Our Second Year with AmEx Platinum Was a Mild Failure

As our travel schedule increased two years ago and we wanted to maximize mileage, spending power and airport comfort, we got back into the credit card points and miles game. After a fair amount of research we settled on the American Express Platinum. In addition to 125,000 Membership Rewards points once we hit a certain purchase level, the benefits seemed to work well with our lifestyle and travel preferences.

The first year was more or less a success, with an estimated $1,187 in “savings” in addition to the mileage. That more than offset the annual fees of $870 ($695 for Hanna, the primary user, plus $175 for an additional authorized user, me). That convinced us to keep it for at least another year. Unfortunately, mostly through our own fault, it failed to pay for itself over the billing period from July 2023 through June of 2024.

What Benefits Did We Get?

A huge part of the appeal of the AmEx Platinum is the access to lounges when we fly. I don’t attribute a set expense to them, but rather try to figure out what we would have spent otherwise. Here are the lounges we used:

• Centurion Lounge DFW – Four times

• Centurion Lounge CLT

• The Club CHS

• Etihad Lounge IAD

• Lufthansa Lounge IAD

• OMA Lounge MZT

Based on my back-of-napkin estimations, I’d say those visits prevented me from otherwise spending $200.

Another benefits is a $15 per month Uber credit (more in December), which can also be used with Uber Eats. We used that nine of the 12 months, for a value of $135.

Hanna used the $50 Saks credit once (she could have done it once each six-month period).

We also used the $20 per month entertainment credit against our Sirius XM Bill for a total of $240.

There was also the $189 Clear Plus Credit.

That adds up to $814, not even enough to cover the authorized user in addition to the primary cardholder – not a complete failure, but not a great use of resources, either.

What Did We Fail to Maximize?

Obviously, using the $50 Saks Credit would’ve bumped us up a little, although in fairness to math, usually Hanna spends more than that to get the discount, so there is some out-of-pocket expense. We also didn’t use any of the “$15 off $50” deals that sometimes show up for local restaurants. We should have been more vigilant there.

There’s also a $200 airline fee credit (to be used for baggage, snacks, etc., not the tickets themselves) that we had foolishly assigned to American, but we bought no snacks and Hanna’s Platinum status meant we never had any out of pocket costs. Nor did we need or use any of the hotel benefits that are associated with the card.

We would have done better, except for two factors:

First, the long awaited Centurion Lounge at DCA failed to open on a timely schedule. I can think of several meals that we paid cold, hard cash for at DCA that would not have otherwise come out of pocket. It eventually opened in early July, just as our year-long tolling cycle ended.

Second, most of our travel that would’ve benefitted from the card in 2023 was in the first half of the year, and most of it for 2024 was in the second half of the year. Thus the year-long cycle sat in the hole of the donut.

The AmEx Platinum Plan Going Forward

We’ve decided that we will keep the card for at least another year. For now, the annual fees have remained the same. If they were to rise, that would force us to reconsider. Also, assuming that the DCA Centurion club is not overcrowded or otherwise inaccessible, it should provide a lot of benefit on the nearly 50% of trips that we fly out of it. We have numerous short trips this fall, as well as one longer one in November, that should benefit from lounge access on both ends, and multiple trips in January that will do the same.

One downside is that Sirius XM is no longer a reimbursable expense, so while I switched the credit to the NY Times (something I’d long wanted to subscribe to anyway), for the first few months I will not get the full value of that credit.

Finally, we have (what we consider) a shitload of AmEx rewards points and potentially some long trips in the future where we might want to use them. Those include a planned 2024 20th anniversary trip to Greece. The only direct flight from our airports is on United, and while we can’t transfer the AmEx points directly to them, through a series of steps it’s possible to use them to get those flights in business class. In case that fails to materialize, however, we want to keep the points as liquid as possible. That means keeping some sort of AmEx card alive. Additionally, we intend to travel even more over the next few years, and we think that the juice will be worth the squeeze.