7 Key Amex Business Platinum Card Benefits That Unlock Over $3,000 in Annual Value

The Business Platinum Card^® from American Express is arguably one of the most popular business cards on the market, but its giant $895 annual fee (rates & fees) is sure to give discerning business owners pause.

In addition to earning rewards on your business expenses, the Amex Business Platinum card can unlock thousands of dollars in value with annual credits for popular merchants, including Dell, Adobe, Indeed, CLEAR+, and many more (enrollment required).

This guide provides a detailed analysis to help you decide whether the Amex Business Platinum card is a smart investment for your business. It includes a complete breakdown of benefits, real-world applications, and how the value you receive can help the card pay for itself.

High-Value Welcome Bonus Offer

Currently, the Amex Business Platinum card offers the following welcome bonus:

• As High As 300,000 points. Find Out Your Offer. You may be eligible for as high as 300,000 Membership Rewards^® Points after spending $20,000 in your first 3 months of Membership. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer.

The exact value you will receive from this welcome offer will depend entirely on how you decide to redeem these bonus points. However, American Express offers a variety of options, such as AmexTravel.com portal redemptions, statement credits, using Amex’s transfer partners, and more.

Depending on your redemption, you could expect to receive up to $6,600 in value according to our points and miles valuations.

While earning the welcome bonus offer for the Amex Business Platinum card does require a sizable minimum spend requirement, it might not be as challenging to meet as you expect. You can use your Amex Platinum card to pay large expenses such as rent, advertising, estimated quarterly tax payments, inventory, and software.

Welcome offer aside, let’s go over 6 key benefits that can deliver immense value year after year for business owners.

Hot Tip: Check to see if you’re eligible for a welcome bonus offer as high as 300,000 points with the Amex Business Platinum card. Find out your offer. Terms Apply.

 

1. Dell Technologies Credit [Up to $1,150]

With your Amex Business Platinum card, you receive up to a $150 statement credit annually on U.S. purchases with Dell Technologies, along with an additional $1,000 statement credit after you spend $5,000 on purchases with Dell Technologies in a calendar year, totaling up to $1,150 each year in credits (enrollment required).

This credit can easily cover purchases each year toward technology, software, and other items you would have needed to spend on your business anyway.

When you think of Dell, you might think of purchasing a computer, but you can purchase a wide variety of items through Dell, including monitors, software subscriptions, headphones, keyboards, servers, data storage, webcams, and cameras and lenses.

Hot Tip:

To maximize your annual Dell credit even further, click through Rakuten first before purchasing your items. This allows you to earn additional cash-back or Amex Membership Rewards points on these purchases.

2. Airline Fee Credit [Up to $200]

By selecting 1 eligible airline, you can receive up to $200 in statement credits per calendar year toward incidental fees paid with your Amex Business Platinum card.

If you fly frequently and often need to check bags or pay for other items, receiving the full airline incidental fee credit should be reasonably easy each year.

Since the credit only applies to your chosen airline, which can only be changed at the beginning of the year, you’ll likely want to select the airline you fly with most often. After all, the carrier you fly the most with will offer more opportunities to purchase checked bags, inflight purchases, seat selection fees, and more, making you more likely to use the full value.

3. Complimentary Global Lounge Access [Up to $500]

The Amex Business Platinum card provides complimentary access to over 1,550 airport lounges globally, including the Centurion Lounge, 10 visits a year to Delta Sky Clubs when flying same-day with Delta (unlock unlimited visits by spending $75,000 on purchases per year), Escape Lounges, Lufthansa Lounges when flying same-day with Lufthansa Group, Plaza Premium, Priority Pass Select Lounges upon enrollment, and additional Global Lounge Collection partner lounges.

If you travel often, this benefit can easily save you tons of money on each trip. For starters, airport lounges that sell day passes can often charge $30 to $50 per visit, if not more. Alternatively, if you usually pay for food and drinks at an airport restaurant, you can save money on those items by consuming the complimentary food and beverages in the lounge.

