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I recently went on a backpacking trip, and I think American Express wanted to join the hiking party, because The Business Platinum Card® from American Express‘s annual fee is climbing!
Fortunately, Amex also made some improvements to the card, in addition to the fee increase, so it isn't all bad news.
Key Changes
- $695 Annual Fee, up from $595 (increased annual fee applies to applications received on or after 1/13/2022) (Rates & Fees)
- Annual Fee for existing cardholders increased on January 13, 2022. (higher fee will apply at your first account renewal after this date)
- $150 Adobe statement credit
- $120 Wireless statement credit
- $400 Dell statement credit
- $360 Indeed statement credit
- Improved earning rate – 1.5x points on purchases for key business expenses.
Note: 1.5X earning rates are subject to a cap of $2 million in purchases per calendar year on the The Business Platinum Card® from American Express. This cap applies cumulatively to (i.) purchases of $5,000 or more and (ii.) purchases in select U.S. business categories.
Welcome Offer
Earn 120,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $15,000 on qualifying purchases within your first 3 months of Card Membership
- Welcome Offer: Earn 120,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on eligible purchases with your Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership.
- 5X Membership Rewards® points on flights and prepaid hotels on AmexTravel.com, and 1X points for each dollar you spend on eligible purchases.
- Earn 1.5X points (that's an extra half point per dollar) on each eligible purchase at US construction material, hardware suppliers, electronic goods retailers, and software & cloud system providers, and shipping providers, as well as on purchases of $5,000 or more everywhere else, on up to $2 million of these purchases per calendar year.
- Unlock over $1,000 in annual statement credits on a curation of business purchases, including select purchases made with Dell Technologies, Indeed, Adobe, and U.S. wireless service providers.
- $200 Airline Fee Credit: Get up to $200 in statement credits per calendar year for incidental fees charged by your one selected, qualifying airline to your Card.
- $189 CLEAR® Plus Credit: Use your card and get up to $189 in statement credits per calendar year on your CLEAR® Plus Membership (subject to auto-renewal) when you use your Business Platinum Card®.
- The American Express Global Lounge Collection® can provide an escape at the airport. With complimentary access to more than 1,400 airport lounges across 140 countries and counting, you have more airport lounge options than any other credit card issuer on the market as of 03/2023.
- $695 Annual Fee.
- Terms Apply.
- Rates & Fees
- Earn 5X Membership Rewards® points on flights and prepaid hotels on amextravel.com.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase of $5,000 or more.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. construction material and hardware suppliers.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. shipping providers.
- 1.5X earning rates are subject to a cap of $2 million in purchases per calendar year.
Annual Fee Increase
Let's just get this part done and over with. The annual fee on the Business Platinum Card is going up. We all knew it would happen sooner rather than later, as the annual fee on the personal card was also increased in 2021.
Effective January 13, 2022, the annual fee on the Business Platinum Card will go from $595 to $695, a $100 increase. Currently, this is one of the most expensive cards on the market. (Rates & Fees)
Earning Rate
Now, you can earn 1.5 Membership Rewards points on eligible purchases in key business categories. These categories include purchases with U.S.-based:
- Construction material and hardware suppliers
- Electronic-goods retailers
- Software and cloud-system providers
- Shipping providers
You can also earn 1.5 Membership Rewards points on large purchases of $5,000 or more. A cap of $2 million in spending (one million additional Membership Rewards) each calendar year applies cumulatively to both 1.5X earning rates. Business owners with large expenses can really benefit from this one.
All other purchase categories will earn one Membership Reward for each dollar spent.
Adobe Benefit
Amex has introduced an all-new Adobe benefit in the form of a statement credit. You can receive up to $150 in statement credits when you use your Business Platinum Card to pay for your Adobe subscription. Eligible plans include:
- Creative Cloud for teams
- Acrobat Pro DC with e‑sign for teams
Enrollment is required, so don't forget to enroll before using this benefit.
Wireless Credits
It's great to see this credit being extended to more cards. Earlier this year, Amex gave select business cardholders a temporary wireless benefit in the form of a statement credit – $10.00 each month. Now, Amex is adding this to the Business Platinum Card as a permanent benefit.
Cardholders can get $10 back per month–up to $120 in statement credits per year with U.S. wireless telephone service purchases made directly from the provider on your Business Platinum Card.
This benefit also requires enrollment, so don't forget.
Dell Credit
The Dell credit has been around for a while. Until today, it was $200 a year. Now, you can get up to $400 in statement credits per year when you use your Business Platinum Card to make U.S. purchases with Dell Technologies. You can get up to $200 back from January to June and an additional $200 back from July to December.
Once again, enrollment is required. Don't forget to use a shopping portal to really stack on the savings!
Indeed Credit
Indeed is one of the world's largest job sites. As an employer, you can use Indeed to post job listings and streamline the hiring process.
When you use your Business Platinum Card to pay, you can now get up to $360 in statement credits per year for purchases with Indeed. Credits are broken up over the year, so you'll get up to $90 in statement credits every quarter.
And, you guessed it: enrollment is required, so make sure to do that.
Summary of Business Platinum Card Benefits
Here is a list of the ongoing benefits available on the Business Platinum Card:
- 5x Membership Rewards on flights and prepaid hotels at amextravel.com
- TSA Pre Check/Global Entry application-fee statement credit
- $189 CLEAR® statement credit
- The American Express Global Lounge Collection®
- $200 Amex Airline Credit – Get up to $200 per year towards incidental air-travel fees with your selected airline.
