American Express Platinum Card now with a whopping $895 fee

American Express has come out with another revamp of its flagship Platinum credit card. The annual fee has increased by $200 to a whopping $895. This comes on the heel of Chase Sapphire Reserve revamp, which saw its fee increase to $795. Guess, Amex could not stomach its premium card having a lower fee than competition.

The card also comes with a new limited edition mirror design as shown below. New users can select the new design at the time of application, and old users can find the option to get the new design in their settings here.

New American Express Mirror Design. Image courtesy American Express.
            

Increase in Benefits

With the increase in the fee, also come an increase in its list of benefits to sell value to customers. Here is a list of old and new benefits for Amex Platinum.

Image courtesy American Express.

Valuing Benefits

Given the coupon book nature of the benefits, different people will get different value out of the card. I value the benefits less than advertised because you can often get those benefits for less when you shop around.

I usually assign a value to each benefit based on my usage of the benefit and see if the total of my valuations justifies the annual fee. My current valuation of each benefit is as below.

Benefit                My valuation   Comment
FHR Credits            $300           Difficult to use, short expiration
Airline Fee Credit     $100           Difficult to use
Uber Credits           $60            Infrequent use, Markups
Uber One Credits       $10            Infrequent use
Lounge Collection      $60            Infrequent use, Comparable food value
Saks Credits           $50            Infrequent use
Walmart+ Credits       $49            Annual fee offer
Lululemon Credits      $75            Infrequent use, Markups
Amex Offers            $20            Extra Platinum Value
5x on Airlines         $10            Extra 1% on $1000
Equinox Credits        $0             Not used
Oura ring Credits      $0             Not used, Excludes subscription 
Clear Credits          $0             Not used
Resy Credits           $0             Not used
Select Entertainment   $0             Not useful
                      

I might get more value from some of these benefits some years but these are my average valuation guesses based on my current usage. The total comes out to around $714 for a user like me, which falls short of the new annual fee of $895. Based on these numbers, the new Platinum card is not for me and I might lose it on my next renewal if my valuations don't change.

The new benefits take effect immedialy and if you currently have a Platinum card, the new fee takes effect on your next renewal after January 1st, 2026 so you have some time to try them and make up your mind.

Comparing Fees

The last fee increase on the Platinum card was in 2021, when the fee increased from $550 to $695. With the latest increase, here is how the annual fee compares on the personal premium card offerings from major card issuers.

        Premium Card            Annual Fee
        Amex Platinum            $895
        Chase Sapphire Reserve   $795
        UBS Visa Infinite        $650
        Citi Strata Elite        $595
        Capital One Venture X    $395


Referral Link

Here’s my Amex referral link to get you started. It is for Business Platinum but you can choose from Personal Cards as well. Use it and we could both earn rewards if you are approved and get a Card.

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