Reply To: Amex Platinum benefits into 2025

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The 3% FX fee is because a much overseas spend will be reclaimed on expenses. High earners will always always have a fee-free card as an alternative.

Platinum is confused. Why offer free lounges when your high-earning customers are flying business class? Why doesn’t insurance cover pre-existing conditions when your affluent customers are mostly of a certain age? High earning customers want more than a £50 cash back coupon every month.

Raise the minimum income to £150K (£200K inside the M25), scrap the lounges, ditch the insurance. Then leverage the improved customer demographics to broaden the hotel status beyond tawdry, shabby Hiltons and Marriotts (GHA Discovery? Jumeirah? Some charming boutique hotels?). Offer more things that go beyond price – maybe a proper concierge service that can access ‘full’ restaurants and hotels, lounges in places like Bicester, personal shopper services.

The cash backs have been economically illiterate. Instead of £100 cash back at HN, they should have offered a 30% discount on spend above £300 in one transaction. Instead of £150 dining credit, they should have offered a bottle of decent champagne per couple on spend above £150 per head…that would get the credit cards spending more freely.