Did American Express RUIN The Amex Platinum?! (Probably Not)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
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The history of how the Amex Platinum card has evolved over the years.
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Amex needs to get rid of the equinox credit on the platinum card which is worthless for most people. They just need to add more travel credit instead
Their ideal customer is not most people so…
Correct, on my way to Equinox now.
Capitalism 101, have people pay the most for something they won’t use 😂
I’m an EQX member but I still totally agree. The neutering of the delta sky club access devaluation was mega annoying.
Agreed.
AMEX needs to improve the benefits, remove Equinox and sweeten some of the other benefits. They need to better justify the annual fee.
Congrats on 300k Sebby. Much deserved!
My annual fee is posting next week, I’ll be cancelling. I’ll probably end up getting the Charles Schwab version in a few years.
Bummer that you can’t get the SUB anymore.
🎟️ great vid! Been Amex since ‘04 and Amex Gold since ‘19…been thinking about upgrading to Platinum. Appreciate the historical context to where the card is at today. Cheers!
Fun fact is that the first Centurion lounge actually opened in Mexico City, not LAS. And it was a pre-boarding pre-security one (still exists).
Sebby probably mentioning the first in the US.
I'm tired of all the games with the coupon book. Just give me benefits and stop the bullshit. I don't see the amex plat as a premium card anymore.
🎟️
Great AMEX history lesson Sebby.
The Platinum and Gold cards don’t make sense for me….yet.
You neglected to mention that the Platinum was invite only when it came out.
True! I remember my Dad getting an invitation back when it came out. He had an AmEx card for 20 years at that point. His American Express card was older than me lol.
Hi Sebby if I’m not mistaken the first Amex card was not green, it was white with purple accents. I actually saw one a few years ago that belonged to a friends father.
Yes, you are correct.
It's interesting that the annual fee has always hovered around $700 in today's money. I know a lot of ppl complain about the high AF but it basically hasn't changed since it's inception
Only complaint I got is Equinox credit sucks.
Fun Amex Fact: They helped create MTV!
Would love a video on the long term views on the devaluation of the lounge access across the Delta Reserve card and Platinum cards ; thanks as always Sebby!
I started with $450 AF, then went to $550 AF, after that I cancelled the card and never got it back. Uber credits were the most annoying. Saks was also not of much use for me.
How are uber credits annoying???
@@MsTakiH every month you need to order overpriced food from Uber Eats, otherwise you lose the credit. Very annoying. That's why I cancelled both Platinum and Gold.
🎫 Love my Platinum! Just booked 2 round trips back to the states for the holidays using miles!
Enjoy! :)
It’s a shit card. CSR “makes more sense”.
Earnings multiplier sucks, unless you fly all the time. Uber credits are only good for Uber fees. Don’t have an EQX location around my area. Airline fee credit is cumbersome. AF for player 2. Cancelled the Plat after 13 years. Using AMEX’s AF for both CSR and CVX with much more user friendly credits.
Unfortunately I canceled mines after 5yrs. It just didn’t make sense to me anymore especially due to the lame credits. Not to mention, the Amex lounges are very packed. I went with the Venture X and so far so good. I’ll reevaluate in a few yrs
venture X is so much better
🎫 Thanks for the overview of AMEX. That is an excellent explanation of how things have changed over the years. The BOGO on the International Airines was very lucrative in the late 2000s.
Thanks, Sebby!
🎟️ I agree. Equinox is not useful. I do wish cardholders could get Marriott platinum or Hilton Diamond status instead of gold. My favorite feature is the fine hotels and resorts. Do you think a fee increase is forthcoming?
There’s a card for that
I like the bump in status the card gives you with hotels, car rental etc. More of that would be nice. Wish they had Air France platinum, like in Europe, to earn XPs.
Canceled this year. Dont want to pay extra 175 just to get my wife in the lounge. Tured of credits too. Too many to manage. Would rather just have the chase reserve and us bank altitude reserve. Effective annual fee less than 100 for both
I'll stick with my Venture X. Not enough value in the Platinum.
The core value proposition for me centers around their transfer partners for int'l 1st/Bus class flights, their unrivaled 5x on non-portal flights, and their lounge access. I think the many credits and purchase behavior control mechanisms they employ in their profit models are deal breakers long-term. Recouping value from the Platinum is too time consuming. The product limits free choice and has dismal multipliers. I sense trouble for them from the competition in the near future😎 Great history lesson however👍🏾
Great analysis. Too much time consuming for someone to keep track of Uber and Sax credits. They are banking on the fact that people won’t use the full credit. I have better things to do than keep tabs of $15 Uber credits every month. Another better thing to do is to cancel such $700 annual fee card. Amex losing here.
