The Business Platinum Card® from American Express review: A big fee with bigger potential returns

The $695 annual fee can seem intimidating. Depending on how you plan to use the card, you can offset the annual fee with relative ease.

The $830 in credits added for office-centric expenses like computer hardware, software and employee cell phones can offset the cost if you won’t be using the travel features as much. And frequent business travelers can gain much more value. For instance, the airport lounge access helps to offset the annual fee based on how much yearly membership for a few of the lounge programs costs. 

Making up for the annual fee solely through rewards is more challenging, but doable if you or your employees travel often. Based on the 1.35-cent point value, you’d have to spend about $859 per month on qualifying American Express Travel purchases to break even on the annual fee or a much steeper $2,861 per month in your 1.5X category purchases.

Luckily, most — if not all — of the Business Platinum card’s benefits outside the welcome offer are ongoing, so you won’t have to worry about diminishing returns after your first year.

*Based on our formula used to calculate each card’s average rewards rates and average ongoing rewards value, using Bureau of Labor Statistics spending data and an assumed $48,000 yearly spend over three years ($4,000 per month).

The Amex Business Platinum card offers a solid rewards rate and a terrific mix of travel and business perks, making it relatively easy to offset the annual fee and squeeze a ton of value out of the card.

Perks: A ton of valuable credits 

One of this card’s biggest selling points is its generous roster of practical, easy-to-use perks. While the exact value you’ll get will depend on how you spend, you could enjoy thousands in credits and reimbursements, including:

• An average of $550 in perks with a Fine Hotels and Resorts program property when you book through American Express Travel

• Up to $200 Hilton statement credit when you make eligible purchases at a Hilton property (enrollment required)

• Up to $1,150 in statement credits per year on Dell purchases (up to $150 directly with Dell and an additional $1,000 statement credit after you spend $5,000 or more in Dell purchases (enrollment required)

• Up to $360 statement credit on Indeed hiring and recruiting products and services (up to $90 back per quarter)

• Up to $300 in onboard credits on participating cruise lines with select room bookings through the Cruise Privileges Program (per new cruise booking)

• Up to $100 in statement credits for eligible stays at The Hotel Collection properties

• Up to $200 per year in airline statement credits for qualifying airline fees, such as baggage fees, with a selected airline

• Up to $250 statement credit after you spend $600 or more on U.S. purchases directly with Adobe (enrollment required)

• Up to $120 in statement credits per year for telephone service purchases made directly with a U.S. wireless provider (up to $10 back per month)

• Up to $85 statement credit for TSA PreCheck, $209 credit for Clear^® Plus or $120 credit for Global Entry

These perks could offer enough value to offset the card’s annual fee on its own, but you’ll also unlock some of the best airport lounge access privileges on the market, including access to Amex Centurion lounges, Priority Pass Select lounges, Delta Sky Club lounges, Escape Lounges, Plaza Premium lounges, Lufthansa Lounges and more. In all, you’ll be able to rest in over 1,400 airport lounges across 140 countries. 

If you often stay at Marriott or Hilton properties, you’ll also have a leg up on their loyalty programs since the Business Platinum offers complimentary Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite Status and Hilton Honors Gold Status (enrollment required).

The Amex Business Platinum is also one of the best cards for travel insurance if you’re a frequent flyer for business, thanks to standouts like $20,000 per card in trip cancellation and interruption insurance every 12 months, trip delay insurance for up to $500 per trip (up to two claims each 12 months), return protection and up to $3,000 of baggage delay insurance. 

Rewards: An ideal fit for frequent travelers and low-maintenance cardholders

Cardholders who make frequent business purchases can come out ahead thanks to the card’s boosted rewards rate on select business expenses and on purchases of $5,000 or more.

Unlike other general travel cards, the Business Platinum requires you to purchase flights and prepaid hotels through the American Express Travel portal to earn 5 points per dollar spent. Though this makes the card less flexible than some competing business travel cards, 5X points is an excellent rate no matter how you slice it.

