Improve Company Travel with the Amex Business Platinum

The Business Platinum Card® from American Express has long been considered one of the most premium small-business credit cards on the market. And with an annual fee of $895 (see rates and fees), it’s hardly surprising.

While it won’t make sense for every business, the Amex Business Platinum is capable of delivering substantial value when paired with the right business spending profile and travel patterns.

To understand whether the Amex Business Platinum deserves a place in your company’s wallet, it’s important to break down its core features, earning structure, travel benefits and business tools, and compare those elements against competing premium business cards.

Here’s our in-depth Amex Business Platinum review.

Core Features of the American Express Business Platinum

The Amex Business Platinum differentiates itself through accelerated earning, premium travel perks and rewards designed specifically for companies that spend heavily in travel, software, logistics and capital purchases.

Unlike other business credit cards that reward everyday purchases with a simple flat rate of cash back, the Business Platinum functions as a business travel workhorse, particularly for firms that put employees on the road, invest in software and infrastructure and scale through large purchase orders.

Earning Structure

The American Express Business Platinum rewards both business-specific and travel-related spending.

Here’s an overview of its earning rates:

• 5X points on flights and prepaid hotels booked through American Express Travel®, including Fine Hotels + Resorts® and the Hotel Collection
• 2X points on eligible purchases in key business categories or on single purchases of $5,000 or more, up to $2 million per calendar year (1X points thereafter), including:
  • Construction material and hardware suppliers
  • Electronic goods retailers and software and cloud system providers
  • Shipping providers
• 1X points on all other purchases

The ability to earn 5X points on flights and prepaid hotels booked through American Express Travel offers a lucrative return on company travel.

According to a study by Booking.com, the average business trip costs $1,771 for business travelers and $1,986 for decision-makers.

If you have a team of four employees who each make an average of two trips per month, you’d earn around 850,080 Membership Rewards points per year by booking company travel through American Express Travel, based on those figures.

The only downside is that you can’t benefit from this points multiplier if you book directly with the airline or hotel. That means you have to often forfeit elite status benefits with hotels or forgo the higher earning rate. Portal bookings also make it more difficult when it comes to managing issues because you can’t deal with the airline or hotel directly.

This is where the Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ stands out, offering 4X points on flights and hotels booked directly with the merchant, making it more flexible for earning a return on company travel.

Alternatively, if you’re happy to book through a card issuer portal, the Capital One Venture X Business credit card offers 10X miles on hotels and rental cars, and 5X miles on flights, booked through Capital One Business Travel.

So you may be better off routing your business expenditure through the Venture X Business credit card if you’re going to book through a card-issuer portal—unless you want the additional cardholder perks of the Amex Business Platinum.

The Amex Business Platinum shines most when it comes to its 2X earning category on a range of common business expenses as well as eligible purchases equal to or greater than $5,000.

You can earn 2X points on construction material and hardware suppliers, electronic goods retailers, software and cloud system providers, and shipping providers. Rewards are capped at $2 million in annual spending, after which the rewards rate drops to 1X points per dollar spent.

These 2X categories offer high return on investment (ROI) for your business spending, no matter how diverse it is. This makes the Amex Business Platinum a reliable card that can grow with your business as it scales. It’s also more adaptable to your business’ spending needs than the Sapphire Reserve for Business.

That said, if your business exceeds $2 million in annual spend, the Venture X Business could be a better alternative because its 2X baseline rewards rate is uncapped.

Amex Business Platinum Annual Fee Breakdown and Value Proposition

The Amex Business Platinum currently boasts the highest annual fee of any small-business credit card, coming in at $895 per year (see rates and fees). While this is no small sum, it can be worth paying as long as you receive greater return value compared to what you pay in fees.

If you were to offset the Amex Business Platinum’s annual fee through spending alone, here’s what you’d need to spend annually to break even, assuming a return value of 1 cent per point:

• 5X points category: $17,900
• 2X points category $44,750

In reality, the figures will be different as you’ll be spending in both categories combined.

Similarly, the Amex Business Platinum offers more than $3,500 worth of value in the form of complimentary elite status and statement credit perks.

Additionally, you often can redeem your points for between 5 and 10 cents apiece by transferring them strategically to Amex’s airline partners. Therefore, offsetting the annual fee becomes far easier for frequent travelers who can maximize statement credit perks and boost the value of their points through savvy redemptions.

However, if you own a small business with minimal travel demands and low annual spend, you’ll struggle to offset the Amex Business Platinum’s annual fee.

Travel Benefits and Protections

The Amex Business Platinum is a heavyweight when it comes to travel perks, offering complimentary elite status and more than $1,000 worth of statement credit perks.

