Waiving or reducing amex platinum fee - can it be done?

[devnull]

I have a personal Amex platinum card that I was using for work as the points and airport benefits worked out reasonable for the amount I used it. Obviously that's not been the case in 2020, and I don't particularly fancy forking out £575 for the 2021 charge.

Anyone had much success in getting their fee waived? Don't particularly want to lose the card, but also I'm not keeping it as a vanity project.

[GibsonLP]

I understand you can swap to the Gold card to retain points and then "upgrade" when you're ready to start using the Plat-associated perks again.
There's still a fee for Gold though so you'll still be on the line for £140 or so.

I doubt they'll do be flexible on the fee - it crossed my mind to downgrade but I've been using the full extent of the credits they've been issuing every few months as I presume this is their pre-emptive response to the no-travel argument.

[GibsonLP]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

There's been the usual Shop Small £50 offer but also a few larger no-min-spend requirements ones for the likes of Selfridges, Deliveroo, Harvey Nicks, etc. Most recently was £175 and there were a couple of ~£100 ones through lockdown last year as well.

Probably recouped the best part of £500 from those.

[David Beer]

Obviously the black is considerably more but the credits have also been !!

Edited by David Beer on Tuesday 9th March 18:58

[paul0843]

devnull said:

I have a personal Amex platinum card that I was using for work as the points and airport benefits worked out reasonable for the amount I used it. Obviously that's not been the case in 2020, and I don't particularly fancy forking out £575 for the 2021 charge.

Anyone had much success in getting their fee waived? Don't particularly want to lose the card, but also I'm not keeping it as a vanity project.

I had a chat about this with a friend who had quite a high position in American Express.
Their attitude would always be,if you don’t want to pay the fee,don’t have the card.
Paul

[devnull]

David Beer said:

Obviously the black is considerably more but the credits have also been !!

Edited by David Beer on Tuesday 9th March 18:58

What did they provide in terms of credits for the black?

To be fair, I have used all of the credits I’ve been offered. In fact this morning, a bunch of le cruset cookware turned up from Harvey nicks which I used as part of the latest offering.

Maybe I’ll have a rethink. I budget for the fee, but I can’t see me using the standard benefits in 2021.

[David Beer]

devnull said:

What did they provide in terms of credits for the black?

To be fair, I have used all of the credits I’ve been offered. In fact this morning, a bunch of le cruset cookware turned up from Harvey nicks which I used as part of the latest offering.

Maybe I’ll have a rethink. I budget for the fee, but I can’t see me using the standard benefits in 2021.

I guess the credits would be proportional !

[GCH]

They will not waive the fee. However, you can switch the card fee to monthly, which was trialled for a while to select customers, but now open to all - you can simply ask for this at renewal time and it is £48/month.
Also mention that you are thinking of cancelling - the standard retention offer is between 20,000 and 50,000 MR points (no spend required) depending on your internal customer profile, which may be worth something to you either for future travel/conversion to airline points or simply as statement credit.

I have also spent every penny of the selfridges/harvey nichols/waitrose credits available - 2 x £100 and then £175 - and I had a £100 Harrods one also. There should also be more on the way.
Not a patch on the combined benefits, credits and stuff given with my US card, but useful value nonetheless.


If you are thinking of downgrading, I believe if you downgrade to the gold charge card it is fee free for the first year. No bonus for re-upping to platinum though at a later date, unless you cancel all your MR cards for the specified period (24 months IIRC)

Edited by GCH on Thursday 11th March 16:47

[David Beer]

GCH said:

They will not waive the fee. However, you can switch the card fee to monthly, which was trialled for a while to select customers, but now open to all - you can simply ask for this at renewal time and it is £48/month.
Also mention that you are thinking of cancelling - the standard retention offer is between 20,000 and 50,000 MR points (no spend required) depending on your internal customer profile, which may be worth something to you either for future travel/conversion to airline points or simply as statement credit.

I have also spent every penny of the selfridges/harvey nichols/waitrose credits available - 2 x £100 and then £175 - and I had a £100 Harrods one also. There should also be more on the way.
Not a patch on the combined benefits, credits and stuff given with my US card, but useful value nonetheless.


If you are thinking of downgrading, I believe if you downgrade to the gold charge card it is fee free for the first year. No bonus for re-upping to platinum though at a later date, unless you cancel all your MR cards for the specified period (24 months IIRC)

Edited by GCH on Thursday 11th March 16:47

You have two Amex cards, one for the USA and one for here ? Double credits, like it !

[nigelpugh7]

I was in the same position, I have had my platinum card for over 20 years, but where we always relied on the benefits to cover the fee, there was no way I was paying almost £600 to have it there and not use the benefits.

They tried everything to make me stay as a member, including all the miles and points as mentioned above.

Even then I couldn’t see me using it, certainly not in 2021 and probably not for the next few years at Least.

So that was it for me and Platinum membership.

And in reality I have never missed it once.

Sign of the times I reckon.

[David Beer]

nigelpugh7 said:

I was in the same position, I have had my platinum card for over 20 years, but where we always relied on the benefits to cover the fee, there was no way I was paying almost £600 to have it there and not use the benefits.

They tried everything to make me stay as a member, including all the miles and points as mentioned above.

Even then I couldn’t see me using it, certainly not in 2021 and probably not for the next few years at Least.

So that was it for me and Platinum membership.

And in reality I have never missed it once.

Sign of the times I reckon.

The benefits may be reduced but it seems you could of got ‘most’ of the fee in credits.
I went away at Xmas and although the posh lounges were closed I n LHR they were open in Dubai.
Also the hotel upgrades , transfers made it a little bit better, along with the travel insurance ‘ comfort’ .
Got summer booked to CA, we shall see if I can get ‘benefits’ back.

[GCH]

David Beer said:

You have two Amex cards, one for the USA and one for here ? Double credits, like it !

Indeed, well actually more than 2.
But for the platinum, benefits are a little different despite carrying the same product name.
UK platinum for example gives worldwide travel insurance, and you can deny all car rental damage insurance&CDW, whereas the US one doesn't give either. US one however has no forex fee, UK one does (2.99% on all foreign spend). Various other differences between the two - the US one is by far the better value in terms of benefits.

The current 100,000 MR sign up bonus for the US personal card is ridiculously good too.

[David Beer]

GCH said:

Indeed, well actually more than 2.
But for the platinum, benefits are a little different despite carrying the same product name.
UK platinum for example gives worldwide travel insurance, and you can deny all car rental damage insurance&CDW, whereas the US one doesn't give either. US one however has no forex fee, UK one does (2.99% on all foreign spend). Various other differences between the two - the US one is by far the better value in terms of benefits.

The current 100,000 MR sign up bonus for the US personal card is ridiculously good too.

I have the dark one, so I understand the benefits. Just admire the two credits !!