The Amex business Platinum card rebate will be reduced from 50% to 35% in June, according to Thepointsguy‘s source at Amex.
Amex recently added a benefit to the business version of the Platinum to get 50% back on business class airfare or even economy airfare on your selected airline. This effectively made Membership Rewards points worth about 2 cents per point since after paying 10,000 points for $100 flight you’d get 5,000 points back.
Amex will scale it down to a 35% rebate beginning June 1, 2017. After the change, MR points will be worth 1.54 cents (6,500 points for $100 in airfare = 1.539).
Another negative change coming in June is that there will be a cap of 500,000 rebated points per calendar year which is a blow for heavy users.
Amex has also slowed down the 50% rebate to 6-10 weeks instead of a few days, as we reported earlier today. So we’ll soon be getting:
- Less points back
- Slower
- With an annual cap
The business Centurion card will retain the 50% rebate benefit for now. All of the other new benefits on the business Platinum card will remain (1.5x on $5k+ purchases and 5x points on AmexTravel air and hotel bookings).
Additional Thoughts
I guess if it’s too good to be true it won’t last. Honestly, I’m pretty shocked that they’d roll out a benefit and simply take it away, basically admitting that they made a mistake. Usually, they work it in with some other changes and claim that one thing is offsetting another, etc. Apparently, this one was simply too much to handle.
Mark on your calendar at the end of May to book out any future flights you plan on taking.
It looked for a moment like Amex finally one-upped Chase, and now they are taking it away…Chase Sapphire Reserve and U.S. Bank Altitude points can be used for any flight or travel booking at 1.5 cents-per-point, while Amex Membership Rewards points will be worth 1.54 cents-per-points only on airfare and only on your select airline or business class trips and only via rebate. And the earning side is better with Chase too, in most ways.
On a different note, I’m unsure about the legal aspect here. I’ve gotten the impression that card issuers needs to give 1 year from signup with the current benefits. People who just signed up or who sign up now (yup, Amex website still shows the 50% rebate) should be eligible for at least a year of those benefits.
I wonder if this TPG source is only referring to older business Platinum cardholders, but new cardholders who signed up since the benefit was rolled out will end up getting a full year of this benefit.
Update: This has now been confirmed by Amex support. Any new Platinum business cardholders who signed up since October 5th until May 31, 2017 will receive the 50% rebate for a full year.