The Amex Business Platinum comes with the following statement credits:

• $600 annual statement credit, issued in $300 semiannual credits, on prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts or The Hotel Collection (with a minimum stay of two consecutive nights) bookings through American Express Travel
• $200 annual Hilton statement credit, issued in $50 quarterly credits, for direct purchases with hotels in the Hilton portfolio (Hilton for Business membership required)
• Up to $200 in statement credits per calendar year for incidental fees with one qualifying preselected airline
• Annual statement credit toward CLEAR+ membership
• A $100 credit towards eligible charges (which vary by property) when you book a minimum stay of two nights or more with The Hotel Collection through American Express Travel
• Statement credit toward Global Entry or TSA PreCheck® membership every four years
• When you charge $250,000 or more to your card in a calendar year, you’ll receive up to $1,200 in statement credits on flights booked through American Express Travel for use in the next calendar year.

Using just a handful of these credits will allow you to offset the card’s annual fee, particularly when combined with the card’s spending categories. These credits can also help reduce the cost of company travel, such as by using the hotel credits and airline incidental fees credit.

And if you manage to charge $250,000 to your card through natural expenditure, you’ll receive $1,200 worth of statement credits to put toward flights booked through American Express Travel, reducing company travel expenditure even further.

If you opt to use Pay with Points to book flights through American Express Travel, you’ll enjoy a 35% points rebate with your selected qualifying airline (up to 1 million points back per calendar year). This effectively increases the value of each redemption you make using Pay with Points, making your points go further.

The card also offers a comprehensive suite of travel protection perks that extend to your employees’ cards, ensuring you and your team are protected on the road and in the skies.*

* Eligibility and benefit level varies by card. Terms, conditions and limitations apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by Amex Assurance Company.

Airport Lounge Access Programs

The Amex Business Platinum’s travel benefits don’t stop there. In fact, one of the most valuable perks of the Business Platinum is complimentary access to The American Express Global Lounge Collection®.

This is the largest lounge network of any issuer, offering complimentary access to the following networks:

• The Centurion® Lounge
• Delta Sky Club®
• Escape Lounges
• Lufthansa Lounges
• Plaza Premium
• Priority Pass™ Select
• Additional Global Lounge Collection partner lounges

Employees who hold additional Amex Business Platinum cards also can access these lounges. However, keep in mind that employee expense cards don’t qualify for complimentary lounge access.

Each lounge network has different entry requirements, which can be summarized as follows:

• Centurion Lounge: Complimentary access for primary cardholder and additional cardholders. Guests are charged a per-visit rate of $50 (or $30 for children aged 2 through 17). If you charge $75,000 to your card within a calendar year, you can bring up to two guests with you free of charge into Centurion Lounges in the United States and select international locations (applies for the remainder of the calendar year, the entirety of the following calendar year and through Jan. 31 of the next calendar year).
• Delta Sky Club: Cardholders receive 10 complimentary visits to Delta Sky Clubs each Medallion Year (Feb. 1 through Jan. 31) per Platinum Card when traveling on a same-day Delta-operated flight or Delta-marketed WestJet flights (excluding basic economy tickets). You can bring up to two guests or immediate family members at a per-visit rate of $50 per person. If you charge $75,000 to your card within a calendar year, you’ll receive unlimited access to Delta Sky Clubs for the remainder of the Medallion Year plus the following Medallion Year.
• Escape Lounges – The Centurion Studio Partner: Complimentary access for primary cardholder and additional cardholders with the ability to bring up to two guests free of charge.
• Lufthansa Lounges: Cardholders can enter Lufthansa Business lounges when flying with any class of ticket and Lufthansa Senator lounges when flying business class with a Lufthansa Group airline to enter Lufthansa lounges. Guests aren’t officially allowed.
• Plaza Premium: Complimentary access for primary cardholder and additional cardholders with the ability to bring up to two guests free of charge.
• Priority Pass: Complimentary access for primary cardholder and additional cardholders with the ability to bring up to two guests free of charge. You can also access Chase Sapphire Lounges by The Club (excluding in Hong Kong) once per calendar year with a preferential rate of $75 applying per visit thereafter.

This wide network of lounges ensures that company travel—be it for yourself or your employees—is as comfortable as possible. No other credit cards with lounge access come close to offering the same level of access for both the primary cardholder and additional employee cardholders.

Hotel and Airline Status Benefits

As an Amex Business Platinum primary cardholder, you’ll enjoy the following complimentary elite status perks:

• Complimentary Leaders Club Sterling Status from The Leading Hotels of the World®
• Complimentary Marriott Bonvoy® Gold Elite status
• Complimentary Hilton Honors™ Gold status
• Car rental privileges with Avis, Hertz and National

These complimentary status benefits unlock perks such as late checkout, room upgrades (subject to availability), food and beverage credits, and more, depending on the hotel program. Additionally, complimentary elite status with a number of rental car companies unlocks savings and upgrades.

