The The Business Platinum Card® from American Express is a $695 annual fee card (see rates and fees) with plenty of offsetting benefits.

• American Express has been raising annual fees over a period of years on a number of its cards, while adding offsetting offers that lead some to refer to it as a coupon book.
  
• In some sense, American Express is partnering with brands to market to its customers, and getting its customers to pay them for it.

There are a number of perks that you need to register for, that can make the annual fee worthwhile. The card gets you access to American Express Centurion lounges, Delta lounges when flying Delta same day, and a Priority Pass Select card for lounge access as well. You can gain hotel status through a relationship with Hilton and Marriott.

The card offers a $200 Airline Fee Credit. You select one qualifying airline and then receive up to $200 in statement credits per calendar year when incidental fees are charged by the airline to the card. There’s a $199 CLEAR® Plus Credit each calendar year when you use your card to pay for CLEAR® Plus Membership (subject to auto-renewal).

Merchant-funded offers come and go. The business eventually decides it no longer makes sense to subsidize customer acquisition and sales. They’ve gone as far as they can in introducing themselves to new customers through the channel.

This card was slated to lose three offers December 31, 2024 but they were recently extended.

• Up to $400 Dell statement credit (up to $200 twice annually, in the first and second halves of the year)
  
• Up to $150 Adobe credit
  
• Up to $360 Indeed credit (up to $90 each calendar quarter)

American Express updated the end date of the Dell and Abode offers to June 30, 2025, and removed the end date for the Indeed credit. Enrollment in these offers is required to take advantage of them.

Perhaps related to any planned offers exiting the portfolio of this card’s benefits, American Express has hadded up to $200 in Hilton statement credits per calendar year – up to $50 per quarter.

• You need to enroll in the offer
  
• Purchases made directly with an eligible property in the Hilton portfolio using the card are eligible
  
• This would include room rates and other eligible charges billed to the room, and it seems reasonable to me to expect that charges at an eligible Hilton property would trigger the credit even when not staying as a guest.

The statement credit is tied to a Hilton for Business account membership. If you don’t have this, enrolling in the offer registers you for the program. Amex already provides a similar statement credit benefit on premium Hilton card, not tied to a Hilton for Business membership.

I was approved for this card early in 2024 and now face a choice over whether it’s worth keeping. For now, this Hilton benefit is additive. I suspect it will be more valuable to me than benefits that we may lose – but split up quarterly, at $50 per quarter, requires somewhat regular business with Hilton to maximize and I’m not a Hilton regular. So I’ll have to factor the increased effort (compared to, for instance, making an online Dell purchase) into the equation. It really does take effort to make the value proposition of the card work, I think.

For rates and fees of the The Business Platinum Card® from American Express, click here.