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Restaurants going missing from the list for the American Express Platinum £200 dining credit

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American Express is currently running a very generous offer for holders of The Platinum Card.

All cardholders have been given £200 to spend at any of the restaurants on this list. Even more generously, Amex has – so far – been giving the credit to new Platinum cardholders too. This could change, but so far so good for HfP readers who applied after 1st September when this deal launched.

If you haven’t used your credit yet, be aware that the list of participating restaurants is NOT fixed.

American Express Platinum £200 dining credit

Core by Clare Smyth, which has three Michelin stars and was one of the highest profile restaurants on the list, has quietly disappeared. Reader Anthony had a booking here and rang Amex when he spotted this, and they confirmed that it has been removed.

Given that visiting Core generally requires a booking well in advance, this seems unreasonable. I would assume that the majority of cardholders who book this offer do not keep checking back to ensure that the list is unchanged.

It isn’t clear why this happened, but Core is very popular and very small and appears to be virtually full between now and Christmas. If it has been removed due to limited availability, we may see other restaurants also disappearing as we head into December.

The lesson here is that you should double-check the restaurants taking part in this offer on the day you are planning to visit.

UPDATE: Since this article was published, American Express has confirmed to HfP that they will honour the £200 cashback even if a property is removed from the website.


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Comments (47)

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

  • Bill says:

    Morning, I’m visiting London in November but don’t have time to use my £200 dining credit and living in the North of Scotland I have little chance of using it at all. Next visit to London is January 22 once the offer has finished. Does anyone know of any restaurants on the list where I can purchase a gift card when I’m down in November, which will trigger the credit?

    • Rob says:

      We haven’t identified any. The charge must be made IN the restaurant, not via Head Office. For eg, not all of The Ivy sites are in the offer so you can be pretty sure that a gift card processed by head office won’t work either.

    • Gavin says:

      If you go to Hawksmoor Air Street you should be able to buy a voucher inside the restaurant which will trigger the offer. I have done this before on a previous Amex offer there a couple of years ago and it triggered fine (goes through the normal till if the procedure is still the same!).

      • Gavin says:

        I’ve also done this before at Gaucho, and it looks like Gaucho o2 is on the Amex offer too.

    • Bill says:

      Thank you Rob and Gavin. I’ll try Hawksmoor and will update if successful.

  • Joshua says:

    To confirm – if we apply for the personal card today we would get this offer? Are there any exceptions and when does it expire? Thanks for this – 60000 points and £200 is compelling!

    • Peter K says:

      Not confirmed you will get £200 offer if you apply, but everyone so far has.

    • Andrew says:

      The credit expires end of the year

    • Rob says:

      Not a guaranteed benefit but no HfP reader has been refused so far. Dining offer ends 31/12.

      • Alex says:

        It is also advertised on the Amex Experiences app as a benefit of Platinum

    • Rob says:

      I received the card last week. Offer was not showing to me. I messaged Amex through the app. They manually added it. That was today on a new card.

  • Gareth says:

    Only had the card a few weeks but the offer was a very pleasant surprise last night. I’ve read about it on here before but seems too good to be true. Assume it’s the whole bill and not just food element?

  • Brian W says:

    I’ve used the dining credit for £140 in the Ivy. Credit applied in usual 3-4 days.

    My question is if I spend in another listed restaurant before the end of the offer will the remainder of the £200 be credited or cannot only be used once regardless of the spend?

    The terms don’t make it clear to me but the offer is still in the active section when I log in ie not in the used section.

  • Alan says:

    They better not remove The Ivy chain or this will become a truly London-only offer!

  • Gormlesstraveller says:

    Removing it from the public-facing list doesn’t mean that it won’t go through (= be credited) as intended.

  • James says:

    Just spent the last 30 mins discussing Core being on the original list with Amex chat. They say that the list has not changed and it will not change. However, they’ve raised it with the back end team.

    I’d been thinking about booking Core for some time and this offer sealed the deal. In fact, these offers are the only thing keeping me with Amex at the moment. I won’t let them fob me off on this one 🙂

    • James says:

      Caught up with Amex customer service today and they confirmed that the offer still applies to Core. Looking forward to my Christmas treat!

      “I have reviewed your previous request and would like to inform you that the restaurant(Core by Clare Smyth) is still available, and if you may continue to use your card at this restaurant during the offer period to get rewarded”

  • John says:

    I phoned Amex customer service with a query regarding the Supplementary Card to accompany my new card and the helpful lady kindly added the dining offer manually. A lunch booking was then made at Hèlène Darroze.

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

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