American Express Platinum Reserve or the Amex Platinum Reserve is a premium credit card that is positioned to slot between the most premium Amex Platinum Charge card and the Amex Platinum Travel credit card. The Amex Platinum Reserve credit card was originally conceived as a budget variant of the Platinum Charge card with a lower fee but giving access to the famous Centurion lounges in Mumbai and Delhi.
Later on, Amex added a monthly milestone to this card but however discontinued access to the Centurion lounges. Recently the card’s design was revamped and hopefully, the product will also be revamped soon. The new design is stunning and would arguably be the best credit card design in India at the moment. However, how does this card fare in comparison to other Amex cards? Should you apply for it? Read to find out
Amex Platinum Reserve Credit Card
Amex Platinum Reserve Card Snapshot
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Fees:
- Annual and joining fees of 10,000+ GST i.e. 11,800 every year.
- Fee waiver on annual spends of 10 lakhs
Reward and Benefits:
- Joining Benefits: 11000 reward points on spending 30k within 90 days
- Milestone Benefits:
- 1000-rupee voucher on spending 50k in a month. Options are Flipkart, BookMyShow, Shoppers Stop, Myntra, Big Basket, PVR, MakeMyTrip.
- 3 golf access twice a month on spending 50k in a month.
- Reward Points
- 1 reward point for every 50 spent. I value 1 Amex reward point = 40p. Thus a 0.8% reward rate.
- Accelerated reward points:
- 3x reward points for every 50 spent on the Amex Reward Multiplier portal. Capped at 25k reward points every month
- Exclusions: Spends on insurance, utilities and fuel spending. Wallet load is allowed.
- Lounge Access
- 12 domestic lounge access per year (max 3 per quarter)
- 2 complimentary international lounges access every year via Priority Pass
- The disappointment here is that the Amex Platinum Reserve card no longer provides access to Amex lounges.
Thoughts on the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card
As mentioned earlier the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card was originally conceived as the budget variant of the pricey Amex Platinum Charge card with access to Amex Centurion lounges within India. As such this product never became popular.
Positives of the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card
1K voucher on 50k spent every month
Amex Platinum Reserve credit card provides a 1K voucher for 50k spent every month. This translates into a decent reward rate of 2%. This is over and above the 0.8% reward rate in the form of MR points. Thus, translating into a 2.8% reward rate. The reward rate may go up to ~4.4% assuming that you spend the entire 50k on the Amex Reward Multiplier platform where the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card fetches 3x reward points
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Complimentary Taj Epicure, EazyDiner Prime and Accor Plus Traveller memberships
The Amex Platinum Reserve credit card offers Taj Epicure, EazyDiner Prime and the Accor Plus Traveller membership to cardholders and is renewed every year. The Taj Epicure membership appears to be good value, but it is a watered-down version of the original Taj Epicure and does not include the complimentary room night. The EazyDiner Prime membership is the same as that you get with Indusind EazyDiner credit card.
Recently, Amex introduced Accor Plus Traveller membership for the Amex Platinum Reserve credit cardholders. Again, this is the most basic of the Accor Plus membership that offers 10% off on room rates, access to Accor Red Hot room (gives up to 50% off on select hotels) and 20 status nights among a few other things. The detailed T&Cs on the complimentary memberships can be accessed here. Further, details about the Accor Plus Traveller membership can be accessed here.
Lounge Access
The Amex Platinum Reserve credit card offers a decent number of domestic lounge visits. This card offers 12 domestic lounge visits, capped at 3 per quarter. Further, it also offers 2 international lounge visits via Priority Pass. The bad part is it doesn’t offer access to the Centurion lounge. To access the Centurion lounge you need to have the Amex Platinum Charge card.
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Negatives of the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card
The reward rate is mediocre
The base reward rate of the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card is low at 0.8%. Only thanks to the monthly milestone of 1k vouchers on 50k spent that the reward rate becomes acceptable at 2.8%. However, the vouchers are also limited and do not include Amazon Pay vouchers. I believe Amex should offer say 5k MR points on every 50k spent in a month on this credit card much like the Amex MRCC(Apply Now) and the Amex Gold Charge card(Apply Now). This product tweak may make the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card a very popular credit among Amex aficionados. What say?
The Hotel Collection benefits seem useless
The Amex Platinum Reserve credit card offers a Hotel Collection benefit under which you get a USD100 credit to spend on dining plus a room upgrade on arrival, when you book for at least 2 nights through the Amex (link) portal. This is the similar offer that is available with the Amex Gold card(Apply Now). Prima facie, this seems like a great offer, but a quick check for the hotel rates on the Amex portal and MMT reveals that pricing on the Amex portal is quite high and even if you take into account the USD100 credit, the prices remain high. Further, don’t forget that there are many credit card offers running on MMT that can lower the prices further.
The dreaded Amex acceptance issue
No matter how good the Amex credit cards are. They always face the dreaded issue of Amex cards being not accepted at merchant outlets. The problem is exacerbated once you move out of metro cities. Thus, you always need a Visa/Mastercard or a Rupay variant credit card with you.
Comparing the Amex Platinum Reserve card with other Amex cards
The Amex Platinum Reserve credit card doesn’t stand out when compared to other Amex credit cards. Below is a table that shows the approx. reward rate on the Amex card accounting for the fees paid. The Amex Platinum Reserve credit card sort of gives the reward rate of ~2% for 10lk annual spending after taking into account the fee waiver. However, even at this level, the Amex Platinum Travel gives a better rate of ~2.8%.
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Below is the dynamic reward calculator that includes the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card for you to see how it fares compared to other Amex credit cards.
Conclusion
The Amex Platinum Reserve credit card is a mediocre credit card, to be honest. It should be avoided. While Amex slots the Amex Platinum Reserve credit card between the Amex Platinum Charge and the Amex Platinum Travel(Apply Now); in terms of reward rate, it slots even below the Amex MRCC, which is available FYF here. If I have ~10lk annual spends then I would explore the Amex Trifecta than the Amex Platinum Reserve
No matter the new design of this credit card looks fabulous and I would like to have one for my collection, but not stupid enough to pay ~12k just for the design.
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Image Courtesy: Bradley Brister on Unsplash The article was published/updated on 1st 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.
