AMEX Platinum - Worth the annual fee?
 

Just got an upgrade offer from AMEX to get a platinum. Some of the perks look pretty interesting. The free companion flight ticket for international flights sounds pretty hot, very valuable. Its $300 a year.

Worth the fee? Over hyped?

It looks good from what I've seen so far.

yeah its pretty good man , i get my 300 worth easily yo

amex black (centurion card), now that's a card with perks.

It's worth it for the lounges, etc if you travel somewhat alot.

The free ticket isn't always as good as it sounds as you do pay full retail price for your ticket, alot of times you can get '2' tickets from other places for the full retail price you would pay for '1'.

Amex black isn't as good either as it used to be. almost not worth the 2500.00 per yr anymore..

Just a high limit status card, some bennies are still ok..

What he said! :)

Brad

Yes.

duke

When I constantly traveled and wanted to get perks and never worry about limits it was worth it. I'm pretty much retired now and just use Visa.

I like it. If nothing else they charge the least to convert foreign currency.
Me Being Canadian and going to the US so much, and buying so much from the US, I almost save the fee just on that alone. (I used to have a US dollar Amex gold, but when it expired they wouldnt give me a new one :()
The concierge is pretty neat too.

:thumbsup :thumbsup

ego perks thats about it 99% same as plat

i've wondered the same thing, but figured that the free ticket was exactly what todd said, something that would "force" you to pay full price for a ticket you could get a lot cheaper. and since i don't travel all that much, i really don't need the lounges - i've always figured the gold card was "good enough" for what i need it for.
but what i found interesting was a letter that i got (two of them, actually, within three days) from amex saying that i was such a good customer they wanted to let me carry balances instead of paying off my card in full each month. it sounded good for about 30 seconds (for times i might want to put a chunk of money toward something else any given month)...until i thought about it...and then realized it's just a back-door to let them charge me interest and late fees if my payment doesn't get there on the right day (i usually get my amex bill 9 days before the due date, for some reason).
nice try, amex ;-) :321GFY

$300 for Platinum is good offer! :thumbsup

Worth it alone for the lounges, and if you spend a lot monthly the points are nice as well. Granted, typically it's more a business function when the points are actually worth much (e.g. putting $100k/mo on it - they add up to a few grand/yr in gift certificates and whatnot).

But, just the airport lounge access alone both saved me $300 worth of stress many times over.

Every year I use the perks a little more. Well worth it IMO

With the "free companion ticket" I just ordered (two days ago) non stop 2 first class tickets to the UK. $4400 CDN with all taxes and other BS stuff, even the gay taxes that heathrow charges.
With <2 weeks notice I couldnt even get coach tickets till I phoned the concierge.
So I dunno.

Wouldnt hurt to phone and find out the price befor saying its cheaper to get them somewhere else.