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Also worth noting that Travel Insurance is moving to Europe Assist, and they don’t allow you to postpone your trip, they have the standard reimburse if you need to cancel. I renewed in August, will likely wait for my next retention offer next year and then cancel.
I think the move to Europ Assistance is a particularly bad one – and I hadn’t realised there were negative changes to coverage. They are considerably less well regarded in the insurance circles I (tangentially) move in. Definitely not a change driven by anything other than cost reduction and not an insurer I would pick for a premium product.
The postponing benefit is so so useful, especially if you have booked well in advance at cheap prices, then your child is unwell and you would like to move everything by 3 days. With the current AMEX insurance you can, and imagine the cost to book a holiday at short notice! With Europe Assist, you can’t just get your original money back! Big downgrade!
Any change to the Business Platinum travel insurance planned? Currently with Chubb, I believe?
Any change to the Business Platinum travel insurance planned? Currently with Chubb, I believe?
The underwriters of the Plat personal are not changing – still Chubb and Inter Partner Assistance. It’s only the administration that is changing.
Is this correct? When I compared the policy wording I thought they were virtually identical – including the postponement section.
(This is my main reason for holding the card, for the reason you outline below.)
Also worth noting that Travel Insurance is moving to Europe Assist, and they don’t allow you to postpone your trip, they have the standard reimburse if you need to cancel. I renewed in August, will likely wait for my next retention offer next year and then cancel.
I think the move to Europ Assistance is a particularly bad one – and I hadn’t realised there were negative changes to coverage. They are considerably less well regarded in the insurance circles I (tangentially) move in. Definitely not a change driven by anything other than cost reduction and not an insurer I would pick for a premium product.
The postponing benefit is so so useful, especially if you have booked well in advance at cheap prices, then your child is unwell and you would like to move everything by 3 days. With the current AMEX insurance you can, and imagine the cost to book a holiday at short notice! With Europe Assist, you can’t just get your original money back! Big downgrade!
The 3% FX fee is because a much overseas spend will be reclaimed on expenses. High earners will always always have a fee-free card as an alternative.
Platinum is confused. Why offer free lounges when your high-earning customers are flying business class? Why doesn’t insurance cover pre-existing conditions when your affluent customers are mostly of a certain age? High earning customers want more than a £50 cash back coupon every month.
Raise the minimum income to £150K (£200K inside the M25), scrap the lounges, ditch the insurance. Then leverage the improved customer demographics to broaden the hotel status beyond tawdry, shabby Hiltons and Marriotts (GHA Discovery? Jumeirah? Some charming boutique hotels?). Offer more things that go beyond price – maybe a proper concierge service that can access ‘full’ restaurants and hotels, lounges in places like Bicester, personal shopper services.
The cash backs have been economically illiterate. Instead of £100 cash back at HN, they should have offered a 30% discount on spend above £300 in one transaction. Instead of £150 dining credit, they should have offered a bottle of decent champagne per couple on spend above £150 per head…that would get the credit cards spending more freely.
Raise the minimum income to £150K (£200K inside the M25), scrap the lounges, ditch the insurance. Then leverage the improved customer demographics to broaden the hotel status beyond tawdry, shabby Hiltons and Marriotts (GHA Discovery? Jumeirah? Some charming boutique hotels?). Offer more things that go beyond price – maybe a proper concierge service that can access ‘full’ restaurants and hotels, lounges in places like Bicester, personal shopper services.
The cash backs have been economically illiterate. Instead of £100 cash back at HN, they should have offered a 30% discount on spend above £300 in one transaction. Instead of £150 dining credit, they should have offered a bottle of decent champagne per couple on spend above £150 per head…that would get the credit cards spending more freely.
This bonkers post has made me laugh, every benefit you’ve listed above is of no interest to me and I suspect looking at the previous posts most people would agree. Highlights being Personal Shopper services, a lounge at Bicester and Shabby Hiltons (like the Conrad, Curio, Waldorf, No Mad etc etc)
The 3% FX fee is because a much overseas spend will be reclaimed on expenses. High earners will always always have a fee-free card as an alternative.
