using your Priority Pass to enter an airline lounge. At present, the main cardholder and their Platinum supplementary cardholder get a free Priority Pass but must pay £15 for any guests. The first guest per cardholder is now free.
- The Plat supplementary cardholder can also now apply for the hotel and car rental status benefits. These are Hilton HHonors Gold (a one-year benefit only), Starwood Preferred Guest Gold (on-going), Club Carlson Gold (on-going), Hertz No 1 Club Gold (on-going) and Avis Preferred (on-going)
- From today, both the main and Platinum supplementary cardholder can join Le Club Accorhotels at Platinum level. This is an on-going benefit. Sign up at www.americanexpress.co.uk/platinum for this, or indeed any of the other hotel, car rental or Cathay cards.
The other benefits (access to American Airlines, Delta and US Airways lounges, plus Eurostar lounges) continue to be available to both the main and Platinum supplementary cardholder when travelling with the respective airline or train company.
If you have an Amex Platinum card you will need to decide whether or not these improved benefits from today outweigh the reduction in insurance benefits and the increased fee. I will be keeping my card for now, but my position is not the same as most – I get my British Airways Premium Plus American Express card for free (saving me £150 per year) as a Platinum cardholder. (Sadly this benefit is not available to new Amex Platinum cardholders.)
The net cost for me of the Platinum card is therefore only £300. I have also been quite impressed with the treatment of the two insurance claims I have submitted – see here for the story behind the last one I put in. But be clear, Amex Platinum is on notice as far as I can concerned. My first renewal at £450 is not due until early next year.
About Head for Points
Another problem is that surcharges for credit card use are particularly common in the travel industry. Now that you have to use the Amex card to buy travel in order to get the insurance benefits, you may have to pay a surcharge which will often exceed the cost of an annual travel insurance policy.
So, it’s an Amex-Amex and not a British Airways-Amex, or a Lloyds TSB-Amex? I hadn’t appreciated that subtlety and so my next 3 holiday plans are now without insurance as I have used those latter two for bookings. Plus also various points etc.
I also don’t know whether when travelling on business is covered, e.g. flight delays/lost baggage etc.
This is a far cry from the spirit of the information when I opened the first policy documents I got a few years back, which was along the lines of “don’t worry, we’ve got you covered”.
Here is the exact wording: “[acceptable cards] means your consumer and small business cards issued by American Express in the UK, excluding corporate cards and any American Express Cards issued by bank partners.”.
So, BA Amex, SPG Amex, Plat Amex, Gold Amex, Centurion Amex, Nectar Amex, Harrods Amex are all OK.
Lloyds TSB Avios Amex, any MBNA Amex, any Amex-issued Corporate Card – including the BA Amex Corporate Card – are NOT OK.
An Amex Amex is one issued by American Express themselves, so a BA Amex would be fine, but the Lloyds TSB one is not.
Thanks marmaliser, good spot. I will update the ‘Credit Cards Update’ page.
I’ve just received my ‘new Gold’ letter and details of the changes to the Gold card for current holders. I know most folk have platinum, but would you be willing to do a quick rundown for those of us who have the Gold card and are seeing our fees jump? Happy to send you a scan/copy/fax of the letter if that helps!
Thanks for all your efforts btw – much appreciated and I’m constantly pinging off emails with your latest post to family members as I subscribe via RSS. 😀
Happy to take a look. Please send a scan to raffles @ headforpoints.co.uk and I will report back!
OK, won’t be able to until Wednesday now but thanks, much appreciated!
Of course, the mailing from Amex (posh one, all shiny brochure) that ‘sold’ the benefits of the Platinum card mentioned the Cathay Pacific Gold card, but nowhere did it say that this was a one year benefit only. It made it appear that this was a permanent benefit. Bad form.
I totally agree. It is shocking that a company of Amex’s reputation put this out. I think it was only after ‘feedback’ that they added the ‘one year’ notice to the website.
There’s a nasty note in the T+Cs in the e-mail I got from AmEx yesterday promoting plat benefits and majoring on Priority Pass membership.
The offending note says: ‘Subsequent years’ renewal terms and conditions are at the discretion of Priority Pass.’
This is similar to the wording used by AmEx in correspondence about the Cathay Pacific Marco Polo membership. It COULD mean that PP cards may not be renewed after the first year.
I doubt that will be the case as IME PP cards have automatically been renewed until now. However, AmEx’s weasel words introduce a degree of uncertainty.
Roger, this is what happens when you start being economical with the truth with your clients. I am sure they will continue the Priority Pass card, but now I am slightly less sure. Is the Cathay Card worth £150pa? Possibly, to blue card holders like me. But reducing the insurance at the same time was a really bad idea
I THINK that the Priority Pass wording may be due to this – Amex’s literature says that all Plat card holders will now be automatically enrolled in PP. Previously, we had to opt in. Assuming that PP is only paid by Amex when the card is used, this obviously creates a cost in printing and posting all the cards. I think they may change the ‘auto opt in’ idea if a lot of the people who are auto-enrolled don’t use it.
That sounds plausible. It would be at the discretion of AmEx rather than PP, though.