Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

American Express Platinum makes a big change to its travel insurance – but hasn’t told us (or you)

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

One of the key benefits of The Platinum Card from American Express is the travel insurance that comes with it.  It covers a lot of people – the cardholder, supplementary cardholders, their partners and dependent children under the age of 25, whether travelling together or alone and whether on business or leisure trips.

If you hand out your supplementary cards wisely, you can cover a lot of people.  My Mum had a supplementary card on my account for many years until she reached 70, which is the cut-off point.

You are not FULLY covered however ….

Since the last ‘refresh’ of The Platinum Card, it has been necessary to pay with an American Express card in order to receive the full insurance coverage.

If you wanted to claim for any of the following:

  • Cancelling, Postponing and Abandoning your Trip
  • Cutting Short your Trip
  • Travel Inconvenience
  • Personal Belongings, Money and Travel Documents
  • Purchase Protection
  • Refund Protection

….. then it was necessary to have paid on an American Express card as long as the hotel or airline accepted it.

For medical and other ‘big stuff’, you are covered irrespective of how you paid for your trip.  It is only claims under the categories above which require you to have used an American Express card.

But which card did you have to pay with?

This is the key bit.

The insurance policy USED to say that you could use:

“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”

This meant that you could use ANY qualifying American Express card.  A lot of Head for Points readers would pay on their British Airways American Express Premium Plus card because:

1.5 Avios per £1 is worth more than 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 on Platinum

the spend would count towards the £10,000 for the annual ‘2 for 1’ Avios voucher

British Airways spending charged to a BAPP card earns double points, so 3 Avios per £1

American Express has now changed the rules

Here is the new insurance document dated March 2019 (PDF).

Turn to page 6 and look at the definition of ‘Account’.

It says that you must now pay on The Platinum Card to be fully covered by the insurance.  You will invalidate your claim if you pay with a British Airways American Express Premium Plus, or a Preferred Rewards Gold (which offers double points for airline spend and double points abroad), or a Starwood Preferred Guest American Express (which offers double points at Marriott hotels).

IMPORTANT – as you’ve not been told, it doesn’t yet apply to you

According to the rules of the insurance, American Express has to give you 30 days notice of any changes.  Whilst the new policy is in force for new cardholders, no existing cardholders have yet been notified of the change as far as I know.

Until you receive a letter, you have nothing to worry about.  There is a chance that American Express will not change the terms for existing cardholders, although I consider that unlikely.

What is NOT clear to me is what happens to existing bookings.  If you book a British Airways flight today on your Premium Plus Amex, purely because you know you will still be covered under the Platinum insurance, what happens if / when American Express gives you 30 days notice of the change?  Is your existing trip still fully covered or will Amex impose the new rules?

Has American Express made any other changes to the insurance?

I don’t know.  If / when we are officially notified of the changes to our own policies I would expect Amex to include a list of any other changes.

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2024 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback on your spending.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

1% cashback uncapped* on all your business spending (T&C apply) Read our full review

Category

American Express Platinum card

Comments (242)

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

  • Maek says:
    6 Apr6 April 08:04

    I have BA Gold and was going to cancel and get my first Plat next month. My car hire excess and annual travel insurance was expiring and I thought I’d pay £450 get the sign up bonus and be better off with the insurances and lounge passes to cover the fee. But I’m a single guy so supplmentary card holder benefit is no good for me, now there’s no sign up bonus and now the travel insurance benefits is only if you book with the card and even then it sounds the insurance is being downgraded. Just not sure it’s worth it now.

    • CarsCarpal says:
      6 Apr6 April 08:26

      I was going to do almost the exact same. The loss of bonus miles (which I now wouldn’t get) coupled with this change makes the Platinum card an absolute no go for me now.

      If they do start notifying existing customers and they realise the impact of the notification (which let’s be honest will be hidden in a whole blob of small text) I wonder what will happen to the membership count.

    • Rob says:
      6 Apr6 April 09:14

      You can get the bonus by getting the Green Amex and then upgrading to Platinum using the ‘20,000 points for upgrading’ link. This only works off Green because it is also a charge card, not Gold (which is a credit card).

      • AlexT says:
        6 Apr6 April 10:00

        But it won’t work since he’s had the Gold card, which is part of the MR family, no? Though Maek does say BA Gold, which doesn’t exist, so assuming he has both a BA PP and Gold CC.

        • Sandgrounder says:
          6 Apr6 April 10:20

          It’s 20k for upgrading your MR-enrolled card, not for a new sign-up, so it is unaffected.

      • Grimz says:
        6 Apr6 April 10:34

        Can you upgrade straight away once you have green?