Platinum is confused. Why offer free lounges when your high-earning customers are flying business class? Why doesn’t insurance cover pre-existing conditions when your affluent customers are mostly of a certain age? High earning customers want more than a £50 cash back coupon every month.
Raise the minimum income to £150K (£200K inside the M25), scrap the lounges, ditch the insurance. Then leverage the improved customer demographics to broaden the hotel status beyond tawdry, shabby Hiltons and Marriotts (GHA Discovery? Jumeirah? Some charming boutique hotels?). Offer more things that go beyond price – maybe a proper concierge service that can access ‘full’ restaurants and hotels, lounges in places like Bicester, personal shopper services.
The cash backs have been economically illiterate. Instead of £100 cash back at HN, they should have offered a 30% discount on spend above £300 in one transaction. Instead of £150 dining credit, they should have offered a bottle of decent champagne per couple on spend above £150 per head…that would get the credit cards spending more freely.
If Amex ever went down this route that you have articulated, it will give me even more reason to get rid of this card.
@jj – I hope there’s a CEO vacancy at Amex soon to rectify the current state of chaos and declining products, then you can apply. They badly need some clear thinking executives from outside the business. They have totally lost sight of getting the basic customer proposition right and execution is poor.
The PM’s salary has been in the news recently and that’s a grossly underpaid role, but seriously, does Hannah really merit earning five times as much plus share options?
PS you are way off beam with the idea of a lounge at Bicester, somewhere that’s not quite what it was. They do need significantly to up the income requirement, not as high as you suggest but at least in line with bank premier requirements. The PP and mass market hotel so called statuses should have zero value attributed. The product needs cachet.
@BOSSMANTRAVELS, in the UK, Hilton has one hotel out of 203 listed by Michelin. Marriott has precisely none.
The experts have spoken. They have not been kind toward Hilton and Marriott.
PS you are way off beam with the idea of a lounge at Bicester
Bicester has its merits for a provincial like me, as it’s so much more convenient than going to London for some retail therapy.
Essentially, I’m saying that they need to think more aspirationally. I really don’t care about a free breakfast: if I want breakfast, it’s pocket money to pay for it. And I last stayed in a Hilton with my wife in December 2000; Hiltons are solely for business.
Everyone loves a bargain, but £50 here and there doesn’t move the needle if you earn a decent amount. Give me a guaranteed suite upgrade in a boutique, style-led hotel if I book the best non-suite in the house, though, and I’m putty in your hands. Amex should be working with its partners to redirect meaningful spend, and meaningful rewards should be offered in return.
@JJ I’ve stayed at plenty of Hilton hotels under the brands I mentioned that are superb. Also you mention lounges are of no use for you (London centric view), as someone that is in the regions and travelling to Europe from a local airport we don’t always have the choice of travelling in business so PP is useful. Maybe they should just ban the poor people outside of the M25 from having the card!
It’s all around asking members what they want and going with a majority as you are never going to please everyone…I suspect the idea of a personal shopper service and a lounge at Bicester wouldn’t be high on peoples list of benefits they would value, although I stand to be corrected!
@BOSSMANTRAVELS – you called it a bonkers post by @jj, and it may have been slightly exaggerated for emphasis but it did make the point very well. Platinum is Amex’s premium, flagship product (save invitation only Centurion) yet it offers access to tawdry lounges that serve bottom shelf drinks and ultra processed food and/or reheated slops.
As @jj says, if you are the right sort of premium cardholder you have access to airline lounges that maybe aren’t great, but are in a different league to PP. Then these premium cardholders are given junior statuses in hotel programmes that offer little of merit when a premium cardholder is more likely to wish to stay in a more premium place; that doesn’t mean expensive, just better, non corporatised chain boringness. The Plat offers an insurance policy that is below the standard of other packaged products offered in the UK. They try and sugar the pill of the £650 fee by telling you where you can dine on their dollar to recover some fee. Oh, and they will let you spend a bit of their money in a shop you otherwise wouldn’t visit. As far FHR etc…
Fortunately the product is so good and Amex really believes in it that they will beg you not to cancel by slipping you at least £350 worth of Avios every year and frequently more. Absent retentions (the posh word for bribes) how many UK Plat cardholders would they have? It’s a really classy flagship product.
