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ENDS TUE: Is the Amex Platinum card worth the £650 fee (given the bonus worth 80,000 Avios)?

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The Platinum Card from American Express is probably the most divisive credit card on the UK market.

Some people find it crazy that anyone would pay £650 per year for a credit card. However …

The bonus converts to 80,000 Avios which we’d value at a whopping £800 if used smartly.

Let’s take a look at the value proposition. Our full review of The Platinum Card is here.

You can apply here.

Is American Express Platinum worth the £650 fee?

One upside is that you can get a pro-rata fee refund if you cancel so the cost of trying it out for a few months is low.  In fact, you’d make a decent profit if you took advantage of all the credits.

(American Express had been threatening to remove pro rata refunds in 2024 but it did not happen. We now believe that it has given up on the idea.)

What are the benefits of American Express Platinum?

This article looks at the key benefits of The Platinum Card as I see them. However, for clarity, there is no ‘right’ answer about whether The Platinum Card represents good value.

It is SOLELY down to how you travel and which of the card benefits you can use.  This varies from person to person.  Most people value the Priority Pass airport lounge access cards the most, for example, but I don’t because we usually fly Business Class and my wife and I both have British Airways status anyway.

On the other hand, as non car-owning Londoners, we do disproportionately value the car hire insurance and the Fine Hotels & Resorts luxury hotel benefits. The 4pm guaranteed late check-out is a real boon if you are only away for a long weekend.  Who wants to be kicked out of their hotel at 11am on a Sunday?

I run through this in more detail below.  It is why, of all the credit and charge cards we cover on Head for Points, American Express Platinum is the one that people often find the hardest to get their head around.

What is the sign up bonus on The Platinum Card?

You receive 80,000 American Express Membership Rewards points when you apply for the card and spend £10,000 in six months. This is only £1,666 per month.

This converts into:

  • 80,000 Avios
  • 80,000 Virgin Points
  • 80,000 Etihad, Flying Blue, Asia Miles, Delta, Qantas or SAS miles
  • 60,000 Emirates miles
  • 53,333 Singapore Airlines miles
  • 160,000 Hilton Honors points
  • 120,000 Marriott Bonvoy points
  • 240,000 Radisson Rewards points
  • 5,333 Club Eurostar points

….. and many other non-travel rewards.  I wrote this article on the most valuable Membership Rewards redemptions.

What is the annual fee on The Platinum Card?

The card has an annual fee of £650.

The representative APR is 698.1% variable, including the annual fee.  The representative APR on purchases is 30.4% variable.

Is American Express Platinum worth the £650 fee?

Can I get the sign-up bonus if I have a British Airways American Express card?

Yes.  The rule is that you will not receive a sign-up bonus if you have held a Platinum, Gold or Green American Express card, or the Amex Rewards credit card, in the 24 months before you apply.

You WILL receive the sign-up bonus if you have a Corporate or Business American Express Green, Gold or Platinum card via your job and you receive Membership Rewards points from it.  Only PERSONAL cards impact on whether you qualify.

For clarity, you will definitely receive the sign-up bonus on The Platinum Card if you already have a BA Amex, Nectar Amex, Marriott Bonvoy Amex or Platinum Cashback Amex provided you have not had a Platinum, Gold, Green or Amex Rewards credit card in the last 24 months.

You will also definitely receive the bonus if you are currently a supplementary cardholder on someone else’s Amex Gold or Platinum card.  As far as Amex is concerned, that card belongs to the primary cardholder and does not make you an ‘existing cardholder’.

Here are the American Express Platinum core benefits (for me)

Here are the key card benefits to me.  As you read on, you will probably say to yourself that you would value some of these at nothing.  That’s fine.  You may value some of the benefits that I never use.  As I said, there is no right or wrong decision about whether Platinum works for you.

£200 of UK dining credit:

You will receive £200 cashback per year when eating at 160+ UK restaurants listed here.

This is split into £100 per half year. There is no small print – you don’t need to book via any special link or quote any code. You simply register for the offer and then pay on The Platinum Card when you dine.

Value to me: £200. We eat in some of the participating restaurants on a regular basis so this is essentially free money for me.

£200 of international dining credit:

You will receive £200 cashback per year when eating in 1,200+ international restaurants. The list is here.

This is split into £100 per half year.

Value to me: Slightly less than £200, because I can’t be 100% certain that I will find myself in a participating city near a participating restaurant.

Is American Express Platinum worth the £650 fee?

£50 per year of Harvey Nichols credit (ends 30th June 2025):

You receive £50 credit to spend at Harvey Nichols, either instore or online, between January and June 2025. This offer ends permanently on 30th June 2025.

There is no minimum spend. If you buy exactly £50 of items, or spend exactly £50 in the restaurants, it is genuinely free.