I cancelled my card here at renewal. Flying out of Denver, the Capital One Lounge is there and the Capital One Venture X is so much better than Amex Plat. American Express has so much price inflation on their travel portal. Transferring to delta incurs that fee and Hilton points are worthless.
🎫 I don't use it for purchases outside the coupon book and airfare at all since they reduced the multipliers for local businesses a couple of years ago. I go to other cards. I still love the Delta lounge access, though, for my occasional flights with them.
Centurion lounge didn’t not open in 2013…Mexico City and Sao Paolo had them waaaay before then….
Hello, I’m visiting Seattle, long story short. Amex reduced my credit line by $1000 on my Green card? Never late, it’s due to a reduced credit score from utilization. So frustrating. My rant, thanks for the video.
So I use my Platinum card mainly for centurion lounge access and the clear credit. Those are the two things I value the most.
After having a Amex Gold card and receiving the welcome bonus points, how long should one wait before they apply for a Amex platinum card so that they can also receive the welcome bonus points on the platinum card?
Stop giving away free cards and significantly increase the requirements of entry will fix it right away. It’s a coupon book now, what a joke.
Amex needs to remove equinox, bring back audible, and if they want credits, I don’t use the new entertainment credits. Like Saks. Considering demoting to green and promoting my green to gold.
I used to have the CSR but moved to the CSP and Amex Plat. However super butthurt that they partner with Equinox. If Chase gives a credit for Lifetime Fitness on the CSR I’d drop Amex like a hot potato.
They still haven’t replaced the Sirius credit
Loved the interesting history lesson but neglecting to mention the new family language is a big miss.
i think having a coupon book is still a lot better than just paying for points and some benefits that we barely use everyday.
I like the FHR credit.
🎫 The platinum's benefits are great, but there's zero incentive to spend on this card aside from airline charges. It sits in my travel gear until I have a flight, which being SEA-based, means hitting up at least the Centurion lounge here.
For a company that depends so much on swipe fees, I feel like they should add a bonus category or two to this card to encourage you to keep it in your wallet. Something like entertainment.
I'm fine with the coupon book. Those of us who spend the time to extract max value can easily justify the AF. If you don't want to deal with the credits, don't get the card. I'm far more disappointed by the CSR. It's simple for me to use the airline/uber credit/streaming credit. Good luck getting 250$ in value from sapphire lounges now that the PP restaurant benefit is gone lol.
I cannot even begin to get close to value with the platinum card. The business card is missing some features from the personal and it isn’t worth the one Centurion lounge visit a year.
Always a great video!
Anyone know where to find that inflation calculator sebby is using?
Can you do a video about yotta (the bank you endorsed) not allowing people to withdraw money?
My favorite version is the Business Platinum. There are fewer credits to manage than on the personal, and the ones likeliest to be used (airline, Dell, and wireless) are very useful. Lounge access and FHR are some of my favorite features. If the Dell credit goes away, then I'd guess that Amex would add credits geared towards larger enterprises (something like X amount off for purchases with Amazon Web Services or Salesforce). 🎫
The problem with the Dell credit is it's broken, deliberately so. A semi-annual credit doesn't match my technology spending, nor does it, I suspect, for many other small business owners. That's aside from the fact I'd much rather build my own than buy a generic gimped PC from Dell.
@@headlibrarian1996 I was thinking of snagging a Business Plat here in about 2 or 3 months (I'm doing a home build this year and a duplex build next year), so will be (hopefully) applying for the C1VX Business and Business Plat during that process. I was looking at the Dell credit and thinking I could just buy some items < $300 and then just sell them at a discount (40% to 50% off retail) to the secondary market and just convert it directly into cash, if I wanted. Otherwise, when wife, kid and I travel I can at least buy a couple travel SSDs or a heavily subsidized NAS.
With that said, I think the business Platinum makes more sense than the personal. I could never justify the AF with the personal Plat, but the Business Plat makes a bit more sense to me.
The walmart plus is actually somewhat worth it if you use the member fuel prices for exxon/mobil for 10 cents off a gal. At least round here the prices are comparable to other stations. Basically just cancels out the normal credit card surcharge you get compared to paying cash. Also works at Walmart/Murphy/Sam's club gas stations. Not going to be the thing that sells the card but doesnt hurt. Also I dont think you are required to use the AMEX to pay and it seems to code in credit card statement as gas not walmart so probably could use card that gets 3% on gas and double dip with ~3% on 10c discount.🎫
Costco has top tier gas at their stations, and is regularly cheaper than our local Sam's. We were Sam's members for about a year because we got a membership for like, $15 once. I typically don't go to stores like that because I find you buy in bulk and spend more than you typically would for food or other commodities. However, for household items (paper towels, toilet paper, etc...) it's nice to have the bulk purchasing option.