      • Grant says:
        6 Apr6 April 12:00

        Will Amex issue a Green to an existing Gold customer before the Gold is cancelled, and thus allow the MR account to remain active?

  • The Original Nick says:
    6 Apr6 April 08:10

    I suggest American Express drop thier fee of £450/yr for the Platinum card now to keep hold of existing customers.

    • Doug M says:
      6 Apr6 April 12:08

      Yes, because customer retention is much more important than making money. The people Amex want don’t care about £450

    • Lady London says:
      6 Apr6 April 12:24

      Amex fees are quite a bit higher in other countries like Germany and Australia. I’d suggest a very careful evaluation of the benefits before anyone cancels. If you don’t travel much then benefits may not stack up without regular bonuses.

      If you do travel a lot then it takes care of a lot of needs in one place for about the right annual fee – IMV they couldn’t charge any more though. Plus few other benefits if you can plan to use them. I certainly wouldn’t pay the German or Australian fee levels though.

  • Ashic Mahtab says:
    6 Apr6 April 08:10

    I always found the insurance bit confusing. And I guess it gets more confusing now. If you simply pay with Amex BAPP, then is anything covered? What’s not covered (compared to Platinum)?

    • Rob says:
      6 Apr6 April 09:08

      On the new policy – which is I think the same as the old policy in this respect – what’s not covered is the list of bullet points in the article.

  • Grant says:
    6 Apr6 April 08:12

    If it is a Gold charge card then yes, the 20k points will be awarded for the upgrade if you spend £1k

  • Novice says:
    6 Apr6 April 08:16

    Rob,
    I don’t know if you have heard this…
    OT;
    I have a United mileage program account for Star Alliance. I got an email today from them. They are changing their award travel terms in the way that they won’t have a award chart anymore but number of points needed will be determined by how popular a route is on a given date.

    So, some less popular routes at less popular times will be cheaper according to the email.

    • Rob says:
      6 Apr6 April 09:07

      But they won’t be.

      Delta no longer has an award chart and the standard cost for a ONE WAY business class ticket to/from the US is now 320,000 miles. Very easy to find Delta redemptions costing over 1,000,000 miles return.

      • RussellH says:
        6 Apr6 April 12:01

        Probably true in the long run, but the e-mail does state that there are already some (=1 or2 instances, probably) cheaper fares available.

        At least they have given us just over 7 months notice. Book and fly before 15 November and you are not affected. We already have a provisonal plan for all our United Miles anyway…

        • Novice says:
          6 Apr6 April 13:57

          Well, I’m only sitting on 30,000 points so atm can’t really do anything.

          @RussellH good luck with your plan whatever it may be.

      • Lady London says:
        6 Apr6 April 12:26

        Well, one or two routes will be cheaper when there is a blue moon and an ‘r’ in the month.

      • Rob says:
        6 Apr6 April 21:00

        I have no problem with BA doing what Etihad does – having decent standard priced inventory but then having ‘any seat’ availability for a points price driven off the cash price. People can only benefit from that.

        Delta, however, has effectively stripped out the bulk of its standard level inventory so there is little left except the premium priced seats. it is the equivalent of Hilton Honors only have ‘premium’ redemptions.

    • Alan says:
      6 Apr6 April 18:54

      Good coverage on OMAAT of this – definite devaluation, for now partner awards probably still the way to go.

  • Doog1000 says:
    6 Apr6 April 08:19

    I recently booked a BA flight via Travel Trolley – as the website does not take Amex had to use mastercard – Rob seems to imply that if airline doesn’t take Amex you are still covered for flight delay etc but what about travel agents not taking Amex.
    Booked through travel trolley as flight was appreciably cheaper than on the BA website

    • Rob says:
      6 Apr6 April 09:07

      The rules in the current / old policy say that you are treated as having used an Amex if the merchant did not accept Amex. Not sure about the new rules.

    • Alex D says:
      6 Apr6 April 12:46

      If you contact BA, they will often price match for you so you can book direct. If they are offering the same exact deal with luggage etc and it’s of course on BA not code share i believe. I have had luck with this twice in the past few years (can be difficult if third party gives you extra benefits like excess luggage included however)

  • Anna says:
    6 Apr6 April 08:21

    I consider the insurance to be paid for via the £450 annual fee, so it shouldn’t matter how you pay for a trip. Together with the limited use of PP, this is only going to put more customers off. We have excellent travel insurance through work (better than Plat cover), so the benefits are marginal. Is the car hire insurance going to be affected as well I wonder?

  • Sam says:
    6 Apr6 April 08:32

    Does this also apply to the platinum business card?

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

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? SPECIAL OFFER TO 12TH MAY EARN POINTS WORTH 30,000 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!