A new benefit that American Express added to their personal Platinum card is the ability to earn 5x Membership Rewards points on “5X points for flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel”. On reddit somebody tried this on the MileagePlus X app and claimed that this was coding for 5x points, this was also covered by View From The Wing.
This purchase does indeed code as: “MILEAGEPLUS X, Travel – Airline” on the Platinum card. The problem is that it also codes that way on Premier Rewards Gold card (this earns 3x points on flights booked directly with the airline) and those purchases do not earn 3x points. I’d be very surprised if the Platinum card does earn 5x points, it’s too early to say for sure either way as nobodies points will have posted yet.
MPX purchases have been working to trigger the annual airline credit (before you berate me in the comments, if you think American Express doesn’t already know about this you’re delusional) so it still might make sense to make purchases through MPX – just don’t expect them to earn 5x points.
