American Express Business Platinum® Card offers frequent travelers several ways to add elements of luxury to their travel plans. Are from flight discount arrive the hotel’s elite status and comprehensive access to airport lounges benefit, Amex Platinum Business Card offers unparalleled travel perks that you can only find with premium travel rewards card.
The card comes with a $695 annual fee (see rates and fees). However, this fee can be offset by lots of travel perks and a generous welcome bonus for new subscribers.
Currently, TPG has one Exclusive offer to earn 150,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $15,000 on qualifying purchases with your Platinum Business Card within the first 3 months of your Card Membership.
Related: Is Amex Business Platinum worth the annual fee?
Card overview
Here are some valuable features that come with Amex Business Platinum: up to $400 per calendar year statement credit for Dell technology purchases in the US, Clear .’s $189 annual membership fee refund and up to $200 annually airline charge statement credits on a selected airline. Combined, these three benefits alone can make up for the card’s annual fee. Pre-registration is required to enjoy certain benefits. But the perks don’t stop there.
In total, Business Platinum has close to $1,500 in available statement credits each year, which is a lot more than the annual fee if maxed out. There are additional benefits to traveling such as access to Amex Centurion Lounge and Delta Sky Club (when flying on Delta flights on the same day), the hotel’s elite status with Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy and mobile phone protection. Registration is required for some benefits.
But the one and only perk of Amex Business Platinum that I will always keep and cherish in my heart is the Pay With Points discount. Let’s take a closer look at my favorite benefit to see why it’s so valuable to cardholders.
Related: Everything you need to know about Amex Pay With Points
What is Pay With Points?
Most travel-focused premium cards offer flight-related benefits or credits, such as reimburse you for expenses incurred while traveling during the year. But Amex Business Platinum has a unique airfare discount for anyone who redeems Membership Rewards pay for eligible flights through Amex Tourism.
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By using the Pay with Points function to pay for airline tickets through Amex Travel, Membership Rewards worth one cent per person. On the face of it, that’s not too exciting; TPG . Value Membership bonus is 2 cents per person. However, the Amex Business Platinum card offers a unique perk: you can get 35% of your points back on any airline’s first or business class ticket or one airline’s economy class ticket you choose. Using this benefit, you can earn up to 1 million points back per calendar year, meaning you need to use 2,857,143 points to pay for flights with Amex Travel before this benefit can be used up. in a year. With this 1 cent worth of points per redemption, you’ll need to buy $2.8 million in airline tickets in a year to reach this limit, meaning most people won’t need to worry about annual limit for this benefit.
You can also use the Pay with Points feature to make purchases on your card, buy gift cards and car rentals, and book hotels through Amex Travel, but you will be redeeming points for less than 1 cent for each time, less than 2 cents each time TPG values members’ bonus pointsso using it for plane tickets is a better proposition.
Related: Opinion: Can I pull out my score, and is it worth it?
There are three Amex cards for small businesses that offer a Pay with Points discount, offering between 25% and 50% of your Membership Rewards Points when you pay with points (terms apply):
- American Express Business Platinum® Card: New subscribers can earn 150,000 bonus points after spending $15,000 on qualifying purchases with your card within the first three months of being a card member through TPG’s exclusive offer we. This card offers 35% off Pay With Points on eligible flights (up to 1 million points back per calendar year).
- American Express® Commercial Gold Card: New registrants can earn 70,000 bonus points after spending $10,000 on qualifying purchases during the first three months of card membership. This card offers a 25% Points Pay discount on eligible flights (up to 250,000 million points back per calendar year).
- Business Centurion® Card from American Express: The app is invite-only. This card offers 50% off Pay in Points on eligible flights.
Information on Centurion business cards has been independently collected by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
How does the Pay With Points cashback method work?
Amex Business Platinum card members are required to designate an annual airline they plan to use $200 airline incidental fee credit available every year. For the Pay with Points discount, card members will receive a 35% cashback on the total points used when paying for any flight on that selected carrier or on any flight any business or first class booked through the Amex Travel portal – regardless of airline – back 1 million points per calendar year.
Including that 35% discount means you can use your Amex Membership rewards points worth 1.54 cents per person, instead of the usual 1 cent when redeeming through Pay With Points for flights using Using other Amex cards does not offer refunds. That’s a 54% bonus.
Assuming you have an Amex Business Platinum and redeem your points for eligible flights, you will automatically receive the points back. However, it can take up to a month.
As you can see from my screenshot, it took about a month to get 35% points discount from my pre-booked business class flight Delta Airlines use the Pay with Points option, flying from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) arrive McCarran International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas.
With my original redemption, I spent 59,391 points on a $594 flight ticket, but that has dropped to 38,604 points thanks to my 35% Pay With Points discount Platinum merchant card.
Related: 9 things to do when you get your Amex Business Platinum card
How to maximize your Pay With Points discount
Amex Travel offers several ways to save on bookings, including discounted “Internal Fare” and “Recommended Fare”. For international itineraries on certain airlines, you can get even more discounts when you book through American Express International Aviation Program (IAP).
When you compare your options to book tickets directly with the airline or book through Amex Travel, you’ll notice that the fares are sometimes the same. However, thanks to American Express Insider Fare and the International Airline Program, travelers can get even bigger discounts when booking flights with Membership rewards.
Here’s how to add up those discounts with the Pay With Points discount to get more value with your Amex Business Platinum.
Discounts and stacking discounts
A return flight to Iberia in this business class costs $3,791 round-trip via Google Flights, which is the price you’d pay if you booked directly with Iberia.
The International Airline Program through Amex Travel shows the same base fare, but with a $200 discount. And instead of 379,068 Membership Rewards points, you need 359,068 of them at the standard 1 cent per point rate at checkout.
However, when you stack 35% of Amex Business Platinum points, you get 125,673 points back. Your out-of-pocket cost was 233,395 points, which you redeemed for a value of 1.54 cents each.
Earn miles and elite status
Aside from the significant points savings possible by stacking the benefits mentioned above, another significant benefit to booking flights this way is that airlines treat these tickets like cash bookings. . Instead of needing to search for available prizes and avoid blackout or peak days, you can simply book any available ticket. Furthermore, since flights are considered paid tickets, you will earn bonus miles and elite qualifying stats just as you would if you paid the airline cash directly.
Related: Why the Amex International Airline Program discount is worth it
Key point
American Express Business Platinum® Card offers some great benefits, but the 35% off Pay With Points can be one of the most significant cashbacks if you regularly fly premium cabins. Not only can it save you hundreds of thousands of points a year, depending on how you book your tickets, but it can also add up to other discounts offered through Amex Travel.
This is a win-win in my book. It’s my favorite card perk and one of the many reasons why I continue to keep it Platinum merchant card year after year.
TPG Exclusive App Link: Earn 150,000 Membership Rewards Points After You Spend $15,000 on Eligible Purchases with Platinum merchant card within the first 3 months of becoming a card member.
Additional reporting by Juan Ruiz and Ryan Smith.
For Amex Business Platinum card prices and fees, click here.
