How the Amex Business Platinum Can Unlock Your Membership Rewards Point Pile — Here’s Who Should Seriously Consider It

Your points are not getting any more valuable. In the past, we’ve written about why you should spend those points as soon as you earn them, whether you earned them by spending on your favorite credit card or by scoring a sweet sign-up bonus on a new one.

We’ve even touched on how you can use various tools to find the best windows to redeem points from your favorite airline, creditor, or hotel giant. However, for those who have amassed a small fortune in American Express’s Membership Rewards (MR) points, there is one “glitch” that you need to know about. For the right kind of traveler, it might even be a no-brainer.

Why it pays to pay up: The Amex Business Platinum Card carries an $895 annual fee, and unlike the consumer version, its credits aren’t as easy to fully use. However, there is one dimension where the card excels: booking flights. With this card, you can get 35% off airfare by paying with Amex points through Pay With Points (PWP). It’s an easy way to elevate the value of Amex points and bolster the case to stack other Amex MR cards like Amex Gold. Here’s how it works:

• Amex allows Platinum Business cardholders to select an airline to earn a 35% rebate when they use MR points to book economy travel on the creditor’s Amex Travel portal.
• You have to choose a single airline like Delta, United, or Alaska for the 35% rebate on economy flights, but the offer applies to all airlines when flying first or business class.

When A Big Discount Pays For Itself

PWP bolsters the value of Amex MR to at least ~1.54 cents per point, which makes a great fallback for people who are not well-versed in transfer partners or don’t juggle various credit, airline, or hotel currencies. However, seeing how most Americans don’t take more than two flights a year, PWP is only attractive to a narrow pocket of cardholders:

• Amex points maximalists: If you’ve earned a big SUB (or will) or carry several Amex cards, PWP is an easy way to put earned points to work, up to 1M points per year.
• Those who fly a lot: You can earn back the entire Business Platinum annual fee after redeeming over 256K Amex MR in a year — or less if you use some card credits.
• Airlines not in the transfer portal: Alaska or Hawaiian flyers can’t transfer MR to the airline, but they can use PWP to book cash fare tickets, a huge win for status members.

Unlocking even more value: The Business Platinum can be a great fit for high spenders or sign-up bonus enthusiasts looking to burn through a large stash of MR points. While you don’t need to redeem 256K points if you can offset the annual fee with the card’s credits, not all of them are as easy to use as the $600 hotel credit, $219 CLEAR+ credit, or $200 airline fee credit. Even recovering part of the annual fee can make this unmatched perk worth considering, especially if you fly frequently or want to make costly family trips a little easier on the wallet.