Earn $800 (or More) Back After Spending $8,000 With This Card

The Platinum Card® from American Express is one of the most expensive cards you can apply for, with a $695 annual fee plus $175 for each additional member added to an account (see rates and fees). However, it has a long list of valuable benefits that can easily justify the annual fee and more for the right type of user (terms apply).

In addition to its perks and benefits, The Platinum Card® from American Express also has an excellent welcome offer that can more than cover the first year's fee. In this article, we'll discuss the welcome bonus, the perks of the card, and whether it could be a good fit for you.

The Platinum Card® from American Express welcome offer

The standard welcome bonus from The Platinum Card® from American Express is 80,000 Membership Rewards® Points Membership Rewards Points after spending $8,000 on purchases within the first 6 months (terms apply).

Membership Reward points are worth $0.01 in most basic cases, which is the typical value you'll get from paying for flights and hotels through Amex Travel. You can redeem them for cash back or gift cards, but these methods provide a significantly lower redemption value.

On the other hand, American Express has a long list of airline and hotel partners to which you can transfer Membership Rewards points, including Delta Air Lines, British Airways, and Virgin Atlantic. To be clear, if you transfer points and are strategic about how you redeem them, they can be worth much more than $0.01 each.

Having said that, we'll use $0.01 as the base-case valuation for Membership Rewards points, which would make the welcome bonus worth $800.  

A massive list of perks and benefits

First, the negative. The Platinum Card® from American Express doesn't exactly have the best rewards program in the travel card industry. It earns 1 Membership Reward point per $1 on all purchases, except for airline purchases and both flights and hotels booked through Amextravel.com (terms apply).

However, there are a lot of other benefits of the card, including:

• Airport lounge access at Centurion Lounges, Delta Sky Clubs, Priority Pass lounges, and more (terms apply, enrollment may be required)
• Complimentary Gold elite status with Marriott Bonvoy™ and Hilton Honors
• $200 in annual fee reimbursement on any one airline of your choice
• $200 in Uber Cash ($15 per month, $25 extra in December)
• $100 in statement credits for Saks Fifth Avenue purchases (two $50 credits per year)
• $300 credit toward an Equinox club membership or Equinox+ subscription
• $240 in digital entertainment credits annually ($20 per month) toward services such as Disney+, ESPN+, and more
• $200 toward certain prepaid hotel bookings annually
• $189 annual statement credit to cover the cost of CLEAR Plus
• $12.95 per month to pay for a Walmart+ membership
• Terms apply; enrollment may be required

Some quick math shows more than $1,500 in annual statement credits if you use them all. We can conservatively value the airport lounge benefit at $695 (the cost of an annual Delta Sky Club membership). Even if we don't assign any value to the elite status benefits, or to other perks (like the excellent Amex Offers program), the benefits are worth nearly $2,200 every year.

Tons of value for the right customer

Like any premium card, the benefits of The Platinum Card® from American Express only make good financial sense if you use them. The statement credits alone can justify the annual fee and more, but not everyone wants or needs many of the items on the list. However, if you're confident that you'd use the lounge access and statement credits enough to justify the $695 annual fee, The Platinum Card® from American Express could be a great card for you -- especially in the first year, with that hefty welcome offer.