I just signed up for another American Express Platinum card, — a Business Platinum card — and it’s going to be coming with a benefit I didn’t even know about.
Here’s what American Express is saying about the benefit that will come online soon:
Business Platinum Card Members will soon be able to access 10 complimentary Gogo inflight internet passes each calendar year. Card Members will be able to use each pass for inflight Wi-Fi internet access on any Gogo equipped flight segment.
Accounts will get a fee credit for the first 10 Gogo internet passes charged each calendar year.
That’s unfortunate for me since 10 uses a year won’t be enough to let me give up my Gogo unlimited monthly subscription. And as a statement credit, rather than single use codes, it will be more cumbersom to use the credit towards codes I can simply give away.
American Express must have heavily focus-grouped internet as a key benefit, since this comes on the heels of their adding free unlimited Boingo internet as a benefit to the Platinum cards earlier this year.
See also Inside Gogo Inflight Internet’s All-Access Day.
Update: Doctor of Credit tweets that American Express is making a 100,000 point signup bonus available to many people who call in and ask for it. He mentions this at the bottom of his post on this wifi offer. I expect that this won’t work for everyone, but it will be worth trying for some.
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I might see a limited # of 10 uses as a positive thing.
I’ve noticed that when everyone has access to the internet, the speed/infrastructure are often not scaled appropriately, and I fare better with a paid internet solution.
This will undoubtedly be a very popular benefit — and help sell these cards. You don’t really need a focus group to know that travelers would like to have in-flight internet, but not have to pay the fairly steep fee for it.
better than a poke in the eye!
I think this benefit should extend to the standard Plat card as well. Before my trip to South Africa a few months ago you mentioned Boingo. I checked priorand it seemed there were alot of hotspots there, even though internet in SA was supposed to be average to poor. What I found out when I got to my first hotel is they cap total bandwidth if they give you free or paid internet. Immediately I saw at many of these same hotels, there was Boingo access using the same network. We had unlimited data on all devices with no hassles. Also in several cases Boingo worked faster than the hotel network. Some US airports that charge for internet have Boingo also. Just got a Asus C300 Chromebook. For 180 it included 12 GOGO passes also. However GOGO kept insisting to me the laptop was not entitled to that perk. I am getting it resolved. That is any Chromebook you buy this year-it is a promotion with Google.