Airport lounges don’t just offer complimentary food and beverages. Many airport lounges also offer business-centered benefits, such as private phone pods, business centers, quiet places to relax or get work done, fast Wi-Fi, and showers so you can freshen up on your way to your next meeting.

We estimate this benefit to be worth $500, but that’s conservative, as many annual lounge memberships with airlines often cost way more than this.

Hot Tip:

Airport lounge access is often a favorite benefit for Amex Business Platinum cardholders who travel often. When you look at the best lounges to access with the Amex Business Platinum card, it’s easy to see why.

3. CLEAR+ Credit [Up to $209]

A CLEAR+ membership provides an expedited security experience at over 50 airports and stadiums nationwide, allowing you to get through security screening lines faster than you would otherwise.

The Amex Business Platinum card has an up to $209 CLEAR+ credit annually. This covers the entire cost of a CLEAR+ membership, and you also save yourself a lot of time on all of your future trips. This means you can spend less time waiting in lines and arrive at the airport later.

If you travel often, you’d certainly appreciate the added convenience here. Better yet, you can combine CLEAR with Global Entry and TSA PreCheck to ensure you’re always getting through security lines as quickly as possible. The Amex Business Platinum card comes with an application fee credit to Global Entry or TSA PreCheck every 4 years and 4 1/2 years, respectively.

4. Wireless Credit [Up to $120]

Upon enrollment, you can get up to $120 in statement credits annually for wireless telephone service purchases made directly with a wireless provider in the U.S. on your Amex Business Platinum card, amounting to $10 per month.

You’re likely already paying a monthly phone bill for your business, so by using your Amex Business Platinum card for these purchases, you’d earn rewards and save up to $120 each year.

The up-to-$120 annual wireless credit isn’t the only phone-related benefit you receive when paying your bill with the Amex Business Platinum card. You also receive cell phone protection, which covers the repair or replacement costs following damage or theft for a maximum of $800 per claim with a limit of 2 approved claims per 12-month period, minus a $50 deductible.

5. Adobe Credit [Up to $250]

Enroll your card and get up to $250 in statement credits after you spend $600 or more on U.S. purchases directly with Adobe per calendar year on your Amex Business Platinum card.

If you’re not already using them, Adobe offers various tools that can aid you in marketing, content creation, design, and more. This Adobe credit helps you get a tremendous discount on the suite of Adobe products, which includes many products that can be extremely helpful for your business, including Acrobat Pro, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Adobe Express.

6. Complimentary Hotel Elite Status [Up to $500]

Those with the Amex Business Platinum card receive automatic Hilton Honors Gold and Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite status just by holding the card, but you must enroll in these benefits first.

With Hilton Gold elite status, which usually requires 25 nights spent at Hilton hotels each year, you receive 80% bonus points on stays, a daily food-and-beverage credit or complimentary breakfast, space-available room upgrades, a fifth night free on reward stays, and more. With your Marriott Gold elite status, you receive 25% more bonus points, 2 p.m. late checkout (subject to availability), enhanced room upgrades, a welcome gift of bonus points, and more.

Hilton and Marriott brands have a combined total of more than 16,000 eligible hotels worldwide, and as a perk of your Amex Business Platinum card, you can get complimentary elite status benefits. These benefits could make your business trips even more rewarding without you needing to pay any additional costs.

Like the lounge access benefits, we value these elite status perks at $500, though this can vary depending on how often you travel.

7. Hilton Credits [Up to $200]

After enrollment, you receive up to $200 in Hilton statement credits per calendar year, up to $50 per quarter. Purchases must be made directly with a property in the Hilton portfolio on your Amex Business Platinum card, and a Hilton for Business membership is required.

Eligible charges include room rates and incidentals (including dining and spa purchases) charged to your room. Purchases through third parties, such as online travel agencies (including sites like Hotels.com or Expedia), aren’t eligible for this credit.

