Step by step, here’s how to maximise the latest boosted offer from American Express.

This won’t be for everyone, but if you are in a situation to follow these steps and spend the money required, it’s hard to beat the return from the welcome offer and account credit deals available through the American Express Platinum credit card over the next six months.

Here’s how you can take advantage, then ditch the card with a healthy profit.

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What is the American Express Platinum credit card?

The Amex Platinum card is the premium option offered by American Express. You’ll pay a massive £575 annual fee, but in return you’ll get some premium features such as travel insurance and top tier status at some hotel chains.

The problem is these extras alone don’t justify the fee – and that’s if you even need them. And nor do the exclusive offers only available to cardholders.

The ones you might use could net you £400 a year: Spend £100 at Harvey Nicholls and you’ll get £100 back, spend £300 on eating out at participating restaurants in the UK and abroad and you’ll get £300 back. Others, such as £10 Addison Lee credit each month and $200 One Fine Stay credit, you probably won’t beneift from.

Factoring in the usual welcome bonus of 30,000 Amex Reward points after a £4,000 spend in three months makes it more appealing – but it’s still marginal, and could well be beaten by less complicated offers on other Amex cards. My review takes you through all the card in more detail.

Why now is the time to get one

So why bother telling you about it? Well there are two factors that make NOW the best time to apply. First a new and temporary boosted welcome deal massively increases the profit available. You’ll get 60,000 points for spending £6,000 in six months and £200 credit for travel spending.

Second, it’s likely your spending will take you into early 2023. Since those credit offers mentioned above reset on 1 January 2023 you will be able to claim two lots of money back on eating out and at Harvey Nicks.

With me so far? It’s actually very low effort to take full advantage, but I’ve broken it down into 10 steps so you don’t miss out anything. Here’s what you need to do and when.

Step 1: Check your eligibility for the card and welcome bonus

As you should before applying for any credit card, check the chances of acceptance for the Platinum card via an eligibility check. You can do this on a comparison site or direct with American Express. If it looks good, then move on to the next step.

You can still apply for the card if the odds are low. Even one out of 10 means you might get accepted. You just need to make a call.

However I’d avoid applying full stop if you have important credit applications in the near future, say the next six months. This includes mortgages, balance transfer credit cards or even car finance (if a car is essential to get to work etc).

You also need to check you are eligible for the welcome bonus. Though most Amex cards require that you can’t have had a card in your name in the last two years, it’s slightly different for the Amex Platinum.

The rule here is that you can’t have had one of the following cards in your name in the last two years:

• Amex Preferred Rewards Gold
• Amex Rewards
• Amex Platinum
• Amex Green

So even if you’ve had a different card, such as the Platinum Cashback or Nectar card, then you can get this bonus. I’ve explained more in this article on getting multiple American Express signup deals.

Step 2: Get a refer-a-friend link

If you know anyone with an American Express credit card, ask them for a refer-a-friend link (if not, I’ve got one here). This is an important step that will get you an extra 5,000 Amex Reward points.

There is an alternative which pays hard cash, and that’s going via TopCashback to earn £35. Not a member? Sign up for another welcome bonus worth £10.

Step 3: Apply for the card and pay the fee

Whichever option you choose, you then follow the link to apply for the Platinum Credit Card. Do this before 25 October 2022 as that’s when the boosted welcome offer ends.

Shortly after acceptance, you’ll need to pay the £575 fee. So if you don’t have the money available upfront it’s best you don’t apply. However, as we’ll see in a later stage you will be able to get roughly half of this back.

Step 4: Spend £6,000 in six months

Assuming you’re successful in your application, you’ve now got six months to spend £6,000 to trigger the 60,000 point bonus. You must spend this full amount. A penny less and you won’t get the bonus.

Of course you can spend it faster, and if you think that’s likely I’d suggest you maybe don’t apply for the card at the start of August as it’s important you still have the card in January.

It’s definitely worth thinking about your spending before applying to be sure you can achieve this with your normal spending. Don’t buy things just to trigger the bonus – it’s a waste of cash.

It might be worth ordering a supplementary card for your partner so their spending goes towards the total too. Just make sure they realised you’ll be paying for their spending – the last thing you want is for them to splash the cash without realising how credit cards work.

