The Amex Platinum Charge card is the original metal card with a hefty annual fee of 70,800 including taxes. The most common question about the Amex Platinum Charge card is whether it’s worth it. Here is my attempt to help you decide.
I am approaching this by evaluating the stand-out features of this credit card and the reward rate. By stand-out features, I mean features that are generally not available on any other credit card. And obviously, evaluating the reward rate on spends.
Amex Platinum Charge card
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Stand-out features of Amex Platinum Charge card
Reward Points
Accelerated reward points on Fuel spends
While most cards don’t give any reward points on fuel spending, barring a few. The Amex Platinum Charge card gives accelerated reward points on fuel spending. You get 5 reward points for every 100 spent on any fuel station. The monthly cap for accelerated reward points is 5000 which means you can get fuel of up to 100,000 per month. That’s more than enough to power a truck for a month, let alone a car.
Reward Accelerator program
The Reward Xcelerator program from Amex is available only for the Amex Platinum Charge card and Amex Centurion cards in India. This program gives 10x or 20x reward points on eligible points. The best part of the program is there is no capping on the reward points you can earn and you don’t need to go through a specific portal to the merchant site or app. Just launch the website/app of the participating brand and swipe your Amex Platinum Charge card.
While most of the brands are high-end brands and I have never heard of most of them. But 2 partners are very useful. Air India and Tata Cliq. You get 10x reward points on purchases made on these 2 brands.
Now, that Vistara will be merged with Air India by the end of 2024 (tentative), then this 10x feature can be really helpful. A 20k flight ticket on Air India will give you 5k reward points using Reward Accelerator. The 5k reward points are worth at least 2k (40p per point) means a good 10% off. Assuming you can book some sweet Marriott hotel with a redemption value of 1 INR, then the value jumps to 5K INR, a cool 25% discount on your flight ticket.
Further, Tata Cliq is also a partner in the Reward Accelerator. While Tata Cliq is generally popular as a fashion website many household essentials such as shampoo, soap, shaving kits and even kitchenware are also available.
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Annual Fees
While the Amex Platinum Charge card has a high joining/annual fee, but did you know that calling customer care at renewal always helps? Given the high fee customer care always has some offers so that you can continue with the card. The offer can be a certain number of RPs or some Taj vouchers as renewal benefits. You may be even asked to spend a certain amount within a specific time to get your annual fee waived or lowered. So, at the time of renewal call up customer care.
Travel Benefits
International Travel Program
Under the International Travel Program or IAP, the Amex Platinum Charge cardholder gets better discounts on flight tickets. Flight tickets need to be booked via the link. The offer includes, for instance, booking Etihad Business class tickets and getting a free upgrade to first class, flat 20% off on many airlines. The IAP features a long list of participating airlines that includes Emirates, Air France, Etihad Airways, Japan Airlines, KLM, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Swiss Air, Air Brussels, Delta Airlines and Air India
Lounge Access
The Amex Platinum Charge card is the only card in India that gives access to the famed Amex Centurion lounges worldwide. The Amex Platinum Charge card gives unlimited Centurion lounge access to the cardholder and 1 guest. Further, you can bring 1 guest per card. Thus, if you have 1 primary and 1 supplementary card, you can bring 2 guests for free in the Centurion Lounge.
In addition, the Amex Platinum Charge card also offers free lounge access through the Priority Pass and other domestic lounge partners
Fast-track security in certain airports
This hidden gem feature of the Amex Platinum Charge card can be a huge time saver for frequent flyers. At certain European airports, if you hold the Amex Platinum card you can access the fast-track security lane. This service is available in Helsinki, Stockholm, Rome, Milan and a few other airports. A non-comprehensive list is available here. Please do share if there are more airports/countries where this service available on the Amex Platinum card.
Hotels and Stay
Fine hotels and resort
The Amex Platinum Charge card offers access to the Fine Hotels and Resorts and The Hotel Collection programs from Amex. Under these programs, the cardholder gets free room upgrades, free daily breakfast, 4 pm late check-out, a $100 credit voucher on staying for 2 nights etc.
The Amex Gold Charge(Apply Now) cardholders can also access the Hotel Collection and get a $100 credit voucher. However, what I find is that the room rates through the Amex portal are substantially higher than on other portals such as MMT. Thus, not sure how good or bad this feature is in reality.
25% discount on all Taj, SeleQtions and Vivanta properties across the globe
The Amex Platinum card offers 25% off on all Taj, SeleQtions and Vivanta hotels across the world. The participating hotels list here has 118 hotels, while IHCL has 128 hotels under the 3 brands. So nearly all the hotels under these brands offer a flat 25% off. Not bad.
Multiple memberships and statuses
You get multiple hotel memberships for free with the Amex Platinum Charge card. These are Taj Epicure, Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite, Hilton Honors Gold, Radisson Rewards Premium and Hertz Gold Plus.
The Taj Epicure is a watered-down version of the paid Taj Epicure and very similar to the one offered with the newly designed Amex Platinum Reserve(Apply Now) credit card. I say watered down because it doesn’t come with a free night.