We opted for Costco this year to see what it was like. Prices have a slight premium, but there are more organic foods available at Costco. Nearly any fruit we wanted, as well as dairy products for our kid have organic options. The thing for me though, the gas is regularly $0.50 to $0.70 cheaper per gallon than the station nearest to our house, and about $0.10 to $0.20 cheaper than the Sam's we typically visited. That alone is worth the AF for Costco membership. I will keep that membership just for that and the savings alone more than pays for that fee. I just wish Costco took Amex for payment.
🎫 If Platinum made the stupid incidental credit into a general travel credit, I might keep it. I nearly always travel Business/First, on various airlines, and there aren't any incidental fees with those tickets. The Green Card is actually better for travel in general - 3% on everything travel-related, plus the Clear credit which more than covers the annual fee, and which I use. The airline First/Business lounges are generally on par with the Centurion lounges, and often less crowded. The only useful thing the Platinum offers for me is 5% on airline tickets, which isn't worth $700 bucks. I just got the Green Card (with a 40K bonus) and I'll be cancelling my Platinum Card this August when the renewal comes up. The Platinum Card is something, but it's not a travel card.
idk if you qualify for green card bonus since you had the plat
@@josemaciel3582 I didn't think so either because of the new verbiage I saw, but if I applied and wasn't allowed the bonus, there would be a pop-up allowing me to withdraw my application. So when I applied I waited for the pop-up saying I wouldn't qualify. But it didn't come up! When the card arrived I called supposedly to clarify what the spend amount and time frame were, but really to verify that I was actually getting a bonus. And he rattled it off - "You get 40K points for 3K spend in 6 months." So it worked for me. I should note that I'm coming up on my 6th year with the Platinum Card, so there could be some hidden time limit.
Now, I just need to find out if I can transfer some of my Pay Over Time limit from my Platinum over to my Green!
@@josemaciel3582 Those rules changed with the newest iteration of the AF change on the platinum, as well as the rest of their stack. I think the only exception was the Schwab variant. I actually need to see if that's the case for the business side of their cards. If so, does anyone have data points about applying for a green, gold and platinum (all business side) within a 9 month period?
I miss thumbing through the old FHR books😢 but the biz and personal platinums have worked out well for me. Except the indeed credit… maybe someday
🎟️ Admission via the American Express entrance, please! 😄
Sort of related -- Any chance you have any data points (or heard anything) about the "Bread Cashback American Express" card? There's not much info on TH-cam about it, but it seems to be a 2% cashback card with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. I'm looking to possibly run this in my Amex setup with the Gold card. I have the BCE, but the foreign transaction fees aren't helpful (since I do a lot of work overseas). Amex isn't the card issuer, but I'm wondering if this card will be filed under "obtainable cards with soft pulls" (since Amex lists information about this card on the Amex website and on the Amex app if requested). Any info will is much appreciated! This card could be killer and replace my BCE instantly.
Contributing to the topic -- the Platinum doesn't do it for me. I got some literature in the mail about joining , but my CSP offers points on travel booked via third-party websites and on buses. I'd like Centurion lounge access but I'm sticking to the Gold for now.
Dump ready mad Walmart. I want a bigger Saks credit, or more stores and audible back.
Cool video. Can you do one for the gold card?
Absolutely yes
I am actually Ok, with the coupon back bc I mitigate the af all the time, however, it gets a bit tiring to keep up with, thus you have to have a system to use those credits at the beginning of the year and the beginning of the month. I canceled my person platinum and will cancel my person gold. I will retain the business versions. I will be canceling my Brillance on January 2,025, it's going to be harder to justify after achieving lifetime Platinum with Marriott.
What is the card really doing for you if you don’t live near an Amex lounge? in 2025 Amex is taking Delta Lounge access to few entrances even when flying Delta. Read the Amex new rules under lounge information
Honestly, the no strict SUB for previous had card in past is depended on customer, for i had gold card and cancelled in Nov 2023, and I notived a special SUB for gold hidden in my card recommendations though not going to apply cuz the card is pretty average.
Those offers are in my "amex offers" account as well, but when I click on them, I get popup jail. It's a nasty trick they 😒
Cancelled both Platinum Cards been with Amex since 1980. Not worth it anymore better with my X and Chase Reserve
My last two Marriot / bonvoy stays didn't get room upgrades and hotel only gave us 1pm check out. Not sure why ... I thought it 4pm check out and elite rooms for Plat card holders ?
