Amex Plat – noticeable lack of offers compared to other Amex cards

[Shaba]

Howdy,

Those with Amex Plats and other Amex cards – are you noticing a weird lack of offers on your plat card?

I’m currently sitting on 29 offers on my Plat but around 85ish on my blue BA Amex. I’ve held the card for around 9 months, and Amex customer service mentioned it takes around 3 months to get the full brunt of the offers, but I’m seeing the same amount now vs month 4.

Will have a chat with them on Monday but was wondering if any others are seeing such a sharp difference between their cards?

I’m looking at cancelling the BA Amex to reset the timer for the welcome bonus, but the offers not being on the Plat card may sway that decision

[bruinbrown]

I’ve also got a platinum card and a blue ba card. Currently on my platinum I’ve got 103 offers and on my ba card I’ve got 26 offers. I’ve held both cards for roughly the same amount of time but my spend is biased towards my platinum. I’ve got quite a bit of overlap across the offers, things like Pure, Kitbag, Aveda etc etc are available on both but currently my platinum has a lot of offers for restaurants like Hakkasa, yauatcha etc

[Ash]

I joined Platinum late 2022, have to very disappointed with the very small number of offers, and the esoteric brands. Hit the spend target and still using.

Bapp had for few years, lots more offers, few are worthwhile….but lots of London specific hotel offers, which is odd as I live in London.

[KenC]

Same here. Over 100 offers on BAPP card but only 30 on Platinum – and not very impressive offers at that.

[Amy C]

Same, less than half the amount as on the BAPP. Will be cancelling the premium this month I think.

[Cranzle]

There is definitely some type of decision making process behind who gets what offers on what cards.
I had noticed that cards that I was spending most on, had most offers. When I shifted all spend (for a good few months to my Marriott, that had more and better offers. Now I’ve moved spending to The Platinum (Charge) Card, I have all the offers there and less on the other cards.
As a guide, 100+ on Platinum Charge, around 20 on BAPP and Marriott.

[Cranzle]

On another note, I have issues on all platforms (iOS and Windows) whereby is says I have 123 offers, but when I click through to view the offers, it says I have 100 offers and I think only displays 100 offers. So I’m not entirely sure if I can actually view the missing 23 offers.

[Andrew J]

Agree that Platinum has a much smaller number of offers than BAPP, and most of the ones it does have are random e-commerce companies I’ve never heard of or even sure what good or services they offer from the name.

[SteveJ]

Cranzle wrote:

There is definitely some type of decision making process behind who gets what offers on what cards.
I had noticed that cards that I was spending most on, had most offers. When I shifted all spend (for a good few months to my Marriott, that had more and better offers. Now I’ve moved spending to The Platinum (Charge) Card, I have all the offers there and less on the other cards.
As a guide, 100+ on Platinum Charge, around 20 on BAPP and Marriott.

Definitely this. If you hold the platinum in a drawer for the hotel status / other perks and use infrequently, whilst pushing day to day spend on other cards like the BAPP, don’t be surprised if the BAPP has all the offers. It’s an algorithm at the end of the day, and needs spend data on that card to function.

[JDB]

I think it also depends on the merchants. I only have a BAPP and PRG. Hardly use the PRG in the UK, but it gets far more offers and better (% money off) offers than my BAPP that I use non stop, presumably because Amex/merchants want me to use the card in places I haven’t tried before. When I use those offers on the PRG, they eventually come back to the BAPP months later.

[alig4th]

Is there really an algorithm, or does every card get the same rubbish set of genetic offers that are either so absolutely barmy (doggie poo bags!) or that get farmed out to every other credit card company at the same discount (Morrisons, Laithwaites’s, Coach, StitchFix, Avery’s, Tails, Coach)

[Skywalker]

If I have ever wanted a “dislike” or “not interested” button, it would be for the offers section on the card.

So many repetitive brands on the card, very niche – (I’m talking about Stitchfix, Matchesfashion, Tails)

Does anyone here actually use these brands? (Flame-free question, just interested).

[Thegasman]

I have always assumed that the companies negotiate bespoke deals with Amex. Some presumably just want exposure so will ask for blanket availability across all cards whereas others will want to use Amex’s vast quantities of data on spend volume & category, income, travel patterns etc.