- 35% Airline Bonus – Get 3.5 points back for every 10 points redeemed towards any flight with your selected airline (or any business- or first-class flight with any airline)—up to 500,000 bonus points per calendar year.
- Amex cell phone protection insurance.
- Enrollment is required for select Amex benefits.
You can read more about these benefits and other perks here.
- Welcome Offer: Earn 120,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on eligible purchases with your Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership.
- 5X Membership Rewards® points on flights and prepaid hotels on AmexTravel.com, and 1X points for each dollar you spend on eligible purchases.
- Earn 1.5X points (that's an extra half point per dollar) on each eligible purchase at US construction material, hardware suppliers, electronic goods retailers, and software & cloud system providers, and shipping providers, as well as on purchases of $5,000 or more everywhere else, on up to $2 million of these purchases per calendar year.
- Unlock over $1,000 in annual statement credits on a curation of business purchases, including select purchases made with Dell Technologies, Indeed, Adobe, and U.S. wireless service providers.
- $200 Airline Fee Credit: Get up to $200 in statement credits per calendar year for incidental fees charged by your one selected, qualifying airline to your Card.
- $189 CLEAR® Plus Credit: Use your card and get up to $189 in statement credits per calendar year on your CLEAR® Plus Membership (subject to auto-renewal) when you use your Business Platinum Card®.
- The American Express Global Lounge Collection® can provide an escape at the airport. With complimentary access to more than 1,400 airport lounges across 140 countries and counting, you have more airport lounge options than any other credit card issuer on the market as of 03/2023.
- $695 Annual Fee.
- Terms Apply.
- Rates & Fees
- Earn 5X Membership Rewards® points on flights and prepaid hotels on amextravel.com.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase of $5,000 or more.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. construction material and hardware suppliers.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. shipping providers.
- 1.5X earning rates are subject to a cap of $2 million in purchases per calendar year.
Final Thoughts
Seeing an annual fee increase is always a hard pill to swallow—even if perks and benefits are added. With one of the highest ongoing costs of any consumer or business card you can hold, the Business Platinum Card definitely won't make sense for everyone.
But, for those who can utilize the benefits, this card can provide incredible value.
If you love your Business Platinum Card, but really can't justify the annual fee, don't forget to call Amex and ask about a retention offer. American Express has been exceptionally generous with retention offers lately, so don't forget about this option.
Do you think these added features make the card worth the annual fee?
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (Rates & Fees)
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
Everyone seems to be hiking their already high annual fees. Is there a card out there with decent rewards, but doesn’t have a fee of over $400?
Excellent news was very helpful, thanks
I would probably just sign for the SUB and cancel after the first year.
Ok so now this is really high. I think is not worth paying that much unless they introduce some new benefits. Definitely I’m not paying for it next year
Es muy importante que AMEX haya introducido un beneficio de Adobe, nuevo
I am wondering how Amex is making the plat cards more useful to either biz or consumer customers. The biz card sounds to have been improved for biz customers but the consumer benefits are not what I would consider for a prem card with a 695$ AF.
You don’t consider a free subscription to Wal-Mart+ to be premium??
I’m right there with you. It’s a coupon card that has both a Saks credit… and a Wal-Mart credit. Where’s my fine dining monthly Taco Bell credit?
I’ll definitely use the wireless statement credits and the Dell credits also. The 1.5 points per dollar on some of the categories might also be helpful. It is a close one, but I use my card to get me into lounges so often that I think it pays for itself in that way. That being said, I’m not particularly impressed. I wish the Adobe credit was broader in its application.
You can purchase Microsoft 365 subscriptions through Dell to offset the credit.
High yearly fee. The card would need to have extra good benefits for me to be willing to pay this much for an annual fee.
Amex seem to be going for high fee and loads of offers. I like the personal card, can get value even from $695 a year.
Honestly I don’t think in most cases the new benefits outweight the annual fee increase.
It might be worthwhile . if you by chance subscribe to Adobe services or if you happen to be about to purchase a Dell computer.
Otherwise, they would not compensate the rise on the fee.
Some of these benefits can really help offset the annual fee if your are disciplined enough to use them and the benefits are of value to you.
Holy hike this is steep! Ok benefits worth its.. the indeed is good of you use it.
Glad I was able to get two cards before the changes. The new benefits aren’t worth the increased AF to me.
$695 annual fee is just too high to justify any new benefits.
This is one of the highest cost annual fees out there. Even with all the added benefits, this is a hard pass for me.
Not a big fan of these fee increases especially when regular spend isn’t fully back to what it was pre-pandemic!
All you have to do is go into any Centurion lounge and see how crowded they always are and know the annual fee is going to keep climbing every year to 2. These new perks are helpful to some, but AMEX knows they have some perks the other guys can’t match – at least not yet – so just swallow and pay it – I loved visiting the Centurion lounges when I had my AMEX….look forward to the day when I have one again and travel is more normal.
If I have a card right now when do the additional statement credits kick in does my Dell credit now go up to an extra $100 for the balance of this year?
It looks like it’s already kicked in for existing cardmembers too. When I log into my Biz Platinum account, Amex references: “Enroll and get up to $400 in statement credits per year toward U.S. purchases with Dell Technologies on your Business Platinum Card. That’s up to $200 back semi-annually.”
(https://global.americanexpress.com/card-benefits/enroll/shop-dell/business-platinum)
Waiting for them to have a smaller MSR and getting out of pop up jail before being able to get this offer.
Welcome inflation!!
Will be difficult to make use of all the benefits, I barely use the $100 airline credit I have now.