Credit Card Review – American Express Platinum

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October 14, 2016

This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series Credit Card Review

I’ve covered off both the American Express Gold Personal and Business cards in previous posts and today I am providing you with an overview of the granddaddy of the AMEX family, the Platinum card.

Overview

The first thing people see when they look at the American Express Platinum card is the $699 annual fee. This fee is miles more expensive than any other card out there in Canada but you get a LOT of value out of this card. We’ll break down all the benefits and the value for each of these benefits to show you why this card should be in your wallet.

Membership Rewards Sign Up Bonus

A big part of the value of this card comes from the bonus points you get for sign up. The current offer provides you with 50,000 Membership Rewards points. That’s enough points to fly 2 people roundtrip anywhere in North America in economy!

I value American Express Membership Rewards at about 2¢ per point due to their extreme flexibility so from a purely financial standpoint, these points are worth $1,200. If you even went with a very conservative valuation for the points at 1.5¢, you would still have $900 in value.

So from the points alone, you come out ahead.

Annual Travel Credit

With the American Express Platinum card, you are provided with $200 in annual travel credits. When you use this card with American Express’ Platinum Travel services, you get reimbursed $200 annually. So for example, if you charge a flight through the American Express Travel portal and it costs you $300, you can apply the credit of $200 and only pay the $100 difference. You can use this for car rentals, flights, and hotels.

Now if you want to turn this $200 credit into cash, simply book a hotel room that has a normal cancellation policy (free if canceled within 24 hours of stay) for some time in the distant future (3-6 months), apply the travel credit. A week later you might have a change in plans and need to cancel your hotel room…. well the $200 credit has already applied to your credit card but now you’re not on the hook for a hotel room reservation … if you have legitimate travel charges, use the credit for that. If you don’t, it would be a shame to have that credit expire.

You receive this travel credit once per calendar year so if you got this card now, you would have a $200 credit in 2016 and another $200 credit in 2017. In fact, unless you applied on the first day of January, you would always get 2 travel credits before your annual fee charged again.

This benefit is much more liberal than that of our American brethren. Their credit is only for airline tickets.

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to apply the Travel Credit, check out my How To Redeem Your $200 AMEX Travel Credit Online post.

With this benefit, you receive $400 in value.

** UPDATE (May 2017) **
While you can still receive the 2 x $200 Annual Travel Credit, be sure to read PointsNerd’s update on the new best practice.

Lounge Access

If you’ve ever been in an airport lounge, you know it’s so much better than hanging out at the gate. In a lounge you have a quiet and peaceful surrounding (most times), access to free food and drink (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and showers (in a lot of lounges).

With the American Express Platinum card, you get automatic enrollment in the Prestige Priority Pass Program, which allows for access to many airport lounges around the world. The access is unlimited and free so there are no out of pocket expenses for you during your membership.

The value of this pass is $399 USD (~$525 CAD).

To me, this is one of the best benefits of the card but that’s because I really value having access to a lounge prior to my trip. It really is a great way to get into vacation mode early.

Accelerated Points Earning

With every dollar you spend on the American Express Platinum card, you get 1.25 points rather than the standard 1 point. While this may not seem like much, a 25% bonus on every dollar is a pretty good benefit.

I won’t put a dollar value to this because it really depends on your spend but it is a benefit nonetheless.

Hotel Status

As I spoke about getting upgrades in my How To Get Hotel Upgrades If You Don’t Have Status post, and while there are ways to get upgraded at a hotel without status having status all but assures that you get that upgrade.

With the Platinum card, you get the following statuses:

Hilton HHonors – Gold
- Complimentary standard in-room and lobby WiFi at participating properties when you book direct at Hilton.com or call Platinum Card Service from Amex Canada Inc.
- Room upgrades to preferred rooms at select properties, subject to availability
- Late check-out, upon request
- Access to fitness centers and health clubs
- Two complimentary bottles of water per stay (available at select properties
- 25% Bonus Points on all the Hilton HHonors™ Base Points you earn
SPG – Gold and because of the Marriott/SPG merger, Marriott Gold (reciprocal benefit)
- Room upgrade at check-in, subject to availability
- Earn three Starpoints® per eligible U.S. dollar spent, a 50% bonus over Preferred status members
- Late check-out on request and when available
- Your choice of a welcome gift with each stay. Choose from bonus Starpoints, complimentary in-room internet access or a complimentary beverage
Club Carlson – Gold
- Room upgrade at check-in, subject to availability
- Early check-in and late check-out on request on arrival and when available
- Complimentary internet at Radisson hotels worldwide, and at all Carlson hotels in North America.
- 35% point bonus on every eligible stay
Avis – Preferred
- Discounts on rentals in North America and internationally
- When you’re ready to hit the road, get there faster with Avis Preferred – enjoy quicker reservations and skip the counter and go straight to your vehicle. Get your complimentary membership at avis.com/preferred
Hertz – Club Gold
- A one-class car upgrade (subject to availability)
- Discounts on standard rates
- Up to 4 hours grace period when returning the vehicle (0-4 hours, varies by rental location)
Fairmont – Platinum Status when you charge 5 nights at a Fairmont to your Platinum card
- Guaranteed early check-in and late check-out, upon availability
- Complimentary access to health clubs (excluding spas)
- $100 USD Dining or Willow Stream Spa Certificates
- Two complimentary suite upgrades
- Two complimentary room upgrades
- One complimentary night
- Personalized welcome amenity

