After having just received the bill for Rob’s Business Platinum at the hefty price tag of $595, I decided that he should cancel the card. There were a number of reasons why I made this decision:
1. I have the personal American Express Platinum and can add Rob (plus 2 of my kids) as additional cardholders for a mere $175. All additional cardholders can enter the lounges with me (before Rob was using the Biz Plat to enter). Even sweeter, Amex made me an incentive offer to add additional Platinums-if the new cardholder spends $500 in 3 months, I get 5,000 Membership Rewards points per cardholder-easy task! And even sweeter-I even added my third kid as an additional FREE Gold card member (under the Platinum) and can earn 5,000 points from spending on that card too. Note, Amex capped my bonus points at 20,000 with the offer and I will hit that with the 3 additional Platinums and 1 Gold.
2. Amex didn’t make Rob a retention offer, which surprised me. However, in thinking about it more, Rob barely used this card for his business in favor of his American Express Business Gold Card with its lucrative 4x on advertising purchases. In addition, Rob has a Chase Ink Business card that he uses often for business purchases as well.
3. The card served its purpose in that he got it last year and made the requisite spending and ended up ultimately earning 100,000 Amex points, which was completely worth the $595 price tag last year.
4. I do not find the benefits that appealing to sway Rob to keep the card. Specifically, this is how I feel about many of the benefits……
a) You only earn 1x point per $1 on most purchases. Rob does better with the Amex Gold and Chase Ink mentioned above.
b) It is very difficult to use the $200 airline incidental credit as I know many of you are aware. You need to be able to anticipate where you will be paying for bags, etc and this is often difficult to know in advance.
c) Since Rob didn’t need the Dell credit for his business purchases, I forced myself to use Rob’s $200 Dell credit over this year and now have new headphones and a new portable speaker. It was fun to get these “free” items, but I really didn’t need them.
d) The most appealing benefit to me that comes with the Business Platinum is the ability to earn 35% points back when using Membership Rewards Pay with Points through American Express Travel to book a flight with your selected airline (the same airline u picked for the $200 airline incidental credit). But that is the problem, again you need to anticipate way too far in advance your travel plans and needs when you select the airline. Yes, Amex will often let you change your airline mid year, so that could be helpful, but just know, only if you have NOT used ANY of the $200 airline incidental credit. However, you can also receive this benefit when booking a first or business class ticket with ANY airline available through American Express Travel. But for us, I often don’t book first or business class flights….they are usually too high for my family being slaves to the school breaks and peak pricing.
5. Even if Rob cancels his Business Platinum, Rob won’t lose his stash of Amex points because he still has his Amex Business Gold card as well as an Amex Blue Business card (love this card!). Note, that Rob’s bucket of Amex points is made up of points from 3 cards-his Business Platinum, Business Gold and Business Blue and all of the points earned on those cards flow to his ONE Membership Rewards bucket. Eliminating one of these cards (or even 2), leaves his bucket intact as long as he keeps a card that still earns Membership Rewards points.
6. The Business Platinum card is a charge card, not a credit card and canceling a charge card will have a very minimal impact on Rob’s credit score.
7. We have a good way to destroy the card, an almost impossible feat given its heavy metal design. Rob asked Amex to send us an envelope so that we can mail the card back for Amex to dispose of it. The card cannot just be cut like a plastic credit card.
Bye Bye Business Platinum, thanks for a great year of bonus points (and some benefits :-). ).