American Express has revamped its Platinum cards, raising the annual fee of both consumer and business Platinum by $200 to $895. (Business Platinum also raises the fee on additional cards from $350 to $400.)

Platinum now sits atop the offerings of Chase, Citi, and Capital One gfor most expensive premium rewards card.

Nothing is being taken away with this change, and a whole lot is being added – more than I expected, and benefits that are easier to take advantage of than I expect. But I wanted to pull out explicitly just how the new fee will work in conjunction with these new benefits. In other words, I wanted to explain separately from the main post on these changes how the timing will work for new benefits and annual fee changes.

While anyone applying for the cards starting today will see the new annual fee right away…

• Existing Business Platinum cardmembers will not see the higher annual fee until their next renewal date or after December 2, 2025.

• Existing Consumer Platinum cardmembers will not see a higher annual fee until their next renewal date on or after January 2, 2026.

If your card renews in November 2025, you won’t see the $895 annual fee until November 2026. But you get all the new benefits right away. For consumer Platinum that means,

• $600 hotel credit. $300 in statement credits semi-annually on prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts or 2+ night Hotel Collection bookings through Amex Travel using the card. This used to be $200 once per year. Nothing else changes about the benefit, and you can use the $300 for the second half of 2025 now even if you already used your $200 for 2025 earlier this year.

• $400 Resy Dining Credit. Up to $100 in statement credits each quarter when using a Platinum card to make purchases at more than 10,000 U.S. Resy restaurants. (Enrollment required.) This is a new $400 benefit and you don’t need to even make a reservation through Resy to use it – the statement credit works at any restaurant that uses the Resy platform (which American Express acquired in 2019).

  You can use $100 right away – before the end of September – and another $100 in the fourth quarter of the year, even if you aren’t going to pay a higher annual fee until January 2, 2027.

• $300 Digital Entertainment Credit, a $60 increase from the current $240 [$25 per month instead of $20 per month] and they’ve added Paramount+, YouTube Premium and YouTube TV to eligible merchants on top of Disney+, Disney+ bundle, ESPN+, Hulu, The New York Times, Peacock, The Wall Street Journal. (Enrollment required.) The credit goes up this month.

• $300 lululemon Credit. Up to $75 each quarter in statement credits for lululemon store or lululemon.com purchases on the card in the U.S. (Enrollment required.) You can use $75 in September 2025, then $75 in October – December 2025.

• $120 Uber One Membership Credit. On top of the existing $200 annual Uber benefit (and Uber VIP) cardmembers can receive up to $120 in statement credits each calendar year for auto-renewing Uber One subscription. You can sign up for Uber One right away and take advantage of the credit.

• $200 Oura Credit Up to $200 back each calendar year in statement credits for Platinum card purchases of an Oura Ring through Ouraring.com. (Enrollment required.) I need to look into whether there’s a resale market for the $299 version of the ring, heh.

• New Hotel Elite Status. Leading Hotels of the World Sterling status which comes with one-category room upgrade priority; continental breakfast; early and late check-out if available and Sixt Platinum status. You get 5 pre-arrival one-category room upgrades each year for use on revenue stays. These “are not guaranteed.” Some interesting properties are included. (Enrollment required.)

I love that all of these are available right away, even though you won’t pay an increased annual fee right away. That also gives you time to sort through these benefits and really get a sense for how you’ll use them come annual renewal time.

Of course, the consumer card continues to provide:

• $200 Uber Cash ($15 monthly, plus $20 bonus in December)
  
• $200 Airline Fee Credit for incidental fee purchases at one selected airline
  
• $100 Saks Fifth Avenue Credit ($50 semi-annually)
  
• $300 Equinox Credit
  
• $155 Walmart+ Membership ($12.95 monthly)
  
• $209 CLEAR Plus Credit

And it continues to earn 5x on flight purchases direct through airlines. So it’s really re-earned its place in my wallet.