October 1, 2023

The Amex Platinum’s New Perks Make It One of the Most Valuable Cards for People Stuck at Home

Earn up to $1,880 in statement credits with the Amex Platinum card. Travel has been…

The Amex Platinum’s New Perks Make It One of the Most Valuable Cards for People Stuck at Home

Earn up to $1,880 in statement credits with the Amex Platinum card.

Travel has been put on hold indefinitely for many of us, and credit card companies have been scrambling to offer limited-time perks that make keeping their best travel credit cards worth it.

Chase has been offering valuable quarantine-friendly perks on its premium travel credit card since early 2020, but American Express might be finally catching up. The beloved card issuer recently announced a long list of new offers for current cardholders of The Platinum Card® from American Express that target people spending a lot of time at home. These include statement credits on everything from online shopping to grocery delivery to in-home fitness.

Here are the details on the new Platinum offers and how you can make the most of them.

If you shop online regularly, it shouldn’t be hard to make the most of this new perk. You’ll get up to $30 per month back in the form of a statement credit on purchases made at eligible merchants made with PayPal through June 30, 2021 — that’s a total of $180 in savings if you max out this benefit.

You’ll obviously need to have a PayPal account and use it to make purchases, but most online retailers now accept PayPal as a form of payment. In fact, plenty of major retailers now accept PayPal for in-store purchases as well.

Get up to $1,700 in statement credits through Amex Offers

Platinum cardholders can also earn statement credits on eligible purchases with a long list of retailers, and this list adds up to a grand total of up to $1,700 in savings. It would be pretty difficult to max out this benefit without spending more than normal, but there’s enough variety in the offer that most cardholders can likely earn a statement credit here and there.

You’ll have to enroll in Amex Offers with each merchant to earn your statement credits. Here’s the full list of savings opportunities:

  • Avis Car Rental: $75 back when you spend $250 or more, up to two times
  • BestBuy.com: $50 back when you spend $50 or more, up to two times
  • Goldbelly: $50 back when you spend $100 or more, up to three times
  • Home Chef: $50 back when you spend $50 or more, up to three times
  • HomeDepot.com: $50 back when you spend $50 or more, up to two times
  • Instacart: $50 back when you spend $250 or more, up to two times
  • Samsung: $200 back when you spend $1,000 or more, one time
  • Scribd: $9.99 back when you spend $9.99 or more, up to five times
  • The Container Store: $50 back when you spend $150 or more, up to two times
  • Virtual Personal Training by Equinox: $130 back when you spend $780 or more, up to five times
  • Wine Insiders: $30 back when you spend $30 or more, up to two times

The list is overwhelmingly geared toward stay-at-home and socially distant goods and activities. Online shopping and delivery services dominate these offers, along with home activities like virtual fitness (Equinox) and Scribd (e-books and audiobooks).

While some of these offers are hard to take advantage of without buying things you wouldn’t normally buy, others are pretty easy to use up. For example, the HomeDepot.com, Home Chef (a meal kit service), and BestBuy.com offers all only require you to spend $50 to earn $50 back, so you could potentially take full advantage of these without spending anything.

Others, like the Instacart offer, require more spending but when it comes to groceries, it’s not hard to hit $250 if you’re feeding a family. These offers are active until June 30, 2021, so you’ve got some time to use them. That being said, you should go in and activate them now so they’re ready to go.

In total, these offers represent a potential savings of $1,880 for holders of The Platinum Card® from American Express on goods and services that are largely geared toward people who are staying home. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to max out the full value of these offers, but even if you only take advantage of half, that’s some serious value on top of the already long list of perks offered by this card.