So with this benefit, you could extract a lot of value if you stay at these particular hotels. Again, I won’t assign a value to this because it is going to be subjective and it largely depends on your upcoming travel and hotel of choice but again … it’s a very nice benefit.

Preferred Golf Complimentary Membership

I won’t speak much to this benefit because I have found it to be limited in value, not because I don’t golf (I do), but because the courses that are a part of the membership are outside of Canada. Now I love to golf, but I haven’t taken a vacation just to golf but perhaps you might.

Complimentary Membership (a $295 USD value)
Dedicated VIP Desk for pre-arrival needs and preferred tee times
Up to 25% off green fees at participating courses worldwide
Accommodation upgrades (based on availability upon arrival)
Early check-in and late check-out (subject to availability)

In addition to the benefits above you can choose one of the following three benefits:

Stay 1, Play 1 : Enjoy a complimentary round of golf with a minimum 1-night stay (valid at participating resorts only)
Stay 2, Play 1 : Enjoy a complimentary round of golf with a minimum 2-night stay (valid at participating resorts only)
PlayMore : Enjoy nightly golf package of either one round of golf per night OR a $75 USD resort credit in lieu of a round of golf

Platinum Concierge

Personally, I’m a detail oriented travel freak so everything is researched and planned out in minutiae so this really isn’t a benefit to me but if you like having someone recommend places to dine, sights to see and then make all the arrangements for you, you will really like the concierge service. Simply call in to the concierge and ask them to do something like “find me a romantic restaurant that has a good wine list and a view of the Bosphorus”. They’ll take care of it for you.

Again, I won’t assign a value because it’s subjective.

Insurances

As a premium card, you would expect the Platinum card to have a wide insurance offering … and it does. Here’s just a few of the highlights:

Emergency Medical Insurance
Travel Accident Insurance
Car Rental Theft and Damage Insurance
Hotel/Motel Burglary Insurance
Flight Delay Insurance
Baggage Delay Insurance
Lost or Stolen Baggage Insurance
Trip Cancellation Insurance
Trip Interruption Insurance
Buyer’s Assurance Protection Program (doubles manufacturer’s warranty up to an additional year)
Purchase Protection Plan (protection against accidental physical damage and theft up to $1,000 per occurrence)

The only thing that seems to be missing here is Price Protection like the one found on the Capital One Aspire.

Once again, I’m not assigning a value here because it’s subjective but as you can see, you could potentially save a lot of money by having these insurances.

Total Value

If you didn’t read through this whole article, I don’t blame you … there’s a lot there but simply based on the benefits, you can already see that this card offers a lot more value than any other Canadian card out there.

Let’s look at the total value of the card without even considering the subjective benefits.

Membership Rewards Value: $900 (conservative number)
Annual Travel Credit: $400 ($200 in 2016 and $200 in 2017)
Lounge Access: $525

Total Value: $1825
Cost of the Card: $699

As an Asian, I can tell you that $1,825 is greater than $699 so the card is a big, big win in my books.

Sign Up

If you can see the immense value of this card and want to sign up, I would highly suggest you use my referral link. While I extract a small benefit from you using the link you actually come out way further ahead.

The public offering for this card is 50,000 Membership Rewards after you meet the minimum spend on the card (~~$1,000~~ ~~$3,000~~ $5,000 in the first 3 months – updated October 2019) but if you use my link, you will get 60,000 Membership Rewards points.

If you plan on applying for this card and you would like to help out the blog, please use the link below. If you don’t find this post or the blog useful, feel free to search out the sign up from American Express directly but please leave a comment below to let me know why so that I can improve the blog for the future.

http://www.pointsnerd.ca/go/amex-platinum-personal/

I very much appreciate your support and hope that this blog provides you with the tools required to help you realize your travel goals. If it doesn’t, feel free to reach out to me through my Contact form.

How the 787 is Changing the Airline Industry

By

Jayce

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October 13, 2016

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There are two planes that I still have not flown that I have on my bucket list, the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787. Both are technological marvels and both companies made strategic bets on where the airline industry was going. It would seem that the 787 had the better vision and is set to change the airline industry.