@jj – you hit the nail on the head re needing to make the Plat product aspirational. @Rob sells the product on the basis of a coupon book which is essentially the only way the product can now be sold but with the coupons of decreasing value and so many lookalikes, itks getting harder. The issue is that the sort of people Amex needs to attract think coupon books are either too complicated and/or seriously naff and while Amex historically was seen as a prestigious product and Platinum at the pinnacle of announcing success, in 2024 a red metal Curve card will get much more noticed. An HSBC WE card now says you earn £100k+ while a Plat card might mean you earn half as much as a train driver. Great positioning.
@jdb maybe slightly exaggerated 🙂
I don’t always have access to lounges when travelling to Europe as sometimes the only option is TUI, Jet2, easyJet etc so PP is useful. Amex have made a positive change in allowing me to pre book Clubrooms at BHX (which is fine).
Currently the 35,000 points, PP and Dining credit is where I get my value. I’d also like to see more Amex events in the regions but I realise not everyone would want this. Amex really need to focus on who they want to attract (which must be based on value extraction) and shape the benefits around that group.
@jdb maybe slightly exaggerated 🙂
I don’t always have access to lounges when travelling to Europe as sometimes the only option is TUI, Jet2, easyJet etc so PP is useful. Amex have made a positive change in allowing me to pre book Clubrooms at BHX (which is fine).
Currently the 35,000 points, PP and Dining credit is where I get my value. I’d also like to see more Amex events in the regions but I realise not everyone would want this. Amex really need to focus on who they want to attract (which must be based on value extraction) and shape the benefits around that group.
@BOSSMANTRAVELS – you too should be working for Amex to help them get a grip. No clue of who their customer is or what might constitute a good product. The 35k is great but I can’t really think of any other organisation that needs to pay that annually to keep its customers.@jj
Just do what we did, get the Centurion card. Job done@jj
Just do what we did, get the Centurion card. Job doneWas about to say this. JJ looking at the wrong card.
Is this correct? When I compared the policy wording I thought they were virtually identical – including the postponement section.
(This is my main reason for holding the card, for the reason you outline below.)
I can’t see postponement on their website, just standard cancellation cover?
Unless it’s the following quote from their VIP package:
Compensation of the modification costs of the trip
I’m with the other poster who thinks @jj ‘s post was a bit bonkers. The type of card benefits they are outlining seems mainly aimed at Centurion’s market, which is clearly the flagship “exclusive” product. Making the minimum income requirement for Plat £150K/£200K would be crazy – if Plat’s already quite niche….. you are shrinking Amex’s potential Plat market down by 80 or 90% for it at those income levels!
I think the annual fee for it is currently high but would be justifiable for me if some of the benefits were tweaked. A means to pay a small fee to cover minor pre-existing conditions for the travel insurance for my wife would be a start. Free reservation fees for the busy/limited availability UK airport lounges too? And the same earning potential for MR points as Gold (or better) and reduced or no forex fees. And perhaps something else to replace the HN credit and/or allowing the total dining credit (£300) to be split any way you want between UK restaurants and overseas ones. Just throwing a few ideas out there 🙂
Meanwhile I will stick with Gold for my first renewal as the Deliveroo credits and the great ongoing offers (e.g 10% LNER and the many hotel credit backs!) have made me far more than the renewal fee alone , ignoring the 4 free lounge passes I’ve used and the multiple free hotel nights Ive paid for with points….
@BOSSMANTRAVELS, in the UK, Hilton has one hotel out of 203 listed by Michelin. Marriott has precisely none.
The experts have spoken. They have not been kind toward Hilton and Marriott.