Think that's FHR only, not any Marriott or Hilton
FHR program guarantees 4PM checkout, Marriott Gold does not.
What is FHR
You have to sign up for the Marriott membership as an AMEX platinum card member and you will get bumped to Gold status automatically. Then you can use their app with your Marriott membership card number when you check in.
@@bigdaddy4197fine hotels and resorts. It’s a portal from Amex for higher end stays.
they need to re-amp the benefits immediately.
It’ll be worth getting when I’d use more credits. Been getting 125k sub offers, so not bad.
Hawaii does not have an Equinox. It’s useless benefit.
No One needs Equinox when planet fitness does the same if not a home gym. Need a dining credit. For a travel card that makes no sense to not have a World wide dining credit like the Amex Gold card. Also add more travel points areas like the Green card. For a top end ultra high end card the card is Good But can be great!
The platinum card needs an entertainment multiplier like the Savor.
🎫Great video, thanks. I think Amex executives are going to be paranoid of CSR again because Sapphire lounges will reach critical mass soon, and so will CO lounges a few years after that. So if there are 3 extensive, premium lounge networks, how will these cards compete? Amex was first to the game and milked that foresight. But now what? The competition is likely to benefit the consumer. I wonder if we could see Citi Strata lounges before 2030....
Every Platinum card holder also has the Cap1 Venture for international spend and many can easily get the Ritz. So perfect coverage in most efficient way.
@@rene.s.s I'm shooting for the Ritz next year since I'm getting my Bonvoy Boundless soon (will hit my 5/24 max until another slot opens up in June). I just hope Chase doesn't pull out the rug during before 2026.
If Eq is funding the credit then Amex has little to lose. It’s not a lowbrow brand and the people who use the service are not poor.
Amex doesn’t need poor people.
They need people willing to swipe their cards.
Eq encourages lots of swiping and hence fees.
sebby, do you know if using cardmatch reports to the credit bureaus as an attempt to secure credit? like they report you are shopping around for more credit cards?
What about ruining the Amex Delta Reserve?
Already covered here: th-cam.com/video/XQsC8WWgQuA/w-d-xo.html
Ah yes gotta get them 10 min vid for max revenue I see lol
Yes I canceled my account after 6 years
dont give Amex money if you dont like coupon book , simple as that .
Debby we’re in houston we need you on the podcast we will fly you out and pay for a hotel room
:ticket: 1 have a 200 usd credit on my schwab each year so it makes it easy to stomach 😅
it's shite, only reason we have it is because of almost unlimited balance....
Need to up MR points in certain categories. Dining and grocery should give at least 2x. Getting harder to justify the AF especially when the lounges always have line. Plus they made additional card holders carry some sort of white card. Bush league.
love seeing all the comments about the absolutely LAME credit/coupon system that you constantly have to re subscribe to... lol.... SOOOO LAME
Pretty pissed they got rid of paramount + and Sirius xm freebies!
paramount is through walmart+ now
Response to your title. Probably Yes.
I hope they partner with the world cup
🎫🎫🎫 Still my favorite set of cards.
Not sure anyone cares about history
📕
Remove the equinox credit and put the money to anything else. Heck I’ll take. A 240 rest credit over the equinox. At least I can get some food 😂 over a worthless online fitness app that outdated and id guess majority of the card user do not go to a 4k a year gym😂
🎫
Within the first twenty minutes let’s go!!!
W Sebby
🙌
AMEX should ditch the stupid Uber credit, which I never touch. Why do they continue to affiliate themselves with the sleaziest company on the planet?
🎟🎟🎟
Plat card is trash now. Over subscribed. too many no spend pikers. CL, when you can get it in, is full of garbage people.
Plat card is trash🥺
🎟️ All aboard the SebbyExpress 🚂
I LOVE YOU, SEBBY! 🎫
👍🥃
🎟️ How to get a SUB for any AMEX Gold/Platinum (personal or business) if I had them all before? They seem to have closed the door…
🎟️ surprised they haven’t released the next higher level card yet. Maybe they’re waiting for the enconomy to bounce back. I hope they drop some of the credits and move them up. I don’t live in a big city so it’s hard to justify. Lowering the platinum to $500 and making a card that is $1200 seems like something that would make sense. A ‘super’ card would make the most sense for frequent travelers now that Covid is done.
Squuuuuuuuuuad
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814th 😊😊
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🎟️ ❤️
first
Almost! 🙌
Why is this a thing...so dumb