Whenever someone asks me for a credit card recommendation, I typically start with the American Express Platinum card. I love the Platinum Card because it offers a ton of value for simply paying the annual fee. These benefits include lounge access, hotel status, and access to the Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts program. All of these benefits, when used throughout the year, easily offset the hefty $550 annual fee.
Even better, American Express provides various annul statement credits to help offset the annual fee. If you maximize these credits annually, you’ll end up paying far less than $550 to carry the card.
American Express Platinum Card Annual Statement Credits 2021
In an effort to retain and attract new card members to a travel focused credit card in 2021, American Express is offering various statement credits to card members to help reduce the effective annual fee. These credits include a $200 Airline of Choice credit, $200 Uber credit, $100 Saks credit, $180 PayPal credit, and a $200 one-time travel credit. In total, Amex is offering up to $680 back in 2021 statement credits. That means, American Express will actually PAY YOU $130 to carry the Platinum card in 2021.
Now, the important thing to remember is that American Express doesn’t exactly make earning these credits easy. What I mean by that, is that these aren’t generic statement credits that apply to all purchases. Instead, these credits only apply to certain purchases, such as PayPay, Amex Travel, Uber, or Saks. So, in order to earn the credits you must meet the spending criteria by certain dates.
Personally, I won’t have any trouble maximizing the Uber, Saks, PayPal, or travel credits, but I often have a hard time maximizing the $200 Airline of Choice benefit.
My 2021 Airline of Choice Strategy
Over the past several years, I’ve maximized the Amex $200 Airline of Choice benefit by purchasing American Airlines gift cards. This made maximizing the benefit easy, but buying gift cards wasn’t technically an eligible purchase. Instead, the Airline of Choice benefit is intended for bag fees, on-board snacks, and other miscellaneous travel purchases other than airfare. Since I usually don’t buy these things while traveling, I often found it difficult to earn this credit organically.
Sadly, American Express closed the airline gift card loophole in 2020, so I had to find another way to maximize this benefit. To make things even more difficult, I haven’t traveled since mid-2020 and have no plans to yet in 2021. So, to maximize the 2021 Airline of Choice Benefit I have to get creative.
Thankfully, I discovered through various travel sites that I could use the Amex Airline of Choice benefit to purchase American Airlines 500-mile upgrades. Now, I don’t love this option since I have little use to 500-mile upgrades, but at least it works. So, my plan for 2021 is to try to use the Airline of Choice benefit organically and if that fails I’ll buy 500-mile upgrades at the end the year, just like I did in 2020.
Final Thoughts
While the American Express $200 Airline of Choice benefit is often difficult to maximize, it’s nice to know that buying AA 500-mile upgrades triggers the credit. Another nice thing about using the credit this way is that you can do it with one single purchase. I proved this by recklessly buying five 500-mile upgrades on December 20, 2020 and receiving the full $200 credit back on my card the next day.
All in all, I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to use my 2021 benefit organically while traveling. However, if not, it looks like I’ll be sitting on an even bigger stockpile of 500-mile upgrades next year.