Yet look at the far east where it’s full of IHG Hilton and Marriott … it’s not a complete list. There’s absolutely better hotels in those groups in Europe that didn’t make the list.
£650 isn’t even an expensive card … they need to explore another product at £1000-1500 perhaps Platinum becomes something else, gold replaces Platinum and Green is the new Gold …
£650 isn’t even an expensive card … they need to explore another product at £1000-1500 perhaps Platinum becomes something else, gold replaces Platinum and Green is the new Gold …
There was a lot of talk of something slotting in between being released this year, perhaps that’s on the way finally. Centurion celebrating 25 years this week so perhaps it might all happen but what to call it and what happens to Platinum?
Perhaps gold becomes what it once was and platinum has a major face lift upwards both in price and benefits
Don’t forget the price of centurion went up by 50% last year so there’s now a good gap to fill
I’m definitely not bonkers, although my original post was deliberately provocative and colourful.
Amex Platinum currently shares a problem the all-you-can-eat buffets that were popular 15 years ago: most customers must overpay to subsidise a minority who have learned to properly shove their snouts in the trough. Once the majority realise they have been duped, the game is over.
Instead, I suggest that Amex should return to the business model that made it so successful in bygone years: 1) Attract genuinely wealthy customers; 2) Attract businesses that want to sell products and services to wealthy customers; 3) Put group 1 in touch with group 2; 4) Profit.
People earning £35K per annum do not have sufficient disposable income to be really attractive to luxury businesses. They are, of course, valuable and important members of society, but that’s not the point. Their presence in the Platinum customer database makes that database less valuable to upmarket businesses seeking to partner with Amex.
Just because someone earning £35k can apply for a Platinum it doesn’t make that the market they are going after.
Someone earning £35k without any significant life savings or a wealthy partner will have very little use for the card or its benefits and will hardly be throwing £50 pcm on a card that gives them pretty much the same useful benefits as a free gold card and a £20pcm bundled bank account.
There’s perhaps a few churners out there in the £35k bracket rinsing the bonus and immediate benefits and leaving without Amex seeing more than £150. The long term benefits of the card shouldn’t be swayed by these people.
Asset rich final salary scheme pensioners with a £35k+ income are as well off if not better off than some professional earning £150k, paying 10-15% into a pension, supporting 2 kids, making £2-3k a month in mortgage payments and £600-800 in PCP payments.
Though I’d admit with the restrictions on the travel insurance pensioners are the target but there’s no doubt £50 pcm is not Luxury.
If I was Amex I would never have allowed the full £150 dining credits to be used on day 1 and limited exposure to £75 per 6 months or even £50 per quarter (you’d redeem far fewer abroad and stem your losses to the churners)
@JDB seems to have an issue with the anniversary bonus because it’s secret for those that ask (which retention offer from any supplier isn’t) but if they want to encourage long term card holders then absolutely they need to make it official with an annual spend target ie spend £20k get 35k points after renewal and since pro rata refunds are going it will make clients stickier.I mentioned Selfridges and Harrods but I’d be up for £50 per quarter to spend at Bicester and you’d drive a lot more genuine customers to the boutiques and I suspect fewer £50 on the nose gamers, because once you’re there you’re far more captive than an online store.
@TGLoyalty – the retention bonus isn’t operated in the same way by Amex as other suppliers such as Sky, insurance, mobiles etc. because Amex offers the product at a single price to everybody and the Platinum card is a regulated financial product. The other types of product are either not financial products or ones that are individually priced. Other suppliers such as Sky or mobiles also require a tie-in for a fixed period. With Amex it’s an immediate discount and you can close the account virtually the next day. This basically makes the £650 official price fake when it’s actually offered at £300 or less p.a. with a secret handshake.
It’s not fair and the money spent on what is essentially covering up the or papering over the low grade product should be spent on improving benefits. As you say, if Amex is going to stick with retentions they should officialise it and offer something on a sliding scale based on account longevity. They need to cut the churners as well! That’s utterly pointless money spent out of the benefits pot.
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