The American Express Business Platinum Card is basically AMEX’s version of their wonderful Platinum Card but for business use – the card heavily focuses on business benefits and the annual credits are more tailored towards business spending (think software, etc.). If you are able to maximize all of the credits the AMEX Business Platinum Card offers, then you should absolutely take advantage of an offer with a big sign-up bonus – note the card does have a huge annual fee.
Since the Business Platinum Card is also meant as a travel card – some of the benefits are similar to that of the personal Platinum Card – for example, lounge access and statement credits for incidental airline fees. While there are a number of similarities and differences between the two cards, let’s highlight an amazing benefit the AMEX Business Platinum Card features (and the personal Platinum doesn’t).
AMEX Business Platinum 35% Pay with Points Rebate
Like most banks with rewards points, American Express have their own travel portal where you can book flights, hotels, cars, etc. – you can obviously use your AMEX Membership Rewards points to pay in full or in part for travel booked with AMEX Travel. The standard ratio is 1 MR point = $0.01 towards a flight booking, for example. This means a $100 flight would cost 10,000 MR points – you can, of course, mix and match – so pay part with cash and part with points for your travel booking.
Usually transferring points from a transferable bank points program to an airline frequent flyer program is the best way to use your bank points – everything else including things like redeeming points for gift cards or merchandise will generally offer bad value (because you can usually get more value per point than just $0.01). However, if you have the AMEX Business Platinum Card and are booking a cash flight through the AMEX Travel Portal, you can get 35% of your points back when using them to pay for that flight – this can potentially represent an exceptional deal.
Important terms and conditions to be aware of:
- First Class and Business Class flights on any airline are eligible (if they show up on AMEX Travel)
- Economy Class flights are only eligible on the airline you selected for your $200/year airline incidental credits
- minimum of 5,000 MR points must be applied to the flight booking
- if your selected airline (for the $200 credit) is Southwest, Frontier, or Spirit, you have to call AMEX Travel to book
- points rebate will post to your account within 10 weeks
- flights booked as part of a travel package are not eligible
- up to 1 million points per year
- other terms apply
You will need all of the points required at booking because this is a rebate instead of a discount applied during the booking process.
Essentially if you use this rebate correctly, the value of 1 MR point could be 1.54 cents instead of just 1 cent (after the rebate posts to your account).
Example: Business Platinum 35% Pay with Points Rebate
Let’s say we selected United Airlines as our airline for the $200/year incidental credit – that means we must book a United Airlines Economy Class flight through AMEX Travel for the 35% Pay with Points rebate to apply – or we can book any First Class or Business Class flight that shows up on AMEX Travel and the rebate would also apply.
Let’s say we are booking a $200 United Airlines Economy Class ticket:
- flight cost is $200 and we can book on AMEX Travel online
- we selected United Airlines as our airline for the $200/year incidental credit
- during the booking process we have the option of paying either $200 or 20,000 MR points for this flight
- we select the 20k MR points to pay for the flight ticket
- within 10 weeks, AMEX credits our Membership Rewards account with 7,000 points
35% of 20,000 (the number of points we used to pay for the flight) is 7,000 points and therefore our final cost for the flight is 13,000 points after the 35% points rebate posts to our account.
This works the same way for all flights, provided you meet all of the conditions mentioned above.
Earn Miles & Elite Credit on these Tickets
When you book a flight through AMEX Travel, you are booking a cash flight – cash flights can earn you award miles and elite credit with your frequent flyer program (depending on the fare you purchase and the terms of the program you are using). Whether or not you use your AMEX points to pay for all or part of the flight you are booking through AMEX Travel does not matter to the airline as the airline will see this as a cash ticket. Essentially what you are doing when using Pay with Points, is paying AMEX Travel with your points and then they just pay the airline normally with cash for the flight.
Booking a flight through AMEX Travel is not an award flight ticket – even if you use all of your AMEX points to cover the cost of the ticket. It will still be a cash ticket. Award flights are only bookable directly with airlines through their frequent flyer programs (so if you transfer your AMEX points to an airline and then book through the airline’s frequent flyer program using their miles – that’s an award ticket).
Remember to check the fare you are booking to see if it qualifies for miles and elite credit with your frequent flyer program before booking.
All in All
We book a number of flights through the AMEX Travel portal every year and most of those do qualify for the 35% rebate and I’d say that if you are using this benefit a bunch, then that alone could be worth paying the huge annual fee on the American Express Business Platinum Card – even though, of course, you should max out all of the other benefits that are available. The 35% Pay with Points rebate is a great benefit since it can get you a value of 1.54 cents per point after the rebate posts and if you use the rebate correctly. Do note that it does take up to 10 weeks for the rebate to post and you must have all of the points required at the time of booking since this is a rebate.