The Marriott Gold Elite status offers you 25% more points on Marriott spends, priority checkout and room upgrade if available. However, do note that with Amex Platinum Charge card, the Marriott Gold Elite status is without any night credit. Thus, if you want to achieve Platinum Elite status, you still need to spend 50 nights with Marriott hotels.
Amex Platinum Charge card also offers Hilton Honors Gold status. As Hilton Honors Gold you get free breakfast along with room upgrades if available. The free breakfast bit is really helpful.
Other benefits
10K Taj vouchers on your birthday
You get 10k Taj vouchers on your birthday as a gift. The vouchers are typically issued a few weeks in advance and are valid for just 3 months.
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All other cards free
Typically, once you have the Amex Platinum Charge card, your other Amex cards become free. You can connect with customer care to make your other cards LTF as long as you hold the Amex metal.
Purchase protection
Imagine buying the latest iPhone or iPad only to find it stolen in a month or accidentally damaged. Amex covers you for this. Amex Platinum Charge card offers you purchase protection of those expensive products that we purchase for up to 5lakhs against any accidental damage, theft etc for 90 days from the purchase.
Card delivery anywhere in the world
Amex Platinum Charge card has this hidden feature where you can request your card delivered anywhere in the world. Amex delivers your charge card anywhere in the world within a week of placing the request.
New local card when you shift abroad
If you own an Amex here in India for over a year and happen to settle abroad. You can apply for an Amex credit card in that country as soon as you land. Amex considers your repayment record and the credit behaviour of your home country to issue you a new credit card. This is a benefit with nearly all Amex credit cards and not only for Amex Platinum Charge card.
Free EazyDiner Prime membership
You get a free Eazydiner Prime membership with your Amex Platinum Charge card.
How the reward points stack up on the Amex Platinum Charge card
The Amex Platinum Charge card as such doesn’t give a very exciting reward rate. The base reward rate is just 1 MR point for every 40 spent and it excludes utilities, taxes and insurance. However, the good part is that it gives reward points for fuel spending. You get an accelerated reward rate on fuel spend. You get 5 RPs on every 100 spent on fuel for up to 100,000 fuel spent every month. I believe that’s enough for a truck let alone a car.
Below is the dynamic calculator to see how it stacks up against other Amex and popular credit cards.
A few sweet spots for spending are fuel spends where you get 5 RPs for every 100 spent, at least a 2% reward rate. Flight tickets on Air India, given that Vistara will now be Air India, can be a real points minter for many. Also, there is 10x on Tata Cliq. As mentioned earlier you get many household items on Tata Cliq and you can rake in a good number of points. Amazon vouchers on Reward Multiplier give 5X reward points; again a 5% reward rate considering a 40p reward rate.
Should you get the Amex Platinum Charge card?
Deciding whether to take the Amex Platinum Charge card is difficult in my view. It’s not a card that you can evaluate just based on the reward rate. It has a status and, a certain aura associated with it. How do you value it? The feel-good factor of sitting in the Centurion lounge, and what value will you ascribe to it? Getting your family to Taj for birthday dinner, how will you value it? The point here is, it’s a very person-dependent decision whether to take the Amex Platinum Charge card or not.
Nonetheless, at times Amex runs joining/upgrade offers for the Amex Platinum Charge card. Recently they were offering 135k RPs as a joining bonus. Decent offer at the face of it. If one is interested in the Amex Platinum Charge card and sitting on the fence then lapping such offers makes sense.
However, I didn’t take the card even during the offer period. The reasoning was, I don’t travel too often to take benefit of the Amex lounge and the other travel benefits discussed above. And given my spending pattern, I believe I am getting decent returns from the cards that I have.
Further, the 135k RPs at 40p value will come to just INR 54k. Even at a 50p value, it doesn’t justify the annual fee of 70k+. Maybe, if Amex had offered 150k RPs as a joining bonus, I might have taken it. Here again, it’s an individual’s decision. Some may point out that when Amex brings in a 20-30% transfer bonus offer with Marriott, if you transfer your points then the value of points is much higher. Agreed. But that again holds well for people who travel quite often. For an occasional traveller like me, that may not be as much worth it.
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Do you own the Amex Platinum Charge card? What are your thoughts about it? Do you know any hidden gem features of this card? Do share in the comments below
Image Source Frugal Flyer on Unsplash The article was published/last updated on 20th May 2024.
Disclaimer
In the interest of full disclosure, Credit Cardz may earn a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the links in this post. However, opinions and views expressed here are of the author's alone and not those of the bank, credit card issuer, or anyone else and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
I’m an avid reader of your blog and love the in depth analysis and interactive spreadsheet feature. Wanted some clarification regarding the 10x reward points on Air India that you mentioned above. I’m seeing only 5x reward points for Air India and MakeMyTrip for the Amex Platinum. The 10x reward points are reserved for the Amex Centurion. Please review and clarify.
Hey..i guess you are confused between the Amex Reward Multiplier program and the Reward Xcelerator program of Amex.
Reward Multiplier is for all amex cards and you get 2x-10x depending on the card variant. MMT is part of Reward Multiplier.
Reward Xcelerator program is only for Centurion and Plat card. It has a different website. Search for Reward Xcelerator amex. Under this you get 10x on Air India. Centurion fetches you 20x.