Robinhood’s New $695 Platinum-Plated Card Is Heavy Metal Marketing — Just 1% Base Earn and a Coupon Book of Fine Print

Robinhood just unveiled a $695 “platinum-plated” credit card aimed at premium spenders, but the headline benefit is the metal, not the earning. Outside of portal rebates and limited categories, it’s just 1% back, and the real value is locked behind a long list of monthly credits with restrictions, minimums, and timing rules. In other words: it’s an expensive coupon book that only works if you want to manage it like one.

Financial services company Robinhood – which gamifies mainstreet investing, elevates meme stocks, and offers tax-advantaged sports betting – has unveiled its new $695 annual fee Platinum rewards credit card.

Following on their relaunch of the old X1 card as the 10 karat Gold card which left applicants on interminable wait lists, this new Platinum card is “plated with 99.9% pure platinum.”

Good But Not Great Earning

Robinhood Platinum offers:

• 10% rebate on hotels booked through their travel portal
  
• 5% rebate on flights booked through their travel portal
  
• 5% rebate on dining up to $50,000 each year
  
• 1% on other purchases

Chase Sapphire Reserve®‘s (See rates and fees) earning is much better! You get 8x on travel booked through their portal – which includes flights and hotels – and that’s better than 5% cash back, and better than 10% cash back since each transferable point is worth far more than 1.25 cents apiece to me. Similarly, 3x on dining is at least equal to 5% back on dining and isn’t capped like Robinhood’s card caps this category.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for top of market on dining I’d say that’s American Express® Gold Card at 4x, and top of market on flights is American Express Platinum at 5x without use of a portal (Chase Sapphire Reserve gives you 4x on direct air and hotel).

That tells me Robinhood Platinum’s earning is good but isn’t at the top of the premium card market. And remember, homeowners can use the Bilt Palladium Card (See rates and fees) as a 4x on everything card.

Strong Credits With Gotchas

Like Amex Platinum, this is a coupon book, and there’s a lot of value. But it’s riddled with hoops to jump through.

• $250 DoorDash credit. $10 credit twice per month, with three in December, restricted to use on orders of $50 or more.

• $250 restaurant credit. This isn’t $125 twice, this is $20 per month and $30 in December, available at 15,000 restaurants.

• $500 hotel credit. $250 every six months at eligible luxury properties booked through their travel portal (up to $100 of that can be used on non-luxury hotels). Minimum two-night stay required, because that drives up price of the booking and therefore the commissions that partially fund the benefit.

• $300 travel credit. $150 every 6 months and this is fairly unrestricted, covering hotels, airlines, rideshare, etc.

• $250 autonomous rideshare credit. $20 per month ($30 in December) and useful in cities and within geographic regions of those cities where the service is offered.

• $200 wearables credit. useful to some but unclear “Additional details about this benefit can be found in the App.” There’s also a free year of Oura ring subscription with purchase of that device. Doesn’t look like you can purchase the device with an Amex Platinum using that credit and get the subscription with this card sadly.

• $365 Function Health Membership lab testing.

• $199 Amazon One Medical Membership for virtual care and expedited appointments.

• $60 Robinhood Gold membership normally $5 per month.

Just What You Needed, Another Priority Pass

Priority Pass cards are de rigueur for premium cards at this point but I wish they’d forego these and offer a lower fee, or offer an optional benefit in lieu of. I suppose they don’t figuring many don’t take the Priority Pass in the first place and so that’s a cost savings baked into the model.

Pay Extra For Platinum-Plated Authorized User Cards

Taking a page from Capital One, you can get an authorized user card for spending without all the extras for no annual fee. Authorized users receive a stainless steel card at no cost.

Authorized users can have a platinum version but that costs, though paid authorized are eligible for several credits and benefits: Function Health; Amazon One Medical; Oura membership, travel benefits; Priority Pass Select; and Global Entry/TSA PreCheck reimbursement.

Why I’m Not Going In On Robinhood Platinum

There’s literally no category of spending where I’d get more value using this card that my current setup. I’d much rather have Chase Sapphire Reserve for airfare, hotel and dining (and I’m an authorized user on my wife’s American Express® Gold Card for 4x dining). For everything else, it’s the Bilt Palladium Card.

That leaves paying $695 for their bundle of benefits. You can certainly do the Robinhood Platinum Groupon Offer and get value from it, not spending outside of those offers. (That’s also a reasonable play with American Express Platinum Card®, though that’s a great card for airfare spend.)

However I already have DoorDash credits and don’t want to push myself to use DoorDash more than I already do just for a couple of monthly $10 coupons. I’m not going to choose my restaurants to chase $20 restaurant coupons. I’m going to eat based on what I most enjoy at that moment (or what my kids will tolerate that I also enjoy). And I’m chasing too many hotel credits as it is between personal and business cards from American Express and Chase as well as Bilt Palladium and Citi Strata Elite^SM Card (See rates and fees).

When I factor the work at the margin to take advantage of these, juggling all of the other credits in my wallet, I believe I have more profitable ways to invest my time and brainspace. So that means I’m not going to chase maximizing these credits on top of the ones that I already have.

That’s ok, because I might not even be able to get one! It starts out as “invite-only” and won’t be available until some time in the second quarter in any case.

For rates and fees of the American Express® Gold Card, click here.
For rates and fees of the American Express Platinum Card®, click here.