I’ve held most flavours of Amex for varying periods & would agree the more you use a card the higher the number of offers but there is also definitely a trend for higher value hotel & retailer offers on the Platinum regardless of which card I’m putting my travel & retail spend on at the time (rarely Platinum due to poor MR rate).

[Thegasman]

Skywalker wrote:

If I have ever wanted a “dislike” or “not interested” button, it would be for the offers section on the card.

So many repetitive brands on the card, very niche – (I’m talking about Stitchfix, Matchesfashion, Tails)

Does anyone here actually use these brands? (Flame-free question, just interested).

I wouldn’t say Matches is niche, they’re a well established bricks & mortar & online fashion retailer. I’d imagine the regular offers from them & Mr/Net à porter are a big attraction for a lot of cardholders.

[Shaba]

To the points about it being spend related, I thought that in the beginning too, but having not touched my BA card for around 8 months apart from 3 purchases (all only around £200 and specifically used that card because the offers were served there) and all spend being put on the Plat card, I’m wondering if that argument doesn’t really have much ground?

I’ve now put more spend on my plat card in 8 months than the 2 years I’ve held the BA card – unless Amex’s decisioning system (if they have one) that serves the offers is a little laggy?

[Skywalker]

Thegasman wrote:

I have always assumed that the companies negotiate bespoke deals with Amex.

On my OG (Free) Curve Card (Amex in brackets):

No minimum spend: 20% off Avery (Amex: Spend £200 get £60 back)
No minimum spend: 15% back Sunday Times Wine Club
No minimum spend: 20% back Laithwaites (Amex spend £100 get £35 back)
5% LNER (Amex get 10% back)
No minimum spend: £5 Tails.com (Amex spend £20 or more, get £5 back)
No minimum spend £20 Stitchfix (Amex spend £40 or more, get £20 back)

I didn’t actually pay much attention to my Curve offers section, but I may begin now!

[Skywalker]

@Shaba, I’m expecting Maxi Priest to turn up any second now (or “Maxi Points” as he is known on this website) 😀

[Carlos]

Most of these ‘offers’ are recycled amongst other providers, similar to cashback websites

[Ash]

Has anyone closed a card and succeeded in request to move the offers from closed to one of their other cards?

[Harrier25]

Ash wrote:

Has anyone closed a card and succeeded in request to move the offers from closed to one of their other cards?

Good luck with requesting that because it’s not possible to move offers from one Amex card to another

[Ash]

ah ok, I thought i read someone post on one of the threads they did that. Just a vague recollection.

[Thegasman]

Ash wrote:

ah ok, I thought i read someone post on one of the threads they did that. Just a vague recollection.

Amex agents used to be able & willing to manually add offers for you but they no longer can or will unfortunately.

[alig4th]

My wife did some Excel wizardry with information from my family.
Across the 15 cards held by the 5 of us there are currently 112 unique offers (109 if you exclude the Platinum-exclusive dining/HN credits).

Of those (excluding Platinum-exclusive);

Individuals (of 5 people)
– Only one offer is unique to just one of us; the Google Store credit.
– Only the Guerlain, BuyAGift and Melia offer is unique to two of us (but each a different two of us).
– All the rest are available to at least three of us, with a whopping 97 (of 109) available to all 5 of us on at least one of our cards.

Card Type (of 5 different card types – Platinum, Rewards, BA Basic, Nectar, Cashback)
– Only one offer available to only one card-type; the Foreign currency offer on the cashback cards.
– Only three offers are available to only two differnt card types; Guerlain and Montblanc (on Platinum and Rewards) and Google Store (on Platinum and Nectar).
– All the rest are available on at least three different types of card, with 21 (of 109) being available on 4 different card types, and 77 (of 109) beig available on all 5.

Of the 109 offers, 19 were on all 15 cards, with 80 available to 7 or more cards. Therefore only 10 available to 6 cards or less:
– Averys Wine Merchants
– Reward Flight Finder
– Laithwaite’s Wine
– Furl | Sofa Beds & Storage Beds
– Buyagift
– Meliá Hotels & Resorts
– Montblanc
– Spend on foreign currency
– Google Store
– Guerlain

Does any of that seem like there’s some amazing Amex algorithm behind the scenes, cherry-picking amazing, bespoke, personal offers for people, or that it really does matter which card you get if you’re after specific offers?

[Yes, I know I’m sad for having done this, but my wife’s an Excel wizz, so this only took about 25 minutes of my weekend to pull together, and it’s cathartic for me]