Amex Platinum: 40,000 points + £400 travel credit + £100 cashback

Earn points & cashback that could be worth almost £700.

For a short time, the welcome bonus has an extra bonus on the American Express Platinum credit card. But watch out for the massive annual fee.

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What is the American Express Platinum card

The Amex Platinum card is a point earning card that comes with extras like free travel insurance and credit to spend each year on eating out (£150 that could reset in January) and at Harvey Nicholls (£50 that resets each January and June). However it comes with a hefty £650 annual fee.

You’ll earn one Amex Membership Reward point for every £1 you spend with the card. That’s either the equivalent of 0.5% back if you swap your points for gift card (a rate that can be easily beaten.)

You can read more about the card and it’s benefits in our full Amex Platinum review.

Standard Amex Platinum welcome offer

Earn 40,000 points

New cardholders can get 40,000 Amex Reward points if they spend £6,000 in the first three months of having the card. That’s worth £230 in gift vouchers or as Nectar points. Or you can swap them for different airline points. I’ve rounded up all Amex Reward redemption options here)

Unlike with other Amex cards, you might be able to get this bonus if you’ve already got an Amex or had one in the last two years.

The only cards that will rule you out are the Preferred Rewards Gold card and the Rewards card. Here’s more on which cards will still make you eligible for this offer.

As with other American Express cards, my tip is to wait for heavily increased welcome offers before applying.

Card	Reward type	Normal bonus
American Express Platinum credit card	Membership Rewards Points	40,000 points

Boosted Amex Platinum welcome offer

This latest offer could add up to £360 of freebies, plus travel insurance.

Earn 40,000 points & £400 extra credit + £100 cashback

This offer, running from 3 July to 27 August 2024 doesn’t increase the 40,000 Amex points on offer, but does add a substantial £400 travel credit on top.

The travel credit will only be able to be redeemed with Amex Travel, and it’ll need to be used in one go with a minimum spend of £400. You’ll also have to use it within 12 months of it being applied to your account, which will be once you meet the criteria.

To trigger both parts of bonus you still need to spend £6,000 in three months, which will earn you another 6,000 points and a combined total of 46,000 points (worth £230), meaning you’ll be up £630 in total.

There’s currently also £100 cashback available if you go via cashback site Quidco, or a lower £50 via TopCashback (it’s always worth checking both as the rates change). Giving you a total of £730.

That’s before you deduct the £650 fee. At some point this year, Amex has plans to stop pro-rata refunds of the annual fee if you cancel midway through the year, so assume you’ll be paying the full amount (though there is a chance you could ditch it and get a partial refund before the changes happen).

But that doesn’t mean you make just £80 for taking this offer. You have other benefits which will then be essentially free. With the £150 restaurant credit and £100 Harvey Nicholls credit, that’s another £250 (potentially another £150 if the restaurant offer is extended in 2025), and then there’s the family travel insurance and airport lounge access on top.

So combined we’re looking at:

• 46,000 Amex points (worth £230)
• £400 travel credit
• £100 Quidco cashback
• £150 restaurant credit
• 2 x £50 Harvey Nicholls credit
• Annual travel insurance
• Airport lounge access

There’s another part of the offer that might appeal to some – entry into a competition to win one of 50 pairs of tickets to Wimbledon 2025.