What’s even better is that all of these complimentary status perks extend to additional Amex Business Platinum cardholders, meaning that your employees can benefit from these perks, too.

This is where the American Express Business Platinum stands out, rewarding both you and your team.

Business-Specific Perks and Tools

As if unparalleled lounge access, complimentary elite status and travel credits weren’t enough, the Amex Business Platinum also comes with a suite of business-focused statement credits and tools.

As a cardholder, you’ll receive the following annual statement credit perks:

• $150 statement credit for Dell Technologies purchases in the U.S. If you spend $5,000 or more with Dell, you’ll receive an additional $1,000 statement credit.
• $250 statement credit for Adobe when you make a U.S. purchase of $600 or more with Adobe
• $360 statement credit for Indeed purchases, issued in quarterly $90 credits
• $120 statement credit for wireless telephone services with U.S. providers, issued in monthly $10 credits
• When you charge $250,000 or more to your card within a calendar year, you’ll receive up to $2,400 in statement credits for American Express One AP® monthly fees, for use in the next calendar year.

That’s more than $800 worth of business-focused annual credits, making it even easier to offset the annual fee.

You could put the Dell credit toward new laptops for employees, upgraded monitors or outfitting a conference room with a new projector.

Many small businesses rely on Adobe for marketing and creative tools, so subscriptions, such as Photoshop, Acrobat Pro and Creative Cloud All Apps, can qualify and help cut down your digital workflow costs.

If your company is hiring or scaling quickly, the Indeed credit comes in handy for posting job listings, boosting visibility or sponsoring candidate outreach.

And if you’re already paying for business cell plans on AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or other U.S. carriers, these $10 monthly credits automatically help lower your ongoing telecom overhead costs.

Lastly, if you manage to reach the spending requirement organically, the $2,400 in statement credits for American Express One AP can help larger firms manage vendor payments and invoicing at scale, reducing the cost of automating accounts payable.

As you can see, these are valuable statement credit perks for businesses of all types.

The American Express Business Platinum also comes with the ability to issue additional cards to employees. This includes:

• A paid Employee Business Platinum Card® for a $400 annual fee (see rates and fees), offering full access to elite status perks and The American Express Global Lounge Collection
• A $0 annual fee Employee Business Expense Card (see rates and fees), offering limited access to additional features

In both cases, you can set individual spending limits for each employee card and save time on bookkeeping by having all company spending centralized on one account. You can also connect your card account to quickbooks, making accounting and expense management even more efficient.

If you want to empower your employees with the full range of travel perks, the Employee Business Platinum Card will be an effective tool.

If you want to centralize company spending and extend the same earning rates to your employees, the Employee Business Expense Card will do the job without any additional annual fees.

American Express Business Platinum Rewards Redemption

What makes the Amex Business Platinum so valuable—aside from its numerous perks, strong earning rates and lucrative statement credits—is the flexibility of American Express Membership Rewards points.

American Express has a long list of airline and hotel transfer partners to which you can transfer your Amex points at the following ratios:

• Aer Lingus AerClub – 1:1
• Aeroméxico Rewards – 1:1.6
• Air Canada Aeroplan – 1:1
• Air France-KLM Flying Blue – 1:1
• All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club – 1:1
• Avianca LifeMiles – 1:1
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles – 1:1
• Choice Privileges – 1:1
• Club Iberia Plus – 1:1
• Delta SkyMiles – 1:1
• Emirates Skywards – 5:4
• Etihad Guest – 1:1
• Hilton Honors – 1:2
• JetBlue TrueBlue – 1:0.8
• Marriott Bonvoy – 1:1
• Qantas Frequent Flyer – 1:1
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer – 1:1
• The British Airways Club – 1:1
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club – 1:1

If you play your points right, you can easily squeeze 5 to 10 cents per point out of your redemptions, especially with the help of an Amex transfer bonus.

With lucrative transfer partners, such as ANA Mileage Club, Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France-KLM Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, you can use your points to fly in business class all over the world.

Alternatively, if you’d prefer to keep things simple, you can redeem your points through American Express Travel and benefit from the 35% points rebate on eligible bookings with one selected airline, albeit at a lower cents-per-point value.

Who Benefits Most from This Card?

Not every business should pay $895 for a premium rewards card. The American Express Business Platinum is targeted at a specific business profile.

The breakeven spending point for your business will vary compared to the next business as your spending mix and perk usage will be different.

It can generally be said that businesses spending more than $50,000 per year will be able to reap significant value from the card. That’s not to say that you won’t benefit from holding the card if your annual expenses are less than this, but businesses that spend $50,000 or more annually will be in a better position to offset the annual fee.