I stumbled across this video which does a very good job of explaining what happened between the A380 and the 787 and explains in detail where the industry is heading. Give it a watch:

How To Find The Best Car Rental Rate Possible

By

Jayce

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October 12, 2016

2

This entry is part 3 of 14 in the series How To

We’ve all been there. The flight and hotel are booked and we think that the big expenditures are taken care of. Then we take a look for a car rental and the prices are exorbitant … much more than expected and it’s threatening to blow your vacation budget.

What do you do?

Well, I’ll walk you though my methodology for finding low car rental rates and then I’ll clue you in on how to make sure you have the lowest rate possible.

Finding A Good Rate

There are many methods out there for finding cheap car rentals but my favorite by far is Kayak. I love it because it provides a very simple interface and it allows you to check the rate of their competitors as well.

When you go to Kayak, click on Cars at the top and enter in your rental dates, times and location. You will be given the option of comparing Kayak to their competitors including:

Hotwire
Priceline
Travelocity
Avis
Expedia

I check off all of Kayak’s competitors and look to see which company has the lowest rate. Be sure to change the currency in the top right to Canadian dollars.

A word of caution here. There are two things to keep in mind when you look at the search results:

Location of the Rental Agency – a lot of people assume that the car rental agency is at the airport and while that is likely the case, I have seen where the car rental agency is many kilometers from the airport and away from where you are staying. Just be aware of the location or you might be in for a surprise.
Reputation of the Rental Agency – I have read poor reviews on agencies like Fox or E-Z Rent-A-Car. Just do your research first as some of the stories I have read are very scary (pre-existing damage blamed on the renter, unethical fueling practices, hard upselling of insurance, etc.).

Find Your Rental

After looking to make sure you have checked the location of the rental agency and you are using a reputable company, look for the lowest price.

In my specific example, I found a rental rate of $87 CAD for a 4 day rental with Thrifty at the Houston Airport Car Rental Center.

You may be offered is a Special Rate that is lower. The trade off here is that you don’t know what kind of car you are getting except that it is a Compact Size or Larger. In my experience, 9 times out of 10, the agency doesn’t have the car you expected to have anyways so to me, saving a few bucks here is a good option.

Hold Your Horses

Now before you book your car, let’s make sure you have the best rate possible. What I would do in this situation is go to Thrifty’s site directly and see if I can duplicate the rental price. Sometimes you can find the same rate but sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can find an even lower rate. If you rate is higher than the one you found on Kayak, just use the Kayak rate.

Now if you can find the same or lower rate, see if you can find further discounts.

You maybe able to find a coupon on sites like RetailMeNot.com or other similar coupons sites. Also keep in mind that you may qualify for a corporate rate through the company you work for so either get your corporate code from your HR department or search online for something like “Thrifty Corporate Codes” … I’ll leave it up to you to decide if you work for a company that has a good corporate rate like IBM or GE …

How Do I Know If I Have the Best Rate?

Now that you have done your homework, you likely have the best rate possible but sometimes you have that nagging feeling that you may have left something on the table. Don’t worry, I’ve got your back on that too.

Note that this method only works if you have a reservation and not a pre-paid reservation where you have paid for the rental in advance.

Once you have your rental confirmed and reserved, take your information over to AutoSlash.com and plug in your details on the Track a Rental tab.

What AutoSlash will do is search the web every day until your car rental begins to see if it can find a lower rate than what you found. Think of it as an amazing personal assistant that wants to save you money and knows all the coupon codes that you can apply to your rental. You could skip all the searching from my suggested steps above and use AutoSlash as your first option or you can use my method and then simply use the “Track a Rental” option on the site.

The video below describes how to use the service if you go with AutoSlash as your search engine of choice.

Personally I like to have a little more control over my search but if you’re just starting out and want an easy way to do it, I would be completely comfortable suggesting the use of AutoSlash as your first and only stop.

What Happens Next?

So you’ve plugged in your information into AutoSlash … now what?

Well, all you do is wait and monitor your email. If AutoShash finds a cheaper rate, they will email you with a link to book the cheaper rate. As an example, AutoSlash found me a cheaper rate for my car rental in Cape Town and it saved me $20.03 USD.

When you get the email from AutoSlash, be sure to take action right away because rental prices change all the time so if you want the rate advertised in the email, get on top of it.

What to Remember

When you are paying for your car rental, be sure to use a credit card like the American Express Gold, the Capital One Aspire or any any credit card that provides car rental insurances. Save yourself from paying the Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) to the rental agency if your credit card has coverage already.

Also remember to see what kind of coverage your personal car insurance policy has. You may have more coverage than you think.

Also remember that at most car rental agencies, you are entitled to points which you can credit either to the car rental agency’s program or an airline’s loyalty program like Aeroplan.

