Is the Amex Platinum 100K, 125K, or 150K Welcome Bonus Offer Worth It? [Current Public Offer Is as High as 175K]

The Platinum Card^® from American Express is arguably one of today’s premier cards. While the $695 annual fee isn’t for the faint of heart, it has many premium perks and benefits (rates & fees).

If this card is on your radar, you’ll want to apply for the Amex Platinum card when the bonus is as high as possible. If you’ve been around the world of points and miles for a while, you’ve likely heard of the targeted welcome offers after meeting spending requirements.

The public welcome bonus offer is:

• Apply and find out if you're eligible for as high as 175,000 points after spending $8,000 in eligible purchases in the first 6 months. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer.

Earning a big welcome bonus offer on this card is ideal, but it isn’t available to everyone every day. In this post, you’ll find all the information you need to apply for the Amex Platinum card with welcome bonus offers of 100,000, 125,000, 150,000 Membership Rewards points — or more!

Targeted offers are discussed in the article below. Please note that these offers are not available to all applicants. Any information related to targeted offers has been collected independently and not reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

Amex Platinum Card Overview

Depending on your personal information, you may see one of several different welcome offers for the Amex Platinum card.

The current public offer is:

• Apply and find out if you're eligible for as high as 175,000 points after spending $8,000 in eligible purchases in the first 6 months. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer.

Once you apply directly through American Express, the issuer will evaluate your credit score, income, and other factors on your application. In addition to telling you whether or not you’re approved for the Amex Platinum card, the issuer will present the welcome offer you’re eligible for.

Welcome offers vary, and you may not be eligible for an offer. If you decide not to move forward with the application, no credit inquiry will be made. This is considered a soft pull on your credit report.

If you get approved and like your welcome bonus offer, all that’s left to do is accept the card and open your Amex Platinum card account. At this stage, your credit score may be affected.

Is the Amex Platinum 100K, 125K, or 150K Welcome Bonus Offer Still Available?

Keep in mind that welcome bonus offers come with a spending requirement. Ensure you can meet any minimum spending requirement before applying for any offer.

Step 1: Check Amex’s Website Directly (Try This First)

We recommend checking the American Express website directly as a first step.

As previously highlighted, the current public offer for the Amex Platinum card is:

• Apply and find out if you're eligible for as high as 175,000 points after spending $8,000 in eligible purchases in the first 6 months. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer.

However, our team has noticed that American Express has offered a targeted and elevated welcome offer to select applicants. As with all targeted offers, these offers aren’t available to everyone, but here’s an example of a 150,000-point targeted offer we’ve found by applying directly through American Express from June 2025:

Our team members have also recently seen offers for 125,000 Membership Rewards points, as shown below from April 2025:

Step 2: CardMatch Tool

If you strike out on the American Express website, your next option should be CardMatch.

CardMatch is a web-based form that allows you to see your best credit card offers from partner banks in seconds.

The site completes a soft credit check to see if you’re eligible for any elevated offers. Since it’s not a hard pull, this won’t count against your credit.

Remember that the CardMatch tool only shows you offers from affiliated banks, so you won’t see every credit card offer available. It currently has affiliations with the following banks:

• American Express
• Bank of America
• Capital One
• Chase
• First Premier Bank

Targeted Email Offers

If you’re lucky, you might find an elevated offer for the Amex Platinum card in your mailbox. Just ensure you have opted in to receive new card and credit offers in your Amex account’s general marketing email preferences.

Reasons You May Not Get a Targeted Bonus Offer

Bad, poor, or limited Credit: First, ensure your credit score is as high as possible. You should be using your current credit responsibly and paying off your bill in full and on time each month.

You already have an American Express card: According to crowdsourced data, you may be less likely to get a targeted offer like this if you already have an American Express credit card.

Maximizing the Amex Platinum 100K, 125K, or 150K Welcome Offer

To put the value of Membership Rewards points into perspective, we’ve rounded up some of the best ways to use them below. These are some of the most lucrative redemptions that show how far 100,000 Membership Rewards points (and more) can go.

Explore Authentic German Summer Festivals

You might not think of Frankfurt, Germany, as a classic summer destination, but the central German city has an array of festivals and activities throughout the season. Check out the Main Festival, the Apple Wine Festival, the Rheingau Wine Festival, or top it off with the Museumsuferfest, a late-August festival featuring the city’s museums.

And you can travel to Frankfurt in style, with your own bed, in the sky on Singapore Airlines. Just transfer your Membership Rewards points to Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer and book the famous Singapore Suites first class.

Singapore Airlines flies this product on its A380 fifth-freedom route between New York (JFK) and Frankfurt (FRA), making it the most fashionable way to fly between the U.S. and Europe.

To book, find dates with Saver award space on the Singapore Airlines website and transfer 86,000 Membership Rewards points to Singapore Airlines. Check out our complete guide to booking Singapore Airlines award tickets.

Once on board, expect to be treated to some of the best service in the sky, with top-notch Champagne, complimentary caviar, and all the other bells and whistles you’d expect from one of the world’s best first-class products. And if you depart from Frankfurt, you can enjoy Lufthansa’s top-notch Senator Lounge before your flight.

Cathay Pacific Business Class Awards to Asia

Cathay Pacific’s Cathay program lets you book reasonably priced Cathay Pacific business class awards to Asia. While you can use Asia Miles to travel to several destinations throughout Asia, consider stopping by the International Arts Carnival, featuring a family-friendly lineup of performances and activities that lasts for about a month in central Hong Kong.

You can book business class flights from the West Coast to Hong Kong and beyond for just 87,000 Membership Rewards points transferred to Cathay, allowing you to try one of the best business class products in the sky.

