Credit Card Offers Amex Platinum Card Benefits, Offers & Discussion

Enjoy a world of travel benefits and up to 200,000 bonus Amex Membership Rewards Premium Ascent points...​

Learn more and apply for this card:

American Express® Platinum Card

The American Express (Amex) Platinum charge card is one of the best publicly-available cards in Australia for travel benefits.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

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What are the main benefits of this card?

1. Signup bonus: 200,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points (worth 100,000 Qantas Points, Velocity Points, Avios or Asia Miles, among other options) when you apply by 2/12/25 and spend at least $5,000 within 3 months.
2. Earn 2.25 Amex Membership Rewards points per $1 spent on everyday purchases, uncapped. You can transfer these points to 12 airline & 2 hotel programs, including Qantas Frequent Flyer.
3. Enjoy unlimited access to many airport lounges, including Virgin Australia and Priority Pass lounges
4. Gift Priority Pass membership to one additional cardholder
5. Receive complimentary elite status with hotel loyalty programs including Hilton Honors, Marriott Bonvoy, Radisson Rewards & Accor Live Limitless
6. Complimentary international travel insurance
7. Receive a $450 annual travel credit, plus airfare discounts, $400 worth of annual dining credits, subscriptions to The Australian & Wall Street Journal, plus many more exclusive benefits!

Why we like the American Express Platinum Card

Packed full of travel perks, the American Express Platinum Card is one of the best publicly-available cards in Australia for frequent flyers.

With a $1,450 annual fee, this metal card is not for everyone. But the return on investment for the high annual fee is strong, as it comes with a lot of useful benefits! This includes an annual travel credit, dining credits and unlimited access to Virgin Australia, Delta, Lufthansa, Priority Pass, Plaza Premium and Amex Centurion airport lounges.

There are also some great hotel perks including a free annual hotel night, Accor Plus membership, Fine Hotels + Resorts benefits and complimentary elite status with Hilton, Marriott and Radisson.

For points collectors, this is one of the most lucrative cards available in Australia. You’ll earn 2.25 Amex Membership Rewards Ascent Premium points per $1 spent on eligible transactions. Points transfer to most frequent flyer programs at a 2:1 rate, although there are some exceptions (e.g. it's 3:1 to KrisFlyer and Emirates).

You can convert your Amex points to around 12 airlines including Qantas, Virgin Australia, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic, Emirates and Etihad! Plus, you can transfer points to two hotel loyalty programs for even more redemption possibilities.

To sweeten the deal, new cardholders can also earn 200,000 bonus Amex Membership Rewards Points when spending at least $5,000 on the card within 3 months of approval. See our card guide for the full details:

American Express® Platinum Card

The American Express (Amex) Platinum charge card is one of the best publicly-available cards in Australia for travel benefits.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

AFF members are welcome to discuss this card in this thread.

 

[blacksultan]

No hard credit check, approved immediately.

When I called up Amex to find out what it meant they referred to it as a ‘companion card’

I think it looked like @billmurray post yes.

Is this a new thing as I hadn’t heard of it before? Also plat reserve isn’t easily found on the Amex website I wonder why?

Been there for a while . Not open to general public. .

 

[Houghton27]

Been there for a while . Not open to general public. .

Do you know if this indicates a pathway or stepping stone to the centurion?

 

[blacksultan]

Do you know if this indicates a pathway or stepping stone to the centurion?

No . Used to be popular as it had an additional travel credit of approx $400 with no annual fee . One could choose this as a free companion card to platinum charge .

 

[burneracc]

No hard credit check, approved immediately

FWIW I was hard checked here and now waiting on approval. have been meaning to add it for a while since its a free way to get some duplicate promotions (2x delicious month out, 2x shop small, 2x member month etc). Luck of the draw I guess

 

[blacksultan]

FWIW I was hard checked here and now waiting on approval. have been meaning to add it for a while since its a free way to get some duplicate promotions (2x delicious month out, 2x shop small, 2x member month etc). Luck of the draw I guess

Is there now a concept of hard & soft pulls in Australia ?

 

[andye]

Does anyone know if its still possible to get MR into Alsaka via HA?
And
Do we anticipate warning of changes to move points before any devaluation?

 

[Bell21]

The issue is that the T&Cs are ambiguous. Let me put my linguist/grammar nerd hat on for a minute...

The T&Cs say that the insurance is activated if "you pay the full amount of your outbound ticket ... on your ... corresponding American Express Membership Rewards points or frequent flyer points (where applicable)..."

I have literally spent hours trying to work out what that word "corresponding" means and why it's there. Does it modify just the words "American Express MR points" or does it modify the whole remainder of the sentence? In other words, does it mean that

• you must pay for the outward trip with your "corresponding AmEx MR points, or [corresponding] FF points", OR
• you must pay for the outward trip with your "corresponding AmEx MR points, or [any] FF points"

I'm a grammar nerd. I studied linguistics and grammar at university. And still I have no idea how to interpret that clause.

If the first interpretation is correct, the most logical meaning is that your FF points must be "corresponding" to your AmEx account -- ie. at the very least the FF programme needs to be a transfer partner. To use your example, Air Canada Aeroplan points will not activate the insurance.

If the second interpretation is correct, and "corresponding" modifies the first part of the clause but not the second, it means you can pay with [any] FF points to activate the insurance and it doesn't matter which programme you use or where you got the points from.

But which interpretation is correct? Linguistically and grammatically, they're both possible due to the clumsy wording.

As I wrote in a post above, I ended up contacting AmEx/Chubb about this, and the response I received was that in order to activate the insurance, if you paid with points those points needed to be from an AmEx transfer partner that you had linked your FF account to.

I have no idea whether that's Chubb's official policy or whether the person who responded was just answering off the top of their head. But that's the answer I received.

Obviously others have been told different things.

Thanks - I missed this when posted. i had a long discussion with Chubb about this and the rep put me on hold for a while whilst she consulted with her team leader. She explicitly said that 'corresponding' means that for an outgoing reward flight to activate the insurance, the client MUST be able to show that the points were directly accrued on the AMEX card. There has been quite a bit of debate about this either earlier on this thread or a separate thread. As the subsequent poster has said, it may come down to how much $ is at stake and a legal challenge of this clause. It depends on each person's risk tolerance, but from my perspective, for an extra few $100 per trip, I wouldn't take the chance that I would be covered, especially if anything serious goes wrong. YMMV.