The Best Amex Platinum Welcome Bonus Offers (Referral, Resy, CardMatch, and more)

All information about The Platinum Card® from American Express has been collected independently by MilesTalk. 

Amex Platinum Welcome Bonus Offers Ranked

Late last week, Amex dropped a boatload of changes on the The Platinum Card® from American Express. At the same time, they also started offering new welcome bonus offers via various marketing channels. While it’s not uncommon for a card issuer to have multiple offers available, Amex has really gone out of its way to make it as confusing as possible to decide how to apply for one – assuming that the new Amex Platinum offering of what is essentially now a luxury coupon book credit card is appealing to you.

You can view all of the Amex Platinum changes here.

Where you apply and how you apply can make a difference in the size of the welcome bonus itself, varying from 100,000 points on the low end to 150,000 points on the high end. And then there’s a second component of the offer, which involves a multiplier on dining and “Shop Small” purchases (at qualifying small businesses) for 6 months. This multiplier ranges from 10x – 15x. And let’s not forget referral bonuses.

So let’s take a look at the best offers in descending order:

Resy

Resy is a restaurant reservations site like OpenTable that Amex acquired in 2019. Resy often has elevated Amex welcome bonus offers.

On this Amex X Resy page, you’ll find an offer for the Platinum card that looks like the referral offer, but with an even bigger 15X earn rate on the kicker.

This offer lets you earn 125,000 Membership Rewards^® Points for $6,000 in spend within 6 months and 15x total points (9x bonus points) at restaurants worldwide and when you Shop Small in the U.S., on up to $25,000 in spend (1x thereafter).

This would be 125,000 bonus points plus the 15X component worth 375,000 more points if maxed out, for a total of 500,000 points. That’s crazy!! Based on the MilesTalk valuation of Amex points (1.7cpp), this is worth $8,500 if you can do the full dining/Shop Small spend.

Refer a Friend (For Those in Two-Player Mode)

This offer lets you earn 125,000 Membership Rewards^® Points for $6,000 in spend within 6 months and 10x total points (9x bonus points) at restaurants worldwide and when you Shop Small in the U.S., on up to $25,000 in spend (1x thereafter).

On the surface, this is less than the next offer I’ll cover, but if you have a spouse or significant other that can refer you, we have seen many reporting a 45,000 point refer-a-friend offer (just remember the 55,000 point referral max per card per year total, so you can only do one referral at this reward level).

This would total 170,000 bonus points plus the 10X component worth 250,000 more points if maxed out, for a total of 420,000 points. That’s crazy!! Based on the MilesTalk valuation of Amex points (1.7cpp), this is worth $7,140 if you can do the full dining/Shop Small spend. Always check these refer-a-friend offers in “incognito” or “private browser” mode where Amex seems to offer better deals.

I think I saw a report of a 140,000 or 150,000 refer-a-friend offer, but cannot find/confirm. If so, this would take the top spot.

In this post, I’d like to invite your refer-a-friend links in the comments. Please simply state the offer you are seeing for the referred new cardmember and the link.

CardMatch / PreQualified Offers

If you don’t have someone you are doing this hobby in tandem with, the refer-a-friend isn’t likely to be the best deal in total.

The next best offer I am seeing is via CardMatch. The CardMatch tool has long been a way to check for higher than normal offers on both the Amex Platinum and the Amex Gold cards.

Here, you may be able to earn 150,000 Membership Rewards^® Points for $6,000 in spend within 6 months and 10x total points (9x bonus points) at restaurants worldwide and when you Shop Small in the U.S., on up to $25,000 in spend (1x thereafter). I have personally seen this reported several times over the past weekend. It’s definitely worth checking before applying another way (except for if you have a P2 with a 45k referral offer).

If that didn’t work, you may also see it in your Amex account. This requires that you already have an Amex account and login to check, whereas CardMatch tends to work best for those with no Amex cards (or very few).

Check CardMatch.

Or learn more about how CardMatch works.

 

Affiliate Offers / Direct

In last place are the offers that support sites like this one. Since my goal is always to show you the best offers, I’ve had to say numerous times not to use my link. The affiliate offer is simply to earn 100,000 Membership Rewards Points when you spend $6,000 in your first 6 months plus earn 10x points restaurants worldwide and when you Shop Small in the U.S., on up to $25,000 in combined purchases in your first 6 months. (Terms apply.) I’m not even going to link it, lest you accidentally apply that way.

Thankfully, we have enough other solid credit card bonus offers to keep the lights on…

Did I miss any other / better offers for the Amex Platinum? Let me know in the comments…

Thoughts?

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You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards. 

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Rates and Fees for the American Express Platinum Card