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There's a 300,000 AMEX Business Platinum signup bonus offer targeted to some AMEX members, well worth considering if eligible. The current public offer is half that, 150,000 points, and targeted offers until recently were 200K or 250K points.
American Express may be running into the reality that even for its target demographic, the Business Platinum's high annual fee of $695 makes it a hard sell even with the signup bonus, but especially to justify renewing after the first year. It has terrible points earning compared with the $95 per year Chase Ink Business Preferred (3X points on all travel, Internet, cable and phone services, shipping purchases, and advertising on social media sites and search engines). And if for some reason you prefer earning Membership Rewards points, the AMEX Blue Business Plus earns 2X Membership Rewards points on all spend, with no annual fee.
- Earn 300K Membership Rewards Points after spending $20,000 on the card within the first 3 months
- Earn an additional 10K points adding an Employee Card and spending $1000 in the first 3 months of card membership
- Access to AMEX Centurion Lounges (note that this is for the card member and authorized users only; for guests, a fee of $50 per adult and $30 per child age 2-17 applies)
- Trip cancellation / trip interruption insurance up to $10,000 per covered trip (up to $20,000 per 12 month period)
- Earn 1.5X Points per dollar on:
- Eligible purchases of $5,000 of more
- U.S. electronics goods, retailers, software, and cloud service providers
- U.S. construction materials and hardware supplies
- U.S. shipping providers
- Up to $120 statement credit per calendar year for U.S. wireless phone services
- $200 in statement credit per calendar year for incidental airline fees (must first select an eligible airline)
- Receive a statement credit every four years for Global Entry application fee ($100) or every 4.5 years for TSA PreCheck application fee ($85)
- $189 in statement credit per calendar year for an annual CLEAR membership
- No Foreign Transaction Fees
- Up to $400 per year ($200 semi-annually) statement credit for Dell Technologies purchases after enrollment
- Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite status
- Hilton Honors Gold status
- Annual Fee: $695 is NOT waived the first year
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Finding the 300K AMEX Business Platinum Offer
Since this is a targeted offer, it may be difficult to obtain if you don't receive a flyer with the offer in the mail. Online, your best bet is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) set to a different city, such as Dallas or Denver, or trying an incognito or private window in different browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox or Safari.
Some users have had success, after using a VPN or incognito window, with going to the American Express site, clicking on business credit cards, and if the AMEX Platinum offer is the usual 150,000 offer, leaving the page open. When it times out, after a few hours, they refresh it to see if it will load a higher offer.
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Are You Eligible for the 300K AMEX Business Platinum Offer?
This offer isn't available to those who have or have previously had an AMEX Business Platinum. That said, in practice, AMEX's lifetime language usually enables applicants who haven't had the card for 5-7 or more years to earn the signup bonus again. This is not a hard and fast rule, so your mileage may vary. If you aren't eligible to earn the signup bonus, typically when applying you'll get a pop-up to that effect.
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Analysis
We use a 2 cents per Membership Rewards point rule of thumb, although we recommend aiming for a value of 4 or more cents per point when redeeming points. At 2 cents per point, the 300K AMEX Business Platinum bonus is worth $6000. Even if you get no value from the various statement credits and don't use any of the other card benefits such as Centurion Lounge access, that nets to $5305, but the real value depends on whether you use those points towards international first class or business class award tickets (typically the highest value use of credit card points), as well as your own valuation. Of the AMEX Membership Rewards points airline transfer partners, our favorites are British Airways Executive Club, Iberia, Aeroplan, Air France Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club when there's a transfer bonus; there can also be value with transfers to ANA Mileage Club (even after the award chart devaluation) and Avianca (although forget customer service).
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