Amex Platinum Card 5x Points On Airfare: Best Card For Airline Tickets

I appreciate the earning rate of the Amex points here, but lately I'm putting less and less weight on their value, as with any of these currencies. The redemption opportunities are just requiring more and more effort to try to snag in advance, and getting more and more expensive all the time. I'm starting to feel that a less exciting but guaranteed 3.5% cash back (or similar, wherever you can get it) is worth more than a never-can-be-used 8% points.

Amex Platinum 100% for any hotel and airplane ticket. The baggage insurance that comes with it alone is well worth it. Most cards you go through hoops to utilize what they say they offer. Never an issue in my case with Amex. Travel a lot for my job and have had lost (late actually) luggage, and canceled flights. Amex took care of me well. No real questions asked just submitting of information etc.

Same goes for their cell phone insurance if you bill to it. File the claim charge the amount of repair and the cost up to I think 800 is removed. Easy easy easy.

Agree that Amex Platinum is great for airfare and almost always try to book direct where possible.

However, might be worth a post to compare (apologies if this already exists) the new Chase Portal 8x earning with Reserve and Amex Platinum net of protections, point earning, valuation, etc.

Unfortunately, for those of us that book a lot of one way tickets and open jaws, AmEx travel insurance only covers round trip tickets back to the originating city. Chase Sapphire Reserve I think is the choice for us.

I agree for most people cash back is better!

I like to think of points as unlocking travel opportunities. That doesn't mean I always need to get more than 2.0cpp or whatever unrealistic cpp is being promoted on FlyerTok or whatever that day. But unless you are planning well in advance or traveling last minute, agree it is harder and harder to get any value in the 3-6 month out window.

What's nice about the Amex is that the ethos of the card has not changed:
- It's a travel/benefits card that unlocks lounges, hotel status and travel insurance
- You can get 5x airfare - and you "think about the card" when flying.
- You get access to FHR (a legitimate hotel program which is known and respected worldwide) and sometimes discounted PE/J/F fares.
- Annual fee went up, but enough travel/lifestyle credits to easily cover (FHR, $200 incidental, Resy $400, LLL $300... the list goes on).

That's very different than the new wacky CSR, which used to be a "think of me for 3x all travel card and the first $300 is on us" and is now, uh, something else. 8x portal airfare / hotels - often at ridiculously inflated prices! Some opentable credits if you can find one of the tens of restaurants it works at! 4x direct hotels (which is much less valuable than direct airfare). The Edit which has ridiculously inflated prices and is so much less valuable than FHR. What is the ethos of that card - industry leading travel protection I guess, except if you are a NY resident with a car, in which case you only get secondary car insurance?

With CSR now being 4x vs Amex’s 5x, I don’t see much difference tbh given the fact that (1) Chase has frequent transfer bonuses (way more frequent than Amex) that more than make up for the difference, and (2) I can transfer Chase points to United miles which are more valuable than many other programs’ miles. But it’s all personal and depends on your travel/spending patterns.

I think that’s a huge point. 8x Chase points is a big rebate, so much so that I booked through their portal for the first time.

And, for hotels you still get 4x when booking direct which is way more than Amex. So if you want one company for insurance on your trip, book it all with CSR and you’re covered.

I recently spent $8K on a family worth of flights, that’s going to be 64K chase points. That’s a LOT.

I think 8x on CSR is really good and now find myself using the Amex increasingly little. CSR works especially well for United as they allow you to take over the ticket and make changes without having to call the travel agent. Are any other airlines like this?

8x but I think you’re giving up some protections (same as on Amex travel).

When I booked flights through Amex Travel and things went south, I couldn’t do a chargeback because Amex of course will not do a chargeback against itself…

You can redeem amex points at 1 cent/pt value when booking their fhr or the hotel collection.

If an online travel agency uses the (old) Global Distribution System (GDS) to make an airline booking, the booking will be coded as being made via a third-party travel agency. If it uses the New Distribution Channel (NDC) to make the booking, the booking will be coded as being made via the airline directly. Same with hotels.

Saving around 8% on the Amex IAP + 5x points is better than Chase 8x. The 24 hour cancellation policy even applies to same day travel.

With the latest platinum “refresh” (it wasn’t, more like a price hike) there are now restrictions with using MR points for in portal hotel stays. Can’t give you the specifics, as I wouldn’t waste my points on such.

If you settle for 1 cpp redemptions, you should be using cash back cards.

AmEx insurance coverage works well for basic round trip tickets, I agree. It does NOT work for one way tickets or open jaws, in my painful experience with them. CSR insurance apparently works for one way tickets.

This applies to the US version of AMEX Platinum only. For the UK version you get 2x points for direct airline bookings (same as Gold card) and for AMEX Travel bookings you get 3x points. If they offered UK customers 5x I would upgrade in a flash given the amount of flying I do.