Broadly, the Amex Business Platinum Card favors three types of businesses:

1. Travel-heavy consultants and professional service providers

Consultants, agencies, sales teams and service providers who fly frequently can unlock significant value through a combination of:

• 5X points on eligible American Express Travel bookings
• Unparalleled global lounge access
• Complimentary hotel and rental car elite status
• Travel and business credits
• Strong transfer partner network for lucrative point redemptions

These types of businesses can also empower their team with employee cards, giving them elite status and lounge access perks while maintaining control over their spending.

These types of users are also in the best position to offset the card’s annual fee.

2. Scaling companies with high operational spend

The card’s 2X earning structure on large purchases and technical vendors makes it attractive for businesses that spend on:

• Cloud and software
• Computer hardware
• Logistics and shipping
• Capital equipment

For companies that issue purchase orders greater than $5,000 regularly, the 2X multiplier can help accumulate six-figure point balances each year.

In this category alone, your business could generate 4 million Membership Rewards points if it reaches the annual spending cap, which is enough to fund company travel entirely using points.

3. Businesses managing employee travel

You can empower your workforce by issuing additional cards to your employees with the following features:

• Elite hotel status
• Lounge access
• Rental car elite status

These features make for more comfortable and productive employees. It also gives you increased control over employee spending.

Comparing the Amex Business Platinum to Alternatives

Choosing the right premium business card depends on how your company spends money and how often you or your employees travel. Each major competitor business card excels for different business models, sizes and stages of growth.

If your business travels frequently and values comfort, the Amex Business Platinum stands out.

It offers the most robust suite of travel perks on the market, including lounge access, complimentary hotel and rental car elite status, travel and business credits, flight rebates and strong transfer partners.

Companies that send employees on the road regularly get outsized value by making travel comfortable, thereby improving employee productivity. The high annual fee is justified when airport lounge access and status perks are used frequently.

If your business books through card issuer travel portals and wants simple yet reliable earnings, the Capital One Venture X Business is a strong competitor.

The card earns 10X miles on hotels and rental cars, 5X miles on flights booked through Capital One Business Travel and 2X miles on everything else with no cap. For businesses that don’t want to track multiple bonus categories—and don’t care about elite hotel status or Amex’s business credits—the Venture X Business offers an easier structure at a much lower annual fee.

If your business spends heavily on advertising, software, shipping or telecom but travels less, the American Express® Business Gold Card (see rates and fees) could be a stronger match.

It earns 4X points on your top two spending categories each billing cycle (up to $150,000 per year, then 1X points thereafter), including on:

• Purchases at U.S. media providers for advertising in select media
• Purchases made from U.S. electronic goods retailers and software and cloud system providers
• Purchases at U.S. restaurants, including takeout and delivery
• Purchases at U.S. gas stations
• Transit purchases including trains, taxicabs, rideshare services, ferries, tolls, parking, buses and subways
• Monthly wireless telephone service charges made directly from a wireless telephone service provider in the U.S.

This makes it ideal for agencies, online brands, SaaS-heavy teams and growing e-commerce operators with diverse spending mixes. Without the burden of travel credits or lounge features, the Amex Business Gold can provide premium earning rates at a lower annual cost of $375 (see rates and fees).

If your business wants points flexibility without premium perks, the Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card delivers value at a fraction of the cost.

It earns 3X points on the first $150,000 spent (1X points thereafter) in a number of useful business categories, including travel, shipping, digital advertising and telecom, and provides access to Chase’s strong transfer partners for award travel.

Companies that want to optimize earning without managing statement credits or hefty annual fees will find this card efficient and cost-effective.

Which card is best depends on your company’s spend level and mix as well as its travel needs.

Application Requirements and Approval Factors

Approval for the Amex Business Platinum is based on both personal and business factors.

Amex approves a wide variety of business types, including:

• Sole proprietors
• LLCs
• Corporations
• Partnerships

During the process, your personal and business credit score will be taken into account.

Among other details, you may also be asked to provide:

• EIN (or SSN for sole proprietors)
• Business revenue estimates
• Industry classification
• Years in operation

In some cases, you may receive an instant decision.

Is the American Express Business Platinum Card for Your Business?

The American Express Business Platinum Card isn’t designed to be universal.

It’s engineered for companies that value travel comfort, redemption flexibility and business and travel perks. Its annual fee requires you to put significant spend on the card while maximizing its perks, but for travel-heavy businesses, the benefits outweigh the annual fee by a long shot.

For consultants, scaling firms, agencies and frequent travelers, the Amex Business Platinum delivers one of the strongest value propositions in the premium business card market.

For low-spend, low-travel businesses, alternatives like the Ink Business Preferred or Venture X Business offer better cost-benefit alignment.

If your business fits the target profile, the Amex Business Platinum can easily return five-figure value against its annual fee, not just in perks, but in time saved, comfort added and rewards maximized.