American Express Platinum Card Has a High Annual Fee, Can Pay for Itself

It doesn’t have the $5,000 annual fee of the American Express Centurion Card or the $995 annual fee of the Mastercard Gold Card, but with a $695 annual fee, the American Express Platinum Card is certainly one of the most expensive credit cards available to consumers. So, is Amex Platinum worth the yearly fee?

The answer is yes… if you use enough of the benefits available to cardholders. For example, you’ll get $15 in Uber Cash per month and an extra $20 in December. That means you’ll get $200 in Uber Cash per year, which already makes up for more than a third of the annual fee. But that Uber benefit is just the tip of the iceberg, as you’ll see below.

The annual fee for the American Express Platinum Card is undeniably steep, but if you avail yourself all of the benefits of being a Platinum Cardholder, the card will more than pay for itself. (Just be sure that the purchases for which you’ll be reimbursed are ones you’d make otherwise.) On its Platinum Card webpage, American Express currently touts that you can get “over $1,500 in Platinum value [with] benefits reimagined across travel, entertainment, and dining.”

For example, you get $200 back in statement credits on select prepaid hotel bookings made on American Express Travel with the Platinum Card. You get up to $20 back each month on digital entertainment, which currently includes Audible, Disney+, The Disney Bundle, ESPN+, Hulu, Peacock, SiriusXM, and The New York Times. You get the cost of a monthly Walmart+ membership reimbursed when you pay for the membership with your Platinum Card, a discount valued at $155 per year.

That’s not all. You also get $200 in Uber Cash per year for Uber rides or Uber Eats orders. You get $200 per calendar year in statement credits for incidental travel fees charged to your Platinum Card. You get a $25 statement credit every month for digital or eligible club memberships at Equinox. You get up to $100 in statement credit for Saks Fifth Avenue purchases. And you get up to $189 back per year on a membership to CLEAR, so you can access expedited security checkpoints at airports.

The American Express Platinum Card is even more lucrative if you meet the requirements of an introductory offer. Right now, for instance, American Express is offering 100,000 Membership Rewards Points to new cardholders who spend $6,000 on purchases on their Platinum Card within the first six months. According to The Points Guy’s latest valuation, each Membership Rewards Point is worth 2 cents. By that math, 100,000 points have a value of $2,000.

According to WalletHub, you’ll need a credit score of 700 or higher to be approved for the American Express Platinum card. That said, the site notes that American Express takes other factors into consideration for Platinum Card applicants, including debt amounts and credit history, and some high-income applicants with scores lower than 700 have reportedly been approved for the card.

Upgraded Points, however, has a different take, saying that there isn't a minimum requirement for the American Express Platinum Card and that some applicants with credit scores in the 600s have been approved while some with credit scores in the 800s have been denied. That site recommends a credit score of 670 or higher for Platinum card applicants.