You can track your progress towards the bonus in the Amex app. There’s a tab at the bottom called “Membership” and this is where you can see not just how much you’ve spent so far but also how long you’ve got before the six months is up.

Step 5: Set up a Direct Debit

You won’t want to get charged interest on your spending, so you’ll need to clear the balance owed every month. An easy way to ensure you don’t forget is to set up a Direct Debit for the full amount.

If you’re new to cashback credit card spending then you need to be careful not to spend twice. By this I mean spend both on your credit card and from your current account – it’s easy to misjudge your “real” bank balance.

A way to avoid this is to transfer the equivalent of your spending out to a separate account on a regular basis. Ideally daily, but weekly works too. This ensures there’s enough set aside to pay the credit card bill when it comes along.

Step 6: Shop at Harvey Nicholls twice

Within the offers tab on the app you’ll see a Harvey Nicholls credit offer. Activate this.

Then use your Platinum card to buy something that costs £50 or more before 31 December 2022. The purchase will trigger a £50 credit to your card making the item free or almost free (it’s hard to spend bang on £50, especially with delivery factored in).

Try to buy something you actually want or need. Beauty products are a good place to look, though it’s all mid to high end. It might be worth waiting until around Black Friday to see if you can combine your spending with other promotions.

Then, after 1 January 2023 you’ll want to repeat this – and earn another £50 credit. In total that’s £100 back.

Step 7: Eat out in the UK

The recent £300 dining credit promotion isn’t quite as good as it sounds (here’s my full analysis of the offer). I think you may struggle to use the £150 credit for overseas dining (though it’s great if you can). But this means I’m not factoring in redeeming that part of the deal in these calcuations.

However the £150 credit for UK restaurants will be much easier to get, even if you don’t live in London where the majority of participating eateries are based.

Once again this offer can be claimed twice in your first six months. You’ve got one lot of £150 to spend until the end of this year, and another from 1 January. This means in total you should get £300.

And if you can use the overseas credit too, then that will also start again from January. You’ll need to activate both UK and overseas offers in the Amex app before spending.

Step 8: Transfer your bonus

Once you’ve spent the £6,000 you’ll get the 60,000 points added to your account almost immediately. There will also be another 6,000 or so earned thanks to the 1 point per £1 spent ratio. And there’s hopefully also the 5,000 extra points from the refer-a-friend link. This gives you a total of 71,000 Amex Reward points.

You’ve got a few options here. Using them for gift cards, transfer straight into Nectar points or credit to your bill only gives you the equivalent of 0.5p (or less) per point. So the 71,000 points will be worth £355. Not great.

Better is to swap them into Avios points and then into Nectar points. This extra conversion stage increases the value per point to 0.8p, and a total value of £568. You will however have to use the points at Sainsbury’s, Argos and eBay.

Alternatively, you can move the points into a number of different airline schemes to go towards flights, though I’m not a fan of redeeming this way.

But if you’re not sure what you want to use them for you will need to open up another American Express card that earns Amex reward points – probably the free Amex Reward card. This is vital for the final step as your points won’t be lost when you come to cancel the Platinum card.

Step 9: Spend £200 on travel

The other part of the bonus is a £200 credit to use on American Express Travel. This can go towards hotels and flights. There were chains like Best Western, Ibis and Point A listed for London and Glasgow when I looked so there will hopefully be something that fits your plans, even if you’re not going abroad.

Unlike the other credit offers mentioned, this spend can’t be cumulative – the full £200 or more has to be spent in one go.

As with the other offers you’ll need to pay and wait for the credit to be applied (it should appear within 30 days after you pay but could take up to 150 days).

The terms and conditions state that you’ll still get the statement credit after purchase, even if you’ve cancelled the card – which brings us onto the next and final step.

Step 10: Cancel your card

Once you have secured the bonuses and your Harvey Nicholls, dining and travel credit there’s no point keeping the card.

You can earn more points from other cashback and reward credit (and debit) cards, while extras like travel insurance are likely cheaper bought separately if you’re not a family needing annual, worldwide cover.

So it makes sense to cancel the card and get a pro-rata refund on the fee. If you take the full six months to get the bonus and then cancel you’ll get roughly half the money back. Do it sooner (remembering you’ll want to spend in January for the offer credit) and you’ll get more.

You can of course keep the card for longer, but the fee will eat into the profit you’ll have made.

Summary: How it adds up to £880