I have a confession: I have a love / hate relationship with Amex Platinum (referral link). It has an exorbitant annual fee at $695 and obscure benefits. On the other hand, there is lounge access (particularly important to me as my home airport is DEN) and the card is made of stainless steel.
Still worth $700? That’s up for you to decide. Rather than focus on listing out the laundry list of benefits, I’m going to rank the top benefits and provide tips and tricks on how to get the most of your Amex Platinum.
- Lounge Access
Plain and simple, I got Amex Platinum for access to the Centurion Lounge at the Denver airport (DEN). This lounge has been a complete game changer when it comes to traveling. There is pretty good food (especially for breakfast – I dream about those biscuits and gravy), I always love a pre-flight beer from the craft beer bar, and I even once got an ice cream sundae! Hanging out in the comfortable chairs at the lounge is so much more comfortable than sitting by the gates with all the commotion that comes along with that.
Other than the Centurion lounge, on my travels I’ve also been able to hit up the LaGuardia (LGA) Centurion Lounge, the Sacramento (SMF) Escape Lounge, the St. Louis (STL) Wingtips Lounge, the Atlanta (ATL) Delta Sky Club Lounge (the huge one near B18 – what a treat), the beautiful Chase Sapphire Lounge in Boston (BOS) and many more.
The Amex Platinum covers the following lounges:
- Amex Centurion Lounge
- Delta Sky Club
- Escape Lounge
- Plaza Premium Lounge
- Lufthansa Lounge
- And lastly, Priority Pass and all those lounges, restaurants, and even Minute Suites (little personal rooms you can hang out in while waiting for your flight)
Don’t forget to sign up for the Priority Pass access! You need a digital ID (you can also get a physical card but who needs that) to allow you to go into any of the Priority Pass lounges.
Tip: If you have an authorized user on your account ($195 fee per authorized user), they can get their own Priority Pass access. They just need to call the number on the back of their card to get Priority Pass added to their account.
As someone who had never experienced a lounge before, Amex Platinum has completely changed the way I travel. Instead of getting to the airport at the last minute because of how horrible that experience is, I get there a couple hours early just to enjoy the lounge and have that as a part of my vacation. But if you don’t want to get to the airport early, that brings me to the next benefit.
- Global Entry / TSA Precheck
You receive either $100 statement credit every 4 years for Global Entry or $85 statement credit for TSA Precheck. If you’ve never used a statement credit before, it’s incredibly easy. You just buy Global Entry or TSA Precheck like you normally would, then it will reimburse you the cost.
I highly recommend getting Global Entry over TSA Precheck unless you truly never leave the country – and with your new Amex Platinum, you are very likely to travel internationally. Global Entry works perfectly if you already have an international trip planned as you can do the interview on the way back into the United States (I did mine when I was coming back from Cancun). Otherwise the waitlist can be months and involve you going to an airport for the sole reason of doing the interview. Not fun.
Once you have Global Entry, you also have access to TSA Precheck. That means a shorter line when coming back to the States when traveling internationally and a shorter security line generally.
Tip: If you don’t want to pay the authorized user fee for additional Platinum cards, you can add a no annual fee Gold Card to each person so they can also get access to the Global Entry credit.
- $200 Airline Credit
I see this credit as a straight up $200 statement credit but with a huge caveat – I believe it ideally should be used with Southwest only. When you do the airline credit, you have to decide in advance which airline you’re going to choose for the credit. Denver is a Southwest hub so I almost exclusively fly Southwest for domestic trips, especially to California which is only two hours away. These flights can be around $100 and that is key with the airline credit.
Source: Facts.net
Technically the airline credit is meant to be used for wi-fi, seat upgrades, etc but not for actual plane tickets. If you’re like me, you won’t be purchasing those because you already have the best seat (because you’re flying Southwest and all the seats are the same) and traveling with a tablet full of content for you to watch. But if you’re flying Southwest for around $100, Amex actually thinks that those are upgrades and reimburses you for the tickets.
Tip: Use the airline credit with Southwest on flights $100 or less. That way, you’re actually able to get your flights covered by the airline credit.
- $200 Hotel Statement Credit + Fine Hotels and Resorts
I debated putting this before the airline credit because it’s so straightforward to use. I ultimately decided against it because if you’re like me, you don’t usually go for hotels that would be in the Fine Hotels and Resorts (FHR) or The Hotel Collection (THC). But if you’re planning on traveling, I think it’s worth a quick search to see if there’s a FHR or THC hotel nearby to utilize the $200 credit plus the extra benefits that come along with FHR or THC.
The FHR benefits are:
- 12pm check-in, when available
- Room upgrade upon arrival, when available
- Complimentary daily breakfast for two people
- US$100 experience credit, unique to each property
- Guaranteed 4pm late check-out
- Complimentary Wi-Fi
I’ve found the most useful benefits to be the complimentary breakfast (usually ~$60 in value) and the $100 experience credit (which generally can be used on dinner at the hotel restaurant). But make sure to double check your welcome letter! Some experience credits can only be used at the hotel spa or something more specific which can make the value of the credit go down (or at least it does for me). The early check-in and late checkout are also helpful when it comes to maximizing your stay at what is presumably a really nice hotel.
The THC benefits are (when you stay two nights or more):
- A $100 experience credit to spend on qualifying dining, spa, and resort activities.
- Receive a room upgrade upon arrival, when available.
Source: Halcyon
As you can see, there aren’t as many THC benefits as FHR benefits but THC hotels tend to be cheaper than FHR so it balances out. Especially when stacked with the $200 hotel credit, you get a lot of value from that one or two night stay. Using the $200 credit and THC benefits, I was able to have a weekend trip to Universal Studios at the Hotel Portofino with all the above benefits plus express passes for two days.