Even better, you pay minimal award taxes and fees when you book through Cathay, so you won’t break the bank. You can also use Cathay to book tickets on other Oneworld carriers such as American Airlines, British Airways, Qatar Airways, and more. Check out our guide to the best Cathay redemptions for more information.

Hot Tip:

Enjoy a free stopover on all Cathay award tickets — just perform a multicity search and enter the city you’d like to stop in. There are no additional points required to take advantage of this benefit

Fly ANA Business Class From the U.S. to Tokyo

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a sometimes-overlooked Amex transfer partner, but it has an interesting partnership with Tokyo-based All Nippon Airways. You might not want to stay in Tokyo itself, thanks to the heat and humidity of a Japanese summer, so instead, look at the northern island of Hokkaido for cooler temperatures. You can also explore the beautiful beaches of Okinawa or climb Mount Fuji.

Despite not being in the same airline alliance, Virgin Atlantic and ANA have joined forces to let Flying Club members redeem points on ANA flights for an insanely low points cost.

Currently, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club members can redeem points on ANA flights for round-trip business class flights from the U.S. to Tokyo for 105,000 miles from the West Coast or 120,000 miles from the Midwest or East Coast.

Take Your (Extended) Family to the Beach

If you’re looking to save on your summer vacation, you can transfer your Membership Rewards points to Avianca LifeMiles to book short-haul United Airlines tickets starting at just 7,500 miles one-way. That’s because both Avianca and United are Star Alliance carriers.

Depending on where you live and where you want to go, your 100,000 Membership Rewards points welcome bonus might be enough for up to 13 short-haul trips within the U.S.! You can take quite a few people with you for your summer vacation trip.

Mileage costs vary by route, as Avianca splits the U.S. into 3 different award regions. In short, Region 1 is the East Coast, 2 is the Midwest, and 3 is the West Coast.

Flights within a single region cost 7,500 miles in economy class, moving 1 region over costs 10,000 miles, and a trip spanning all 3 regions costs 12,500 miles. For example, you can book a flight from Chicago (ORD) to Austin (AUS) for 7,500 miles since they’re in the same region.

Amex Platinum Card 100K Upgrade Offer

Another route toward getting 100,000 points or more on the Amex Platinum card is via an upgrade offer. For those currently holding the American Express^® Gold Card, Amex has been known to send out targeted offers to entice those cardholders to upgrade to the Amex Platinum card. In the past, these targeted offers have included a wide variety of points, including 25,000, 40,000, 60,000, and even 100,000 points.

However, if you’ve never had the Amex Platinum card before, we highly recommend applying for the card outright your first time, as these welcome bonus offers can reach upward of 150,000 points. Plus, those who get the bonus on the Amex Platinum card are still eligible for upgrade offers on their Amex Gold card at a later date, whereas those who take an upgrade offer to the Amex Platinum card can’t apply and receive the bonus on the card later on.

Highest-Ever Amex Platinum Card Welcome Bonus Offer

Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer.

The highest welcome bonus offer we’ve ever seen for the Amex Platinum card is 175,000 points. While other bonuses are excellent, we highly recommend taking advantage if you find a bonus as high as 175,000 points.

We value 175,000 Amex points at a whopping $3,850, which would easily make it one of the best credit card welcome bonus offers you can receive.

Track Amex Welcome Bonus Progress

American Express does not offer a tracking tool to easily view how close you are to completing your minimum spend requirement. That said, you can still find out how much more you need to spend by asking an Amex representative via that chat feature on the American Express website or by calling the number on the back of your card.

Another option is to head to the membership tab for your Amex Platinum card, click “View All Benefits,” and then scroll down to “Centurion Lounge Complimentary Guest Access.” This tracker tracks your progress toward receiving Centurion Lounge guess access by spending $75,000 on the card in a calendar year, but you could also use it to track your progress toward the welcome bonus offer.

What Is the Amex Once-per-Lifetime Rule?

Put simply, the Amex once-per-lifetime rule prevents you from receiving the welcome bonus offer on a card if you have received it or its family of cards in the past.

For instance, if you had the Amex Platinum card 5 years ago and have since canceled it, it is unlikely that you could receive the welcome bonus offer again. Alternatively, you would not be able to receive the welcome offer on another version of the Amex Platinum card like the American Express Platinum Card^® for Schwab or The Platinum Card^® from American Express Exclusively for Morgan Stanley.

Note that this does not apply to cards outside the card family, like The Business Platinum Card^® from American Express, the Delta SkyMiles^® Reserve American Express Card, etc. Additionally, if the stated terms of the welcome offer you are applying for do not include the “once-per-lifetime” language, you may be eligible to receive the welcome bonus offer even if you have had the card before.

How Do I Know if I Qualify for an Amex Welcome Offer?

If you’ve forgotten whether or not you’ve had a card or aren’t sure you’re eligible to receive the welcome bonus offer on a card, American Express will let you know during the application process.

Those ineligible for any reason receive a pop-up after they click to submit their application. If you receive the pop-up that states that you are not eligible to receive the welcome bonus offer on the card you are applying for, don’t fret, as your application has not been fully submitted yet.

From there, Amex will give you the option of whether you’d like to cancel your application or proceed with the application even though you will not receive the welcome bonus offer. If you decide to cancel your application, no credit inquiry will be made, and there will be no harm to your credit score.

This feature is available on every card that American Express offers, so you’ll always know for sure whether you are eligible for the welcome bonus offer before officially submitting your application.

Final Thoughts

If you are lucky enough to get an elevated welcome offer, analyze if the Amex Platinum card is worth the annual fee before you apply for the card. After you’ve earned your stash of bonus points, let the fun begin by figuring out the best way to use those Amex Membership Rewards.