Note: All information about the American Express® Green Card, Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card and The Amex EveryDay® Card has been collected independently by MileValue.

Out of the four most popular transferable currencies in the points and miles industry, Membership Rewards might just be the most powerful.

If you’re looking for a solid, do it all travel card, then The Platinum Card® from American Express should be on your radar. This one card brings you great airport lounge access, hotel status, and more.

Let’s keep it short, because there’s a lot to get into with this great card and we’re going to take a deep dive into everything you need to know about the Amex Platinum.

The Basics of The Platinum Card from American Express

Before we dive deep into the perks of the Amex Platinum, we need to go over all the basics.

As awesome as using points and miles are to book flights, sometimes you have to pay cash for your flights. Whether you found a great deal on airfare, or there just isn’t award availability and you’re absolutely itching to take a trip, sometimes paying for flights just works better. When you’re looking to buy a flight, you should be using the best credit card to buy a flight.

Even when you are booking an award flight, there are inevitable taxes and fees that you just can’t avoid.

But that’s easier said than done.

If you have The Platinum Card® from American Express (Rates & Fees) or The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (Rates & Fees), you’ve probably poked around the benefits page and came across the Fine Hotels + Resorts program. 

The FHR program provides elite-like benefits at select properties for hotels booked through the program. In order to get all the benefits, you do need to book through the FHR program and not directly with the property.

If you’ve been following the news in our hobby, you’ve probably already heard of the “enhancements” recently added to The Platinum Card® from American Express: 

Annual fee is now $695 (Rates & Fees) for new accounts opened on or after July 1, 2021 

For existing cardmembers, the new annual fee will take effect on the annual renewal date on or after Jan.

If I had to choose just one card to use for all of my points earnings, I am fairly confident that I would choose the American Express® Gold Card. There’s a lot of compelling reasons why I’d choose the Amex Gold over others.

This workhorse has some of the best earning rates on common spending categories, along with good usable credits.

One of the most valuable benefits of the Platinum Card from American Express is its $200 per year--calendar year--of incidental travel fee credits. You get a couple other credits as well this month, at least another $85 worth of Saks Merchandise + Uber credit, that would be a shame to forget about.

I'm bumping this up to the top of the blog roll as a reminder to make a change by TODAY. You must choose the designated airline for any Platinum card (including the Business Platinum), and the Hilton Aspire card (which comes with up to $250 incidental fee credit) by today as well if you want it to be different than last year's. 

One of the most valuable benefits of the Platinum Card® from American Express is up to $200 in statement credits for incidental fees with your designated qualifying airline every calendar year.