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The American Express Platinum card offers a bevvy of benefits and the Mercedes Benz American Express Platinum card offers all of them plus more. Here’s a look at the official offer from American Express.
Yes you can get it if you’ve had the Amex Plat before
So per the terms above, you can get this card even if you’ve had a different American Express Platinum card, but excluded if you’ve ever had this specific product.
Product, you say?
If you aren’t familiar with the varying products definition: Credit card companies issue different types of cards even if they may carry similar looks and names. For instance, The American Express Platinum card, The American Express Platinum card for Mercedes Benz, Ameriprise American Express Platinum card, The American Express Business Platinum card, etc. All of these are technically different products, and therefore don’t count against your “Once in a lifetime” new member sign up bonus when applying for them individually. Of course, YMMV, but most people have not had problems receiving the bonus when applying for different products.
Why get this card?
If you own or lease a Mercedes there are some nice perks listed above:
- 5x purchases on Mercedes
- If you’re thinking of buying one. Ask to use this credit card. If they say no, tell the dealer you’ll pay the processing fee. On a $30,000 car you’ll pay several hundred bucks in processing fees but earn another 150,000 points. Totally worth it IMO. At just $0.02 you’re earning $3,000 back. Way more when redeemed for international air travel.
- $1000 certificate when you spend $5000
- 2000 overage miles waived on a lease
- $100 credit towards accessories
Honestly, none of those apply to me, and probably don’t apply for most people. However, here’s a list of things I think would would benefit you:
- 75,000 bonus points = valued at just $0.02 per point that’s worth a $1500
- $200 annual airline fee reimbursement – in your first cardmember year, you’ll qualify twice for this – that’s $400
- The airline reimbursement is per calendar year vs the cardmember year of which the annual fee is based.
- Global Entry fee reimbursement – worth $100
- Priority Pass Select membership – worth ~ $400
- lounge access around the globe
- Delta Sky Club lounge access – when flying on Delta
- Centurion Lounge access – network expanding and very worthwhile
- Access to Fine Hotels and Resorts
- Amazing benefits such as free breakfast, resort credits, room upgrades, early check in, late check out, etc
- Over 20 transfer partners: like Singapore Air, Air Canada, Air France, British Airways
- SPG gold status
- Hilton Honors gold status
- Boingo free wi-fi at more than 1,000,000 hotspots around the globe
- The Hotel selection
- slightly different that Fine Hotels and Resorts, but provides great benefits, credits, and upgrades
- Return protection on goods a store won’t take back, you get reimbursement up to $1000/year $300/item
Seriously the list goes on and on – if you’re interested, check out the full list here
The biggest, by far, are the transfer partners.
Airlines
- AeroMexico Club Premier
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France Flying Blue
- Alitalia MilleMiglia
- ANA
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- British Airways Avios
- Delta SkyMiles
- El Al
- Emirates Skywards
- Etihad Guest
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Iberia Plus
- Jetblue
- Singapore Airlines Krisflyer
- Virgin America Elevate
- Virign Atlantic flying club
Hotels
- Choice Privileges
- Hilton Honors
- SPG Starpoints
The transfer partners are so crucial in making these points unbelievably valuable. Above, I had them valued at roughly $0.02. I tend to get value more in the 5-10 cent range. These values come from long haul international business/first class travel. In fact, Amex points are how I flew last year from San Francisco to London on Virgin Atlantic by transferring to Delta, and how I got back from Japan on American Airlines First Class by shoring up my British Airways account when Amex had a 40% transfer bonus.
I’m really wanting to plan a trip to Russia soon and experience Singapore ‘s 777-300ER First Class. I also want to fly the direct flight from SFO to SIN on Singapore’s brand new A350 in business class. I’d like to try out their A380 Suites from Singapore to Beijing at some point too. Are you seeing the pattern…Singapore, Singapore, SINGAPOOOOOORE. You guessed it…they are a transfer partner and you can experience one of these products with a transfer.
Here’s what they look like: images courtesy of singaporeair.com
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.