To quote reddit user sharpflatclip, “word on the street” is that the new American Express Platinum benefits & annual fee increase will be accompanied by an increase in the standard signup bonus. The current standard signup bonus is 40,000 Membership Rewards (MR) points for $3,000 in spend while the new standard signup bonus will be 60,000 MR for $5,000 in spend. It’s unknown how this will change the standard incognito offer (75,000 MR for $5,000 in spend), if at all, or if this will be a new standard offer on co-branded Platinum cards (one can hope!).
This rumor is unsubstantiated and no proof is offered, so take it with a big grain of salt. At first glance it does at least appear to pass the eye test: a bigger signup bonus will make the higher annual fee more palatable. It’s a $200+ signup bonus increase versus a $100 annual fee increase and approximately a $50+ increase in interchange fees due to the increased minimum spend.
On a slightly different note: American Express re-vamped & increased their referral offers around February 1 and the Platinum was not included, even though it used to be possible to generate a referral for the card. Given the card changes, I wonder if referral offers on the Platinum will come back after the big changes on March 30.
We’ll keep you updated as more info is released, though everyone will know soon enough in any case—the new changes take place in 14 days. Barring substantiation, I would not let this rumor affect whether or not you apply for a Platinum card before March 30, in order to lock in a $450 annual fee for the first year. Especially given that the current incognito offer is 75,000 MR for $5,000 in spend, there’s little reason to wait for the possibility of an increased offer.
Questions and anything else can be dropped in the comments below. I’ll start a FAQ on this post as necessary.
h/t r/churning via u/sharpflatclip
cool story bro. honestly, who cares if its true or not. its 60k for plat dude. meh. if ur saying 100k standard offer to crush the chase dicks then yea.
A user with 4 posts in the past year makes a claim like this and you post it?
Yes, for a few reasons:
(a) Reddit experience has no bearing on whether someone has experiential information outside of reddit.
(b) It looks reasonable enough to be real.
(c) There is little reason to lie about this, since the poster gains nothing (post karma doesn’t count towards referral threads, etc.) & we’ll know very soon whether it’s correct.
(d) I think it’s interesting enough to blog about (especially given the thought that referrals may come back), as long as appropriate warnings are included.
a) It helps establish credibility. The last unsubstantiated Amex rumor from a throwaway Reddit account was the big Amex Platinum news and that was a bust. If there is a legit source, why wouldn’t they come to an established blog such as this one?
b) Appearances can be deceiving. Anyone that knows this hobby could make up a plausible sounding yet totally fake tip in a few minutes.
c) Do you really believe people won’t lie without cause on the internet? Or lie just to stir up trouble?
d) I think you hurt your site’s reputation by reporting by degrading the quality of your content.
Dude just go back to reddit where you feel safe, you waste of life.
That’s 100% uncalled for, have some respect.
Yikes, Mike. While I disagree with Bart, we can disagree civilly — there’s no need to personally attack him!
What was the last unsubstantiated rumor? I’m actually 50/50 on this one being true, their media department had a weird response when I asked about it.
Drunk Amex girl, what a nightmare.
(a) Honestly, I don’t think drunk Amex chick was a bust. AmEx introduced 5x on airfare and has introduced more benefits since then. Sure, the big reveal about the Uber + AF increase was months later, but I buy that the info was pretty real. (either that or the rumors made AmEx actually do something!)
As for why they wouldn’t come to a blog like this, it depends on how established someone is. When I leaked the Hilton 100k/125k offers, I had no real idea that DOC existed and had no reason to send info here.
(b) Sure, definitely.
(c) I do believe people would do that (the SPG referral fiasco is a fine example). But, I’ve generally found that the churning community is pretty honest. Maybe I’m more gullible than the next person, but I find it reasonable to take this user at face value.
(d) I slept on this one overnight before writing this up to see how I felt about it in the morning, and I felt it was “newsworthy” enough to write about with a boldly displayed caveat about its reputability.