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Amex has announced that it is ending the free Wi-Fi Boingo benefit for The Platinum Card® from American Express. This complimentary membership gives you unlimited Wi-Fi access to one million hotspots around the world. The new changes will take effect May 1, 2019, but there is a silver lining: Existing cardholders can enroll in the benefit before the deadline and keep membership through the end of 2019.
Key Changes
- Boingo Wi-Fi Access will cease to be a card benefit starting May 1, 2019
- If you enroll in the Boingo American Express Preferred Plan before May 1, 2019, you will retain your membership through December 31, 2019
Although we aren’t 100% sure that this change will also apply to The Business Platinum Card® from American Express and the Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card, it seems like a safe bet that the benefit will be dropped for business cards too. Regardless of which card you have, it's a good idea to register for your Boingo plan now.
Our Take
It's always disappointing when a card issuer removes a benefit, but we think the Amex Platinum is still a great value for most cardholders thanks to the variety of other perks and benefits it offers.
Source: One Mile At A Time
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.
Hopefully they replace it with something else.
perhaps this benefit will be replaced with something else
It is a shame to lose a benefit, though I for one enjoy being ‘off the grid’ in flight. I use the Wifi time in the VIP lounges ahead of flights – the Priority Pass is one of my favorite benefits of the card. I was still lucky enough to enroll in the benefit before it was cut off yesterday, so thanks for the heads up on that one, Award Wallet!
Disappointing, for sure. But no surprise… across the board it seems benefits wither.
I also do not find Boingo to be all that reliable. I usually end up pre-paying for data.
This is very sad. American Express Platinum has been losing it’s value over the past few years. I feel like despite the luxurious perks, I am better off using other credit cards that are much more generous with higher value points.
There was a time when Amex was my go to card, but not anymore.
Didn’t use this benefit anyways so no loss to me. Wonder if they will add anything to replace it or is the cost savings to help pay for Uber, Saks, etc?
I don’t think the Boingo benefit worked in-flight when I tried in the past. Or, was I wrong?
Not something that I use a lot but I still get disappointed when things are taken away rather than added.
Boingo used to be useful for WA State ferries, but they dropped the contract. I haven’t seen them in as many public places as before. Sad to see the benefit go away, but really haven’t made a lot of use out it recently.
Not a big deal. Not sure what percentage of folks used this benefit
It’s disappointing that those members will soon be losing access to that bonus perk, i’m willing to bet that their annual fees won’t be decreasing either :/
I will add this to my personal comparison of AXP vs CSR that I look at when my AXP is up for renewal.
Thanks.
These days the availability of WiFi is so much better than it used to be, so it’s not a huge loss, even though it is still a loss.
I will miss this perk. WiFI has become essentail to get anything done while traveling.
There are still a couple of HSBC Premier cards, including a free one that provide this benefit, although they require Premier ($100,000 balance) status.
Plenty of other options so this is not a great loss.
This a bit of a bummer. That free Boingo did come in useful every once in a while.
Well this is sad. Hopefully there will be something to take it’s place.
Looks like I better do some checking on my Marriott Bonvoy bizcard.
In my travels I feel I only ever noticed Boingo connections being available at airports, and in-flight… at least as a T-Mobile customer, I’ll still have access to the free hour of in-flight use.
Will the AMEX SPG Biz card also lose this perk?
I have already enrolled but this is not a perk that I have used at all. It is never a good thing when we lose benefits. I hope they get something else to replace it.
I wonder if they will replace it with anything. I bet this is a big loss for business people. Makes me wonder what prompted it.
Often times when people are picking between cards the benefits are the clincher.
Bummer! It’s a sad day when a benefit is taken away….. Hopefully another great benefit will be added at some point that could possibly make up for it!
I know many people like to work on the flights and use the internet. I prefer to use that time as a respite from all of that. So losing this isn’t a big deal for me. I know it will be for some people.
I only signed up for Boingo just in case I ever needed it, which I didn’t. However, AMEX Platinum did raise their AF so they would be wise to think twice about gutting any more of the programs that make the cards attractive.
Thanks for the heads up. I just paid my annual fee again. Hoping to get full benefits from this card.
Sad news for card holders. Thanks for the information!
Yes, even if it’s bad news like this, it’s important to know it as soon as possible to plan accordingly.
It sounds like if I am already a member I don’t have to doing anything. I hope they don’t eliminate it for the business cards.
Too bad, worked well with my GOGO benefits from Flexperks. Between the 2, rarely on a flight where I could not use Wi-Fi, if available and I wanted/needed to log in.
Honestly, Boingo sucks, and this benefit was always a pain in the neck to actually use. I’d rather get a VPN service plan instead and connect to whatever free WiFi is available, which there’s usually plenty of if there’s a Boingo hotspot around.
We can only hope this benefit will be replaced with another but given the recent refresh, I have my doubts that will happen.
Whilst disappointing to lose a benefit, if we have to lose one this would be near the top of the list to give up as free WiFi is widely available everywhere these days.
I see free WiFi as an inevitability at some point anyway. There is just too much money to be made from a captive audience with nothing else to do, but browse, click, and buy. Any thoughts on if/when that might happen?
Never good news that benefits are going away, but this one was never useful to me. Perhaps they’ll replace with it with something that is or I can call and complain and get a little something in return?