Value to me: £50 – I used my last credit for wine, which is hard to price compare, but in general my wife is most likely to use this for branded cosmetics. Add in the benefits of the Harvey Nichols loyalty scheme and you are getting decent value.

Full travel insurance:

You receive travel insurance for yourself and your family as long as you are under 70.  Some benefits require you to pay for your trip with an American Express card (any UK personal Amex card, not necessarily Platinum) but the core medical benefit is automatic.  My family relies on this as our core family travel policy and do not pay for any other cover. Do check the list of exclusions if you have medical conditions.

Value to me: £350, because the cost of the last moneysavingexpert.com best buy for a family is £350 per year (from LV), with ‘best buy’ status being based on LV’s willingness to pay up, the strong level of cover offered and the low excess. MSE no longer issues ‘best buy’ recommendations but this policy remains 5-star Defaqto rated.

Car hire insurance:

You receive full car hire insurance.  As we live in London and don’t own a car, this is very useful for us as we hire 3-4 times per year.

Value to me: £125, which is what insurance4carhire.com would charge for a stand-alone worldwide policy

Airport lounge access via Priority Pass:

You and your main supplementary cardholder will each receive a Priority Pass card.  This gets the cardholder plus a guest into 1,400 airport lounges across the world for free, including the Aspire lounge in Heathrow Terminal 5 reviewed hereNo1 Lounges, present at Gatwick, Birmingham and Heathrow Terminal 3, is also part of Priority Pass which makes it even more useful.

As you get two Priority Pass cards, each of which allows a free guest, you can get a family of four into a lounge.

You can also get into Amex’s own network of high quality ‘Centurion’ airport lounges for free.  These are primarily in the US but are rolling out globally – new ones opened in Hong Kong and Melbourne recently.  The first UK Centurion lounge, at Heathrow Terminal 3, is reviewed here – we like it.

Obviously if you do not have airline status then this benefit has substantial value.

Value to me: I rarely use the Priority Pass benefit as I have British Airways status for short haul flights and our long-haul travel is always in Business Class.  That said, we do occasionally find ourselves at airports where BA does not provide lounge access and BA doesn’t always cover the short haul destinations we want. I’d value this to us at £100 which is the cost of two light meals for a family of four over a 12 month period.

Is The Platinum Card from American Express worth £650?

Hotel status:

You will also receive permanent – for as long as you hold your Platinum card – status in various hotel schemes:

  • Gold in Hilton Honors
  • Gold in Marriott Bonvoy
  • Premium in Radisson Rewards
  • Gold in MeliaRewards

Value to me: I usually value these cards highly and plan my stays around hotels which will give me additional status benefits. This article explains what each of the hotel status cards offers. However, I have top tier status with Hilton and Marriott anyway so (personally) this is not a benefit I value.

It IS valuable to everyone else. Hilton Gold, for example, gets you free breakfast for two people (or a cash credit at US hotels) which could be worth £40+ per night.

Car hire status:

You will receive President’s Circle with Avis, which is their top tier status. This can have a lot of value if you are a regular renter. You will also receive Five Star status with Hertz, which is not top tier but should still generate a saving when you book.

Value to me: This isn’t something I tend to value much, but it can pay off when renting at busy airports where you can often skip the line and go straight to your car.

Eurostar, Lufthansa and Delta lounge access:

Other benefits include Eurostar lounge access in London, Brussels and Paris whatever your class of travel.  You also receive lounge access when flying with Lufthansa / SWISS / Austrian and Delta although no guests are allowed.

I do value the Eurostar benefit because I tend to travel Eurostar Plus (ex Standard Premier) which gets the business class seat but without lounge access.  No guests are allowed although your partner can come in if they have a supplementary Platinum card on your account.  At quiet times they will unofficially allow children in.

Rhys reviewed the Eurostar Business Premier lounge at London St Pancras here.

Value to me: I’ve done three Eurostar lounge visits in the last 12 months, so I’m happy to value the at £100 given the savings on F&B spend in the terminal at both ends of the trip and the free newspapers and magazines on offer.

Exclusive events:

American Express offers an exclusive events programme.  This is a mix of free events and special paid events with top restaurants or shows.  Now that I have a couple of kids my ability to nip off to every free party I get invited to is much reduced, but I have attended a few good evenings over the years I have held my Platinum card.

The value here obviously varies massively.  Would you be interested, for example, in joining a private meal hosted personally by a high-profile chef in their flagship restaurant even if the cost was higher than a standard meal in the same venue?  Would you be interested in the best seats in the house for a high profile concert, with a private drinks reception beforehand for Platinum guests, if the cost was higher than a standard top-priced ticket (which sold out months ago)?  Some would be keen, some wouldn’t.

Value to me: I value this at nil, but that is a little unfair because there are some interesting events in the app. It is the difficulty in co-ordinating diaries between me, my wife and our combined business and family commitments that means we don’t use it much.