Follow these steps and rest assured that you have the best car rental rate possible.

How To Get Hotel Upgrades If You Don’t Have Status

By

Jayce

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October 11, 2016

1

This entry is part 2 of 14 in the series How To

One of the things I love about having status at multiple hotels is that you can book the cheapest room and sometimes end up in the most expensive room. One of my most recent experiences with this was at the DoubleTree in Cape Town. We had booked a standard room on points (20,000 Hilton Points per night) and because I was a Diamond Status Member, I given a complimentary upgrade to one of their most expensive rooms, the Loft Suite as seen in the pictures above.

But what do you do if you don’t have status at a hotel but you still want an upgrade? Well let’s take a look at your options.

I should state at the onset that Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV) because these upgrades are at the discretion of the front desk staff and management.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

I’ve watched many people check in over the years and the thing I notice all the time is that people rarely ask to be upgraded. I’m not sure if it is a North American political correctness thing or if it’s that people are too shy to ask but think about this question:

How is the hotel’s front desk staff supposed to know you want an upgrade?

Even if they presuppose you do, they can’t just ask everyone that checks in if they want an upgrade. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if everyone was given the choice?

I’m reminded of a situation when my cousin was in from out of town and we went to eat at a mom and pops fast food donair restaurant. When we ordered, he asked “can I have a discount?”. The clerk was taken aback for a second and then asked why. He proceeded to tell her that he had a store up the street (which was true) and was just wondering if they had some sort of neighbour discount. The clerk thought for a minute and offered us a 10% discount, which we gladly took. If he hadn’t of asked for a discount, he would never have gotten one.

The same is true for hotel upgrades. If you don’t ask, don’t expect the front desk staff to read your mind.

Special Occasions Helps

If you are in town celebrating a special occasion, don’t be afraid to email or phone the hotel manager and let them know. Be sure to politely ask for the upgrade at the same time.

I remember a time when my wife and I were on our honeymoon in Paris and I notified the hotel ahead of time. When we checked in, we found out our room was upgraded and when we entered our room, we were surprised with chocolate dipped strawberries, a bottle of champagne and a hand written note from the manager congratulating us on our wedding.

Again, you need to let the hotel know as you may be pleasantly surprised.

The $20 Trick

Hotel staff are not the most highly paid people on earth and they very much appreciate getting tips for their service. One of those people that you might want to consider tipping is the check in clerk. But how do you encourage your clerk to upgrade you?

It’s standard procedure to give the clerk your licence for identification and a credit card for incidentals so why not sandwich a nice crisp $20 bill between the two when you check in and say “do you happen to have any complimentary upgrades available?”

Some like to call it bribery, I call it pre-tipping.

This practice has been rampant in Las Vegas and there’s even a website set up to tell you how successful the trick is. At the time of writing, users have reported success 83.2% of the time. To me, that’s a pretty good chance of being upgraded.

I used this trick in combination with my hotel status at the Vdara a few years ago. I had booked the cheapest room available and was upgraded to the Executive Corner Suite, a 5 level upgrade from the standard room.

You might be thinking, that this is normal behaviour in Las Vegas, but can I use this trick in Phoenix or San Francisco or Miami? The answer is an unequivocal yes. If you read the hilarious book, Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky, you will understand why my answer is yes.

Be Polite

As I mentioned in my previous post about How to Survive Flight Delays and Actually Come Out Ahead, you need to be polite.

Don’t be an a-hole. You won’t get what you want and there are many tricks that hotel staff can play to make your stay miserable, like making your key card expire.

If you’ve ever been in a supersized hotel in Hawaii or Las Vegas, you know that it could be a 20-30 minute ordeal to take the elevator to your room, walk the 100 mile hallway to your room just to find out your room key doesn’t work. Guess what you have to do? Go back to the front desk and get your room key reprogrammed. And guess how easy it is for the front desk staff to do that to you over and over and over again?

“Sorry sir, we’ve been having issues with our room keys recently” … all because you felt like being an a-hole. Be a jerk and your room upgrade might be a room right next to an elevator above the hotel’s nightclub. Your choice.

Now on the flip side, if you are pleasant and genuinely connect with your clerk, the chances of you getting a room upgrade are astronomically better than if you chose to treat the staff with disrespect.

Want Hotel Status?

Feel like there’s still an element of chance in obtaining your upgrade that you aren’t comfortable with? Well there are two ways to solve that. The first is to pay for your upgrade and the second is to become a status member with a hotel.

While becoming status with a hotel can be a bit of a long term investment, stay tuned to the blog and subscribe because in the coming days and weeks, I will be covering off how to get instant status with many hotels and how to leverage those statuses to get even more hotel statuses. Just click on the subscribe menu above.