- 5x Points on Flights
This isn’t a benefit necessarily but it does end up getting you a ton of points if you fly a lot. That merits its own place on the list to me.
- $20/month Digital Credit
The digital statement credit is a low-value but consistent credit for NYTimes, Peacock, and others. I used to really enjoy using it in Audible but they’ve stopped covering Audible as of earlier this year. Note that the $20 doesn’t rollover every month so it’s use it or lose it.
Here’s the full list of subscriptions that are covered by the digital credit:
- Disney+
- ESPN+
- Hulu
- The New York Times
- Peacock
- SiriusXM
- The Wall Street Journal
If you don’t know what to do, get either the monthly subscription to the NYTimes for news, games, and cooking recipe access or get ad-free Peacock to watch The Office and Parks and Recreation.
- $15 / Month Uber Credit (+ $35 in December)
Like the digital credit, this is a straightforward, low-value credit that puts $15 of Uber cash in your Uber wallet that doesn’t rollover from month to month. In December, Amex inexplicably gives you $35 so enjoy that! If you don’t use Uber all that much, you can use it for Uber Eats.
Tip: Use the Uber cash for Uber Eats pickup – no fees!
Plus I’ve found that Uber Eats has several options for Buy One, Get One in my area. For example, the Shake Shack near me usually has a buy one burger, get one burger offered. This means getting two burgers covered by my Uber cash! Even if that means I have to actually drive myself in my own car to Shake Shack.
Make sure you trigger this credit by adding your Amex Platinum card to your Uber wallet.
- CLEAR Access
Amex Platinum comes with an annual $189 statement credit for CLEAR. This gets you one annual membership to CLEAR, a somewhat ethically questionable way to move even faster through the security lines particularly when combined with TSA Precheck. I have to say, this benefit has been hit or miss for me at the Denver Airport. Half the time, the CLEAR line moves either slower or exactly as fast as the regular TSA Precheck line. That means I have an annoying mental calculation to do when getting to the security line on whether I should use CLEAR.
I had CLEAR back when it was possible to get both me and my wife under the CLEAR credit using the United discount. But now it seems like the discount is only for $10 for general Mileage Plus members which means you and your partner would cost $80 out of pocket. And I don’t believe that CLEAR access is really worth $80, especially if you already have TSA Precheck.
- Saks Fifth Avenue Credit
I’ll call it what it is – a $50 statement credit to an expensive store I wouldn’t otherwise shop at. I’ve found tiny ceramic Le Creuset pots. I’ve also used the credits towards getting baby clothes.
Tip: Under $200, shipping is not included. So don’t forget to consider the cost of shipping in your order.
I don’t value this benefit that much because $50 doesn’t go far at Saks. This credit is for $50 in the first half of the year (January through June) then another $50 for the second half of the year (July through December). So feel free to go through the Saks site and see what you can get.
Funny story: my cousin bought an Apple Watch band through Saks because she wanted to use the credit and get a new band for her Apple Watch. A couple days after she bought it, she found the same exact band for half the price at Target. She contacted Saks to ask for a price match and Saks said that they did not consider Target a competitor. Harsh!
Don’t forget to enroll in this benefit either before placing your order on Saks. That’d be a bummer!
- Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy Gold status
This benefit is fairly low because even though it’s better than having no status, it really is just barely better than having no status at all.
Tip: Like with all things churning and award travel related, make sure you create Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy accounts in order to trigger this benefit.
Hilton Honors Gold benefits ranked:
- Daily Food and Beverage Credit or Continental Breakfast
- Fifth night free on reward stays
- Space-available room upgrades
- Free bottled water
- 80% points earning bonus on stays
- Elite rollover nights
- All-inclusive spa discount
Marriott Bonvoy Gold benefits ranked:
- Enhanced room upgrade
- Priority 2pm late checkout
- Get 25% more points
As you can see, there are more benefits with Hilton, especially with the daily food and beverage credit or free continental breakfast and fifth night free on reward stays benefit. But I tend to end up staying more at Marriotts which doesn’t get that many perks. Like I said, these are definitely nice to have but not a reason to get the Amex Platinum.
11. Everything Else
There are benefits for Walmart+, ShopRunner, Equinox and SoulCycle, and some other benefits I can’t think of right now because I’ve never used them. With the Amex Platinum, there’s a little bit of work that goes into making sure you utilize all the credits but with these other benefits, it’s just so outside the realm of what I would do normally that I don’t think it’s worth it.
Amex Platinum Conclusion
That’s my ranked list of Amex Platinum benefits. As you can see, if you make sure you actually use the benefits, you reach that annual fee pretty quickly and more.
| Benefit | Annual Cost |
| Priority Pass Lounge Access | Priority pass: $469 for unlimited free visits |
| Centurion Lounge | I estimate this at $40 a visit. So let’s say three visits a year.$120 |
| Global Entry / TSA Precheck | $100 for Global Entry every 4 years. So $20 annually.$20 |
| Airline Credit | $200 |
| Hotel Credit | $200 |
| FHR Benefit | Let’s be conservative and say $60 for free breakfast plus $100 for the experience credit.$160 |
| Digital Credit | $240 |
| Uber Credit | $200 |
| CLEAR Access | $189 |
| Saks Fifth Avenue Credit | $100 |
| Total: | $1,898 |
But of course you have to take into account the amount of money you’d spend if you didn’t have the card which I find difficult to calculate. I’d say if you have a travel-heavy year, go for the Amex Platinum, get the sign up bonus (100,000 points through Resy!), and see what benefits you end up using. Then at the end of that year, you can reassess whether you want to continue holding the card or if you’re better off with another travel credit card. Happy travels!
P.S. Got your Amex Platinum and you’re ready to really start churning and using your hard-earned points? Check out The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Churning and Award Travel.