Exclusive benefits at luxury hotels:

There is an exclusive hotel booking scheme called ‘Fine Hotels & Resorts’ which offers valuable additional benefits on your stays.  If you are a regular visitor at five star hotels then you can recoup your entire membership fee via FHR bookings.

I wrote more about Fine Hotels & Resorts here – for me, the guaranteed 4pm check-out on every stay is invaluable, especially for weekend breaks.  We use this benefit whenever I must have a 4pm check-out, which can make a real difference on a short break.

Value to me: I think we’ve done two FHR bookings in the last year. Across a family of four with two rooms per booking, the benefits were easily worth £500. This ignore the substantial value of the 4pm check-out on those stays.

Conclusion

Looking at the maths above, I get £1,500 of ‘value’ per year from The Platinum Card, which is almost double the £650 annual fee.

I’ve also not considered the American Express cashback offers and the ‘refer a friend’ bonuses, even though I do well out of both.

I’m also ignoring the SIGNIFICANT value you get in your first year from the 80,000 Membership Rewards points sign-up bonus. Convert those to Avios and you should be able to get £800 of value.

The application form for Amex Platinum can be found here.

Disclaimer: Head for Points is a journalistic website. Nothing here should be construed as financial advice, and it is your own responsibility to ensure that any product is right for your circumstances. Recommendations are based primarily on the ability to earn miles and points. The site discusses products offered by lenders but is not a lender itself. Robert Burgess, trading as Head for Points, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as an independent credit broker.


best travel rewards credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – February 2025 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

Get 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.

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

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 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:

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up 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 Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios 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 when you spend at least £2,000 per month.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

Get 1% cashback when you spend at least £2,000 per month* Read our full review

Comments (67)

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

  • DJP31 says:

    Having debated whether I can handle yet another card I was convinced the 80k points was well worth it – especially as I could choose whether to turn them into Avios or Virging points. Went through the pre apply steps – 95% chance of approval but came as no surprise.

    Suprise came when I did apply and was told “thanks but no thanks.” I did wonder if it could be the aggregate of my limits that might cause a risk issue, and sure enough a quick call to Amex confirmed it. Not the aggregate, just the limit on my BAPP was enough, so I’ve asked them to substantially reduce it. Hopefully that’ll do the job!

    I did have one question re the hotel status. Does the card somehow talk to your existing hotel points account and lift the status to Gold if currently lower?

  • TDV says:

    Wine is very easy to price compare!

    http://www.wine-searcher.com

  • Rob says:

    Fee doesn’t count. Not sure about HN to be honest – I suspect it only counts as £50.

  • Phil says:

    I reckon c99% of HfP users are not eligible for the 80k reward points. I’d get the card if I was.

    Budget lounges are normally poor, and if you’re on business you probably have lounge access and can expense food anyway. I’d sooner get holed up in a Starbucks with a laptop and expense it, enjoy a couple of nice meals out with the wife through the year (better than being effectively charged in advance for the same), and pay for travel insurance. The hotel benefits for gold(ish!) are weak at best – free breakfast that is composed of rubbery scrambled eggs? No thanks. Late checkout? Sometimes handy sure. But when you’re travelling, nobody expects you to take calls in a silent room.

    1MR point per £1 spent? I’d sooner use the free BA card. Yes Avios can be devalued but when you’re not already down £600+ and can get an economy companion voucher, the economics change.

    Clearly it’s all subjective (I can see how people doing a lot of leisure travel through the year benefit from travel insurance) but surely I can’t be alone saying in all the quantity of benefits is good but quality is not even average. Hoping one day competition in the UK will be more akin to the US and cards start to offer real bonuses. But I struggle to see how 80% of people make this one work. The intro bonus is the only thing it has going for it.

    • Rob says:

      HfP is a broad church and the majority of readers who found us in the last 6 months will only have a BA Amex and can get this.

  • Anne o says:

    I think in these articles you should be deducting the cost of foreign transactions at Amex’s exorbitant margin of 2.99%. A cardholder spending £25,000 overseas would be paying £747 in foreign transaction fees with Amex.

  • Aceman says:

    Doesn’t the car hire insurance only work for rentals more then 50 miles from your home address?

  • Jonathan says:

    I think I’ve heard somewhere that you’ve got the Centurion card, you can have this one as a supplement, so if all these benefits are included, it’d help lower the eye watering fee of the black card, some more benefits included on that one like VS Gold status and travel insurance age limit being 80

  • Sam says:

    Going to Amsterdam next month, so along with the SUB (which is currently 90,000 on Amex website), it would have been a good opportunity to use up the part dining credit.

    But as per the official Amex dining list, Netherlands has since been taken off altogether.

    Going to Dubai later in the year and Dubai’s not even on there.

    Oh well. Nice idea while lasted

    • Rob says:

      Dubai was never on. Netherlands has disappeared along with a few other European countries.

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

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