I get it. The concept of paying for a credit card is a bit weird and takes some getting used to. An annual fee, on top of interest, can make reward credit cards expensive, so the first thing I need to do is a Martin Lewis impression and remind everyone that these credit cards need their balance paying IN FULL at the end of each month. Once you accept that, you can ignore the 700% APR some of these cards are advertised with. 

The second point is that the APR is calculated including the annual fee, so you’re not really paying 700% interest on your monthly purchases. I’m not a financial advisor and nothing here is about financial advice, but not everyone understands how APR works on cards with annual fees. 

With that out of the way, have I got value for money from the £650 I’ve paid Amex for their Platinum card?

• £100 Harvey Nichols credit – this benefit is ending in June 2025, but you get £50 to spend in HN every 6 months (June to December and December to June). I used my first credit to buy Christmas gifts, so a genuine £50 saving. The second credit I might use toward some new aftershave. Not a genuine saving as I don’t really neeeed any new aftershave, but a nice treat nonetheless.

• £150 (soon to be £200) UK restaurant dining credit – admittedly, a lot of the restaurants where the credit can be used are in London, but there’s still a decent selection in the north so even if you’re near Leeds or Manchester, you won’t struggle to spend it. I stacked the credit with an offer The Ivy was running where if you bought a gift card of £100 or more, you got a free bottle of English sparking wine. We had dinner at The Ivy in London, costing £195, £150 of which was covered by the credit. A genuine saving of £150, plus the wine is £70 a bottle in the restaurant! You also get £200 to spend in restaurants outside of the UK, but haven’t had chance to use that yet so I’m ignoring that benefit for now.

• Free Hilton Gold membership – you can actually get free elite status in a couple of hotel loyalty programs with Marriott and Hilton being the most useful from a UK traveller perspective. Hilton Gold is especially valuable as one of the status benefits is free breakfast. On our trip to London, this gave us a genuine saving of over £100 during a weekend stay. Gold status also gets you a “subject to availability” upgrade to the next category of room. We actually got a double upgrade from a standard queen to a premium king, saving about £120. I wouldn’t have booked the premium king, so I’m not treating the £120 as a saving, but there’s still value for money there. Plus, whilst not directly related to my Platinum card, Amex were giving £50 cash back on £200 spend at Hilton hotels on my BA Premium Plus card, so that’s a genuine £50 saving. 

• Amex Travel benefits – when you hold the Amex Gold or Platinum, you can get access to The Hotel Collection (and Platinum card holders can access Fine Hotels & Resorts), which give you exclusive freebies on hotel stays. I’ve booked my hotel for this year’s Manchester Pride via Amex Travel’s Hotel Collection and will get a free $100 credit to spend in the hotel restaurant (which does the most amazing Sunday roast!). The price was exactly the same as the hotel direct, so the $100 credit is a genuine saving (worth around £70). 

Just from the above, I’ve had £420 of genuine savings, plus £190 in addition value. Considering I’ve only had the Platinum card for 3 weeks, I reckon I should do pretty well for my £650 membership fee, and that’s before we even talk about the value from the Amex Reward Points. 

Amex usually gives 55,000 points as a sign up bonus for the Platinum but they have a mega bonus of 95,000 points running until January, and if I refer you, you can get 100,000 points. Amex points convert 1 for 1 to Virgin Points and BA Avios so you could easily get a business class flight from the UK to the US with the points (plus taxes). Stack the points with a companion voucher and you can even take a mate. 100,000 points is easily worth at least £1000 if used right, so the points on their own are worth more than the annual fee for the first year. 

Pop me a DM for a referral code to start your Amex journey.