New Sign Up Bonuses On The American Express Platinum Cards (Annual Fee’s Now Increased As Well)

The changes going into effect on the American Express Platinum cards (personal & business) have now gone into effect. As predicted the sign up bonuses have also been changed to 60,000 points.

Let’s look at the new sign up bonuses:

• American Express Platinum “Vanilla”: 60,000 points after $5,000 in spend ($550 annual fee). Much better offers previously. As far as I know the incognito mode offer of 75,000 points after $5,000 in spend is sadly no longer available (Update it is still available, it’s showing a $450 fee in big print but the fine print says $550 fee)
• American Express Platinum Card® for Schwab: 60,000 points after $5,000 in spend ($550 annual fee). This is the highest bonus we’ve seen on this card, previously it’s only offered 40,000 points after $3,000 in spend
• Platinum Card® from American Express Exclusively for Mercedes-Benz: 60,000 points after $5,000 in spend ($475 annual fee). Interesting that the annual fee on this card hasn’t been increased yet, this is supposed to have been increased to $550 according to what their media team told me.

• Platinum Card from American Express for Ameriprise Financial: No sign up bonus (has had one in the past), annual fee of $550 is waived first year.
• The Platinum Card from American Express Exclusively for Morgan Stanley:  60,000 points after $5,000 in spend ($550 annual fee). Doubtful that you’ll be eligible for this card, has had bigger sign up bonuses in the past.
• The Platinum Card from American Express Exclusively for Goldman Sachs: 60,000 points after $5,000 in spend ($550 annual fee). Doubtful that you’ll be eligible for this card, has had bigger sign up bonuses in the past

Honestly, none of this is that interesting. The Mercedes-Benz is interesting solely because it hasn’t had it’s annual fee increased but the sign up bonus has been increased. That being said it did offer a bigger sign up bonus of 75,000 points last year. I was hoping we’d see a bigger incognito mode offer on the ‘vanilla’ Platinum card but unfortunately that isn’t the case. If American Express are planning on building hype around these offers, they are going to struggle.

Hat tip to Rapid Travel Chai