Earlier this year, American Express Platinum launched a new benefit for its US and corporate UK Platinum cardholders. Through a tie-up with a company called Boingo, you can receive free wi-fi when you are out and about in most parts of the world.
Boingo is everywhere. They have over 1 million hotspots globally. In the UK they seem to work mainly with BT OpenZone / BT Fon and you receive free access to that network.
There has been no official announcement about Boingo becoming a benefit for UK personal Platinum charge card holders. However, you can now sign up.
All you need to do is visit this Boingo / American Express website.
Type in your Amex Platinum number and your account will be verified. You can then create a Boingo account.
There is a Boingo app that you can download if you want to see where you can find a hot spot. Even if you don’t use the app, what I have found with my iPad is that – when I look at the wireless networks I can access – the relevant ones are now marked as Boingo members.
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About Head for Points
Rob,
Once again – thank you for this site.
Off to the Abu Dhabi GP this week. From this site I have saved just for this trip (not including all the other tips where I have saved):-
1) Churned my Amex Plat so will get another 30k MR’s
2) Roamer – last year my phone bill was, shall we say, on the large side (!)
3) Now Boingo. – takes the worry about data loading if I have a wrong setting / forgot to turn Roaming off
That is a real, genuine Amex benefit. Thanks for letting us know!
Boingo has a VPN app. Boingo allows login to access to faster wifi, a lot of the free wifi has a 30-45 min or data max, i.e. Heathrow. I have used Boingo in Italy, Germany, Romania, UK and multiple airports especially in the US where wifi is not free.
Works for Centurion cards too – great! Thanks Rob!
Show-off!!
American Express Business Platinum uk primary card doesn’t work…
Does not work with my USD platinum card – shame really as most people who have this card could make very good use of it.
Hi all,
Am I right in thinking that Aer Lingus uses Deutsch Telekom’s Tmobile wifi service? If so, am I also right in thinking that they provide a log-in using Boingo?
If the answer to both of the above are true, then perhaps this Boingo benefit means that AMEX Platinum cardholders will get free wifi on the Aer Lingus transatlantic A380 routes (Dublin-Boston, but not Shannon-Boston) even when flying in Economy. In my experience, the wifi on the A380s is very good. I managed to stream CNN and BBC News 24 whilst up there through my company’s VPN.
This is just a musing, but it’d be interesting to see if others agree with my interpretation.
Simon.
I trust you mean A330… 😉
Hahah yes! The A330 is used on the Dublin-Boston route. Still, the general meaning of the message is the same. I’d be interested if any AMEX Plats who are flying between Dublin and Boston in economy are able to use EI’s wifi for free through Boingo. I don’t know the next time I’m flying with them but there is chance I’ll be flying with them in two weeks – if I do then I’ll let you all know.
Simon.
To follow up with my point about Aer Lingus wifi, I had two emails in the past few days:
One from T-Mobile Deutschland: “To be honest, i am not sure if the credentials from Boingo works on our FlyNet HotSpots. Please try it out and let me know. When they don’t work, you have to buy a HotSpot pass.”
The other from Boingo informing me that the Boingo AMEX Platinum wifi plan only covers land-based wifi. This seems to make it obvious the airlines are not covered (presumably the same with cruise ships).
The above emails are without testing it myself (I haven’t been able to find any Aer Lingus reward flights between Dublin and Boston this week – thanksgiving and all).
Simon
The platinum cash back Amex doesn’t work
My UK-issued IDC Plat is not eligible…
I received a couple of emails from Amex today, advertising this benefit for both the personal Platinum and Centurion cards.
The Centurion email was erroneously sent to Platinum members – tweets with them & correction email now issued!
Indeed, although it looks like Centurion cardholders get just the same deals at Plat so at least we’re not missing out 😀