Amex Business Platinum 100K Deal
Yesterday I wrote about some of the “enhancements” Amex has released for their Platinum cards. Specifically, the personal Platinum card will now earn 5X Membership Rewards points on airfare purchased directly from airlines, while the Business Platinum will earn 1.5X on purchases over $5,000. Doctor of Credit has also uncovered a 50% bonus on the Business Platinum when redeeming points for any airfare on your chosen airline or premium cabin fares on any airline. This makes points worth 2 cents each on redemptions.
My opinion on the matter is that these changes aren’t even close to enough. In fact, I believe that Amex is probably working on a longer term revamp of their Platinum products if/when it becomes necessary. Whether we see more changes will ultimately depend on the long term success of Sapphire Reserve, but if Amex wants to stop the bleeding they can do one more thing, increase the bonus!
And that is exactly what they have done on the Business Platinum card. Let’s take a look at the new offer, go over some things to think about before applying and discuss why you should be cautious where you use the card to meet the hefty minimum spend requirement.
The Offer
Earn 50,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $5,000 and an extra 50,000 points after you spend an additional $10,000 all on qualifying purchases on the Business Platinum Card within your first 3 months of Card Membership. Offer expires January 25, 2017. $450 annual fee.
Application Link
Card Benefits
- Complimentary access to over 1,000 airport lounges. (Priority Pass, no free guest access.)
- $200 Airline Fee Credit per calendar year.
- 1.5X on purchases over $5,000.
- Pay with Points for all or part of an eligible fare and get 50% of those points back. (Frequent Miler has a great post explaining the value of this benefit.)
- No foreign transaction fee.
Worth Applying For?
The best offer we have ever seen for this card was 150K and that was targeted. Last year many people including myself were able to apply for the 150K offer with a targeted code, but Amex seems to have shut down that practice. We have seen Amex freezing and clawing back points with another recent targeted offer, so it isn’t likely that you will want to use a code that you aren’t supposed to.
While 150K targeted offers do exist, they are rare and the chances of getting one are slim. 100K is a very good offer on this card and I wouldn’t hesitate to get it if the Platinum Benefits make sense to you. The first year value of $400 in airline fees, lounge access, 100K points, elite status and other benefits is certainly worth $450 in my eyes.
Use Caution!
As I mentioned above, American Express has been very agressive with freezing and clawing back points with people who applied for a supposedly targeted 100K personal Platinum card recently. One of the reasons for clawbacks has been the use of manufactured spend techniques. MS is excluded in their terms, so I would be very cautious with how I met the minimum spend.
Also, some people who signed up for that offer and then downgraded their account before the first year was up, have had issues with American Express as well. If I were to apply for this or any card from American Express, I would pay the annual fee up front (if applicable) and keep the product the first year. You can always reevaluate then.
Conclusion
As I said yesterday, competition is a good thing. While we now have much more restrictive rules when it comes to how often you can earn bonuses from many banks including Amex, we are starting to see much higher bonuses which is nice. Chase has started a war in the premium card market and that is good for us. This war will be a long one, but if it keeps generating 100K offers, then that is a good thing in my book.
What are your thoughts on the new Amex Platinum features and 100K Business Platinum bonus? Let us know in the comments!
HT: Doctor of Credit
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If you use Plastiq is that considered MS?
I don’t believe so and I haven’t heard of any cases where using Plastiq has caused issues.
I saw someone posts “Interesting fact is you do earn MR’s for buying AMEX gift cards from AMEX”. Is that true? Has anyone tried? If so, any clawback?
If you use Platinum to pay IRS for a good chunk of tax you owe , is it a MS? We know we have to pay 1.875 % as a separate charge item.
I don’t think they would consider it MS. You are paying money (a bill you owe) and not purchasing a cash equivalent.
[…] day, Amex made a half-hearted attempt to bolster their Platinum products to respond. They also upped the bonus on their Business Platinum card to 100K which is nice if you haven’t had that card before, but the spend requirement is quite […]
What does MS mean? It would be nice to have a glossary of the jargon used. Thanks!
Sorry. I do use the full term in the article right before the abbreviation, but didn’t make it very clear. It stands for manufactured spend.
thank you!
To all the people screaming “trap” – what exactly do you think they are trying to trap?
I was sort of joking about it being a trap but sort of not.
By offering up an enticing bonus with the enhanced benefits of the card, as well as applying the once per lifetime bonus rule, they get a bunch of folks to pay up the $450, then take back a ton of bonuses that don’t meet their terms and conditions, and then don’t have to worry about that person ever getting the bonus for that card again. Then, moving forward, they have a customer who has to take proactive steps to cancel or downgrade the card in the future, and inertia generally keeps the vast majority of the population renewing their card each year without much thought. That’s why they say it’s much cheaper to keep old customers than it is to obtain new ones, and by clawing back bonuses they reduce the “cost” of obtaining new ones as well. It’s not a consumer friendly policy but it’s a smart business move.
Well it didn’t work with me, I cancelled mine Aug 30th and got $375 from the annual fee. They did claw back my 100k but at least they didn’t keep my money and I made $125 on Amazon with them
If people had points clawed back, they did MS, despite what at they wrote here in the commenrs.
Seems that way. It looks like Amex is reviewing all applications for high point value cards and if you didn’t
earn all your points through organic spending, they take them back.
[…] this time for the Amex Business Platinum. Take your pick of outlet touting this, I’ll choose Miles to Memories since it put a word of caution front and […]
I said this in another post, but let me say it again:
THIS IS A TRAP!
I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE AMEX…
For people who still dont get it – You think this 100k AMEX is by ACCIDENT? NO. We just had a 100k frozen throne clawback and they are reintroducing the trap again. Weed out the MSers. To me, AMEX is DONE folks. DO NOT MS. What does this mean? It means treat AMEX is BB/Serve. You break/you buy. You apply/you die.
$15K in organic spend down is an awful lot in three months. Too rich for my small business.
In the words of Admiral Ackbar: “It’s a trap!”
Seriously, unless you will not have a need to transfer amex points out of your account for at least 3 to 4 months, do not apply for this offer. I went through the last 100k amex clawback experience and it was so aggravating at every turn. Just read all the threads where people specifically say, “I wish I had never applied in the first place.”
As Joseph said above, even if you do everything to avoid running afoul of the terms and conditions, Amex has no problem freezing your ENTIRE account, not just the bonus in question, until their “analysis” is done and every time you call the first person you speak with will have no idea what’s going on and you’ll have to be transferred over and over.
I filed CFPB complaints, appeals, etc. and still had my points clawed back, had my account frozen for over 3 months, spent hours speaking to customer service. Awful experience all around.
Did you MS?
I initially did $1500 organic spend then $1500 MS spread over 2 months. However, BEFORE my bonus posted my account was already frozen, which I found out when I tried to transfer 50k points out before the 2nd cycle was over.
Once I realized they were freezing accounts, I then put an extra $3k (the original min spend required) in organic spend on the card in the third month. They unfroze my account – after much protesting -long enough for me to make the 50k transfer, then a week later it was frozen again and remained that way until the beginning of September at which point they clawed back the 100k point bonus.
They did, however, let me keep the points from the MS that they specifically identified as not meeting their terms and conditions, which was odd.
Just to second your words of caution, I received a targeted 100k personal card in late August, met the spend organically, with no MS, but last week after the points posted I noticed they were frozen. This is with a targeted offer and no MS. Until they clear this up I’m staying away from them.