Business Platinum Card from American Express
130,000 MR points
New Amex SPG Signup Bonus + Updates from the Marriott Merger
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Business Platinum Card from American Express
- Earn 90,000 MR points upon spending $15,000 in the first three months
- Plus, earn 40,000 MR points upon making a purchase in months 14–17 as a cardholder
- And, earn 1.25x MR points on all purchases
- Also, receive a $200 annual travel credit
- Transfer MR points to Aeroplan and other frequent flyer programs for premium flights
- Unlimited airport lounge access for you and one guest at Priority Pass, Plaza Premium, Centurion, and other lounges
- Credits and rebates for business expenses throughout the year with Amex Offers
- Bonus MR points for referring family and friends
- Qualify for the card as a sole proprietor
- Annual fee: $799
31 Comments
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Hi ricky, Do you know of any better SPG promos maybe coming up beside the standard 50,000 bonus at the moment ?
Thanks, Susan
There’s a possibility that Amex offers higher promos once the new Marriott program has come into full force in 2019, although I wouldn’t count on it, since Amex historically hasn’t been too generous with special offers on these cards.
Ricky,
Hi Ricky,
I enjoy your posts tremendously, so please keep up the good work.
I am Plat Elite as well but have not been able to choose the annual choice benefit. Have you been able to choose it and if so please let me know how to do so.
Hi Ricky,
Thanks for all you do.
I had both the spa personal and business in the last year and cancelled them both in the last few months. Is there a certain amount of time we should wait to re-apply? Are we for sure going to be eligible for the new sign up bonuses?
Cheers
I typically wait at least three months before re-applying, although I know people have successfully done immediate turnarounds in the past. The eligibility restrictions on Amex cards haven’t been enforced, so yes you should be getting the bonuses.
Hi, Ricky! Thanks for your thoughtful posts as always. I’m looking for another "SPG" card now that the dust has settled. Do you still recommend the U.S. Biz SPG that you recommended earlier in the year. I would be getting it as my 3rd U.S. card.
I also wonder if you’ve had any experiences with any of the U.S. AA cards by Barclays. There are some great offers on many of those but I wonder how easy it is to be approved for a Canadian who started not too long ago with U.S. cards.
That’s a great card in my opinion, since it has a first-year fee waiver, a 100,000 point bonus, and the annual free night as well (which is worth the US$95 annual fee). Since US Amex cards have once-in-a-lifetime bonuses, I’ll be keeping that card around in order to make use of the free night.
I haven’t applied for any Barclays cards yet. I’m not 100% certain but I remember hearing that they don’t accept ITINs for applications, although I’d be happy to be proven wrong.
Hi Ricky,
Im so confused! Lol! I have the cobalt card and now Im confused about where to transfer points. I like to use points for airlines and not hotels. I canceled my spg card some time ago. What options do I have to get best value from my cobalt points now?
Thank you Ricky,
Marlene
Yep, there’s been lots of changes! Cobalt points can still only be transferred to hotels, so you could transfer them to Marriott at a 1:1.2 ratio and then transfer those points onwards to airlines. Otherwise, you could look into using Amex Fixed Points Travel to book flights at 1.5-2 cpp.
Did you notice further Amex devaluation? Platinum is 50K points and Biz Platinum is 40K. Just when I am starting to apply for credit cards. Wonder if this is going to be the future.
Those are the regular public offers available on the Amex website, and they’ve always been lower than the offers via referral links. The offers via referral links are the ones I discuss here on the blog (60K for Platinum and Business Platinum). You can also apply for the Business Platinum via Canada Post to get the 75K offer.
Hi Ricky, will you have a referral link for this card? I’d like to apply for it soon and would like to apply through you if possible.
Thanks, I appreciate that! For some reason referrals don’t seem to be available on the SPG cards at the moment (not even the $25 statement credit). I will post when the referral bonus comes back; for now, the best offer is probably via Great Canadian Rebates, where you can get $30 back on the personal card.