Amex Membership Rewards Points and Flexible Redemptions

You have multiple excellent ways to earn rewards with your Amex Business Platinum card, including 5 points per $1 on flights, prepaid hotels, and short-term rentals booked at AmexTravel.com, 2 points per $1 on all purchases larger than $5,000, and 2 points per $1 on the following key business categories:

• Eligible purchases at U.S. construction material and hardware suppliers
• U.S. electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers
• U.S. shipping providers

The exact value you receive for your rewards depends on how you redeem Amex points. As we’ve outlined above, the best way to maximize your rewards is to transfer points to select airlines and hotels. You often get the most value possible when redeeming for business- and first-class flights and luxury hotel stays, which is great because these redemptions are usually the most exciting.

For this reason, we value Amex points at 2.2 cents per point, but it is certainly possible to get even more value than that. These are the other options to consider:

• Statement credit: This is by far the lowest-value redemption, but Amex allows you to redeem your points for a statement credit at 0.6 cents per point.
• AmexTravel.com: You can purchase most travel-related items through AmexTravel.com, including flights, hotels, rental cars, and more.
• Pay With Points 35% rebate: Receive a 35% Pay With Points rebate when you use points to book flights on your pre-selected airline choice through AmexTravel.com (up to 1 million points back a year).

Travel and Purchase Protection Benefits

Your Amex Business Platinum card helps keep you covered when traveling and purchasing products by offering you protections like trip delay insurance, trip cancellation and interruption insurance, car rental loss and damage insurance, baggage insurance, purchase protection, extended warranty protection, and more.

These protections can be quite valuable if things don’t go as planned. For instance, with your trip delay insurance, if your flight is delayed by 6 hours or more for a covered reason, you’re covered for up to $500 in reasonable expenses like meals, lodging, and personal items. Or when you purchase an item with your card, that purchase is covered for up to 90 days from the purchase date, up to $10,000 per item, and $50,000 per year, in the event of theft, loss, or damage, thanks to your purchase protection benefit.

Bottom Line:

Ideally, you hope you never have to use some of these benefits, but they can help you if you need to. If you frequently purchase expensive business equipment and travel, one or more of these protections will likely come in handy.

Additional Perks and Business Tools

Amex Business Platinum cardholders receive many more perks, including access to Amex Offers (enrollment required) and the Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts program, rental car elite status upon enrollment, Global Dining Access by Resy, up to $360 in statement credits with Indeed upon enrollment (up to $90 quarterly), access to the Amex Business Platinum Concierge service, no preset spending limit*, Preferred Access to exclusive events, and more.

Like the many other benefits, many of these perks are designed to help save you time and money or enhance experiences. There are dozens of ways you can maximize all of these benefits, from scoring hard-to-get dinner reservations to rental car upgrades during business trips, being one of the first to get tickets to sought-after events, and even receiving elite benefits at hundreds of luxury hotels worldwide.

How To Maximize the Over $3,000 in Annual Value with a Simple Strategy

As you can see, if you calculate the value from the annual credits and benefits like airport lounge access, hotel elite status, travel and purchase protections, and various other perks, it is easy to see how you can receive over $3,000 in annual value — which easily offsets the $895 annual fee.

Fortunately, many credits, such as the annual wireless, CLEAR+, Adobe, and airline fee credits, only need you to be enrolled in once at the start of account opening without requiring ongoing maintenance. However, for others like Hilton and Indeed, utilizing them during their quarterly windows is essential to maximize their value.

Don’t forget that, aside from the card benefits, you earn some of the most valuable rewards on the market. Between the welcome bonus offer and points you earn on your business expenses, you’ll be sure to quickly rack up a large balance of points. Then comes the fun part: redeeming those points for memorable travel experiences.

Final Thoughts

Is the Amex Business Platinum card worth it for your business? The answer is most likely a resounding yes. Once you add up all of the credits you receive, the rewards you earn, and the many benefits and protection the card offers you and your enterprise, it is likely that most business owners will find it very worthwhile.

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