If your business has significant expenses or you don’t travel as often, you still have an excellent opportunity to earn major rewards. Purchases in eligible categories and purchases of $5,000 will earn 1.5X points (on up to $2,000,000 in combined purchases per year): 

• Electronic goods and associated retailers 
• Software and cloud service providers 
• Construction materials and hardware supplies 
• Shipping providers 

You’ll also enjoy decent flexibility when it comes time to redeem rewards. You can use points for booking travel — including flights, hotels, cruises and more — through American Express or transfer points to one of Amex’s many travel partners. Transferring may even allow you to increase the value of your points.

Using points for travel bookings through the Amex portal will get you at least 1 cent per point in value, but based on Bankrate’s credit card point valuations, you could get around 2.0 cents per point in value with the right transfer partner. 

Plus, you can take advantage of the card’s 35 percent Airline Bonus feature, which gives you 35 percent of your points back when you use points to cover eligible flights with a qualifying airline of your choice and book through American Express Travel. 

While the Amex Business Platinum could make a lot of sense for travel-minded small-business owners, it’s still an expensive card to carry.

Unless you can take advantage of the card’s perks, you're better off with a lower-cost rewards card. You’ll also need to pay off your balance in full each month unless you use the Pay Over Time feature (eligible charges can be included in a Pay Over Time balance with interest, up to the feature limit), which could be a deal breaker if you sometimes need to carry a balance or want an intro APR to free up cash flow.

Welcome offer: Great value but high spending requirement

The Amex Business Platinum gives new cardholders a chance to earn 150,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $20,000 on eligible purchases within the first three months of card membership. This offer, while generous enough to increase the amount of points you can earn, also has a high spending requirement that could be hard to meet for small businesses. For instance, previous offers have asked cardholders to spend $15,000 to earn 120,000 Membership Rewards points. You'll want to be wary of opening this card if your business is unlikely to spend $20,000 in three months, which divides to around $6,700 per month.

Plus, since you must pay off your balance every month (unless you opt into Pay Over Time with interest), you may not have the flexibility you need to finance a large purchase and earn this bonus. However, if you are looking for a more attainable bonus, frequent business flyers may be able to earn the statement credit if the larger bonus is out of reach. 

Redemption: Best value via travel

Amex offers various redemption options, but you should probably focus on redeeming your rewards for booking travel — including flights, hotels, cruises and more — through American Express or its travel transfer partners. Although there’s a broad scope of redemption options, many offer subpar redemption values, with some offering as little as 0.5 cents per point in value.

According to Amex’s rewards calculator, the only way to get at least a 1-cent-per-point redemption value is to use your rewards for flights, stays at the Fine Hotels and Resorts properties and flight upgrades (when available). 

Here’s how Bankrate credit cards writer Ryan Flanigan takes advantage of the American Express Business Platinum card’s credits and benefits.

As a general-purpose travel card, you could shore up your rewards strategy by supporting the Amex Business Platinum with cards that earn rewards on your other major business expenses. 

The Business Platinum may be ideal if your business spends a lot on travel, but since not many issuers offer premium business cards with flexible spending limits like American Express, you can consider other Amex business credit cards that offer more rewards in different categories.

Ink Business Premier® Credit Card

Simple cash rewards for business spending

Capital One Venture X Business

Luxury perks for a moderate annual fee

 

Eligibility and Benefit level varies by Card. Terms, Conditions and Limitations Apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by Amex Assurance Company.

For rates and fees of the Business Platinum Card from American Express card, please click here. For rates and fees of the American Express Business Gold card, please click here. For rates and fees of the Amex Green Rewards card, please click here. For rates and fees of the Amex Blue Business Plus card, please click here. 

Our proprietary card rating system takes into account a mix of factors when scoring business credit cards, including each card’s rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more.

We analyzed over 50 of the most popular business credit cards and scored each based on how its key features stacked up compared to those of other cards in its category. 

Here are some of the key factors that gave this card its score: