Is the American Express Platinum Business Card cost-effective? My Review + Referral Code

If you would like to obtain an American Express Platinum Business Card, follow this referral link and receive 30,000 free Membership points. Based on the 0.5% payout rate, this represents a premium of €150

I’ve already told you about the American Express Air France card that allows you to collect miles with every expense and have insurance included when you rent a car

I recently additionally subscribed to an American Express Platinum Card for professional use with one main objective: free access to airport lounges

I propose to explain the advantages of this card and to calculate if it is profitable or not.

American Express Platinum Business Card or Air France American Express Platinum Pro Card?

It’s not always easy to understand the intricacies between the different American Express offerings

The American Express Air France Card will allow you to collect Air France miles while the classic American Express card will allow you to collect Membership Rewards points

I didn’t understand it at first, but only the Business American Express Platinum card offers free access to the airport lounge areas

Since this was my number one goal, the choice was easy.

NB: As specified by a reader in the commentary, the personal American Express Platinum card also allows you to benefit from 2 Priority Pass cards and offers advantageous status in several hotel chains

American Express cards are deferred debit cards

All American Express cards are deferred debit cards. In a way, American Express advances you the money when you spend it and you pay it back to them later by direct debit at no charge . So you don’t have to change banks to use American Express. When you register, you provide a bank details of your current account and a direct debit authorization.

In the case of the American Express Platinum card, this payment deferral can be up to 58 days, which provides pleasant flexibility in cash management. Since I have no cash flow problems, I chose to have my expenses from the previous month’s account at the beginning of the month.

The American Express point system

Every time you spend money with your American Express Platinum Card, you will earn Membership Rewards points with a very simple scale: 1 € spent = 1 Membership Rewards point

These points do not have a life span, so you can accumulate them over time without any problem.

You then have several options to use your points

• You can use them to reimburse an expense on the basis of 1000 points = 5€ reimbursed. This represents a payout rate of 0.5% which isn’t fantastic. For comparison, if you do well with Air France miles, you can get a payout rate of 1.7%.
• You can convert your points into products or vouchers on the American Express online store. Some offers may be interesting. As an example, 10,000 points can be used to obtain a 100€ voucher for the Citadines apart’hotel, a 1% payback rate.
• You can transfer your points to hotel loyalty programs (such as Hilton or Marriot) or airline loyalty programs (5 Membership Rewards points = 4 Air France Miles for example). With the example of Air France miles with the scale 1000 points = 800 miles. Based on a mileage value of €1.2 per 100 miles, we obtain a payout rate of 0.96%.

Note that if the Amex isn’t accepted everywhere, it is possible to associate it to your Paypal account. This allows you to pay with it on many websites.

Insurance included

The American Express Platinum Card offers a wide range of insurance coverage. The most interesting being without a doubt the one covering car rental.

By renting a car with your card, you don’ t need to take the optional insurance from the rental companies, you will be covered by American Express in case of an accident

This can be a great savings if you rent cars regularly

The Priority Pass subscription

A big advantage of the American Express Platinum card: it offers you a free Priority Pass subscription. This subscription gives you free and unlimited access to 1300 airport lounges worldwide

These airport lounges allow you to wait for your flight in a very pleasant way: comfortable seats, calm, unlimited Wifi, free drinks, buffet, … Depending on the lounge, you can also take a shower, get a massage, have access to a bed, … (most of the time paying options).

Without the American Express, Platinum card, the Priority Pass card is normally charged at the rate of €400 per year per person.

Access to American Express Lounges

I realized this late in the day, but in addition to the Priority Pass lounges, the Amex Platinum gives you free access to the more upscale Centurion Lounge, American Express Lounges and Plaza Premium Lounge.

Big advantage: we have the possibility to invite 2 people for free even if they aren’t American Express customers.

To identify the lounges to which you have access, go to the Amex application, click on “Benefits” then “Find an airport lounge”.

On the list of lounges displayed, those with the mention “Registration required” are those of the Priority Pass network. For the others, simply show your American Express card to gain access to the lounge.

One free additional card

You can give an additional card free of charge to a family member or an employee.

Big advantage: this additional card also allows you to benefit from a Priority Pass card free of charge

Sponsorship offer

If you would like to obtain an American Express Platinum Business Card, follow this referral link and receive 30,000 free Membership points. Based on the 0.5% payout rate, this represents a premium of €150.

Exchange costs

A big disadvantage of the American Express card is that it charges exchange commissions of 2.8% when paying in foreign currency

This is unfortunately the reason why I use it relatively little abroad, preferring my free Boursorama Ultim card

Additional services

In addition to the benefits described above, the American Express Platinum Business Card allows me to take advantage of other services that I have not yet had the opportunity to experience

• A legal hotline for your company
• A concierge service
• Guaranteed same-day seats in chefs’ restaurants
• ..

How much does the American Express Platinum Card cost?

The American Express Business Platinum Card costs €590 per year. It is slightly cheaper than the equivalent card for individuals (€55/month or €660/year)

If you have a company, it is therefore much more interesting to subscribe to this card as a professional. All the more so as there are no eligibility conditions (whereas you have to justify €65,000 of gross annual income for individuals)

What about profitability?

The profitability of American Express Cards depends very much on your spending levels. The more you spend, the more points you get that you can convert into benefits. For a company with large card spending, this can quickly become very attractive

This isn’t my case, I have a consulting activity with relatively few charges but let’s make a simulation

My American Express cards cost me

• 0 € per year for my personal American Express Air France Gold card (the first year is free and you can get a free extension by calling. Otherwise it’s 165 € / year)
• 590€ per year for the American Express Business Platinum card. Charges and deductions being what they are, I consider that this represents a personal cost of 50% of this amount, or €295

My two cards therefore cost me 295 € / year

With a conservative simulation where I spend 1000€/month on a personal basis (I pay among others all my Airbnb with Amex) and 1000€/month on a professional basis, I thus recover

• 120€ per year with the personal card based on a payout rate of 1%
• 60€ per year with the pro card based on a payout rate of 0.5%

A total of 180 €

I will also save on car rental insurance. Assuming that I rent a car on average 7 days a year and save 15€/day of insurance, that’s 105€ in savings

I take the plane about ten times a year with Anh. Most of the time, we buy a few things: a bottle of water, something to snack on, or even a meal on the spot

These expenses are no longer necessary thanks to access to airport lounges.

A saving of 5 € per trip on average seems to me the minimum. That is 50€/year

If we summarize the earnings / savings

• Gain thanks to points: 180€
• Insurance savings on rentals: 105€
• Saving expenses at the airport: 50€
• TOTAL : 335 €

So the cards cost me 295 € / year for an estimated gain (on conservative bases) of 335 € / year. I therefore consider my cards to be profitable without even having costed the pleasure and comfort of access to the airport lounges which was my main objective when I subscribed to the American Express Platinum card

If you would like to obtain an American Express Platinum Business Card, follow this referral link and receive 30,000 free Membership points. Based on the 0.5% payout rate, this represents a premium of €150.

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