Hi Ricky,
I have the SPG Biz card from last year that is coming up for renewal next week. Would you recommend holding on to the card or is it better to cancel and reapply in a few months (if the bonus improves)? I know the Biz card gets a free night on the anniversary date but is there any DP that they started that or will it start from the next anniversary?
You should get the free night on your anniversary date. The question is how much you value that free night over the ability to reattain the signup bonus of 50,000 points.
On the face of it, even if the signup bonus doesn’t improve, it would be worth more than the free night (which is capped at 35,000 points), so I’d say the general direction of this card is still to cancel and reapply rather than holding on to it for the annual free nights.
If you were to hold it until the free night posted then cancel say 1 month later, would you lose the night (assuming its unused)? Just wondering if a "Hold for 13 months" pattern gets the best of both worlds?
In theory that should work – I believe it used to work like that for the old Chase Marriott card – but we don’t have any data points yet.
What about transfers to other airline programs, for example I was saving up SPG points to transfer to JAL miles book first class on Emirates, is this still an option and has this been devalued? Cheers!
Yep, that’s still an option as well, with no devaluation. The points required has simply been converted by a factor of 3x to match the new program – nowadays, your miles transfer at a 3:1 ratio, and you’ll need to transfer in chunks of 60,000 points to get the 5,000 bonus airline miles (whereas previously you needed to transfer in chunks of 20,000 Starpoints).
See: http://members.marriott.com/redeem/
To add on that, assuming all spending on the bonus category, cobalt used to give 5 cents worth of value per dollar.
With the starpoints to Aeroplan conversion, effectively this means earning 2.5 Aeroplan per dollar. Assuming a 2 cents per point value of Aeroplan, (unless I artificially try to blow up the value of an Aeroplan point by booking just a week in advance), I am still effectively achieving 5 cents per dollar in value.
Do you still it’s worthwhile to convert to Aeroplan or just book a travel and redeem the points at 1 cent per point on travel purchases organically.
To me the latter seems more simple straightforward and means nearly achieving the same value without any conversions, unless you tell me otherwise.
Yes, 5c/$ is basically the baseline of your Cobalt spending, and you should compare all other options against this baseline. However, transferring points to Marriott at a 1:1.2 ratio can still beat out the 1cpp valuation of MR Select points if you redeem them wisely towards hotel stays, or transfer them to airline miles that are otherwise tough to earn. Or you can use Fixed Points Travel to book revenue tickets at a higher return (1.5-2cpp) as well.
Hi Ricky
You are right on that, however, the credit card points required to convert to hotel points has definitely gone up which as per your first extract represents a devaluation.
For instance, I used to take chunks of 40000 cobalt points at a time to generate 20000 starpoints to generate 25000 Aeroplan.
Now I need to take chunks of 50000 cobalt points. To me that just made it 25% more expensive!
That’s correct – there’s been a devaluation on the Amex MR transfer ratio, so if that was your primary way of racking up SPG/Marriott points for airline transfers, then you’ve taken a hit.
Thanks. Is it only Marriott or can it be SPG, Sheraton etc to qualify for the 5th night?
Yes, they should all be under "Marriott" now and even SPG hotels, like the Westin, give you the 5th night free when booked on points.
Do you still get the 5th night free when booking four nights?
Yes!
I’ve been waiting to refer my SO for a card… disappointed that I won’t be getting points for that. I suspect your suggestion is that I go for it anyways and keep the points rolling vs « waiting for that referral » down the road ?
I’ve been waiting to refer my SO for a card… disappointed that I won’t be getting points for that. I suspect your suggestion is that I go for it anyways and keep the points rolling vs « waiting for that referral » down the road ?
I think we can be pretty confident that there will be a referral bonus, just not at the moment. I’d say that if you have a use in mind for the points, it’s best to apply now, and you can always get the referral bonus on the next round. Only if you don’t really need the points urgently might it make sense to adopt a “wait and see” approach.