All right! So American Express has recently made some significant changes to one of my own personal favorite credit cards, the AmEx Platinum in this video. We're going to keep it short and easy. We're gonna go over what those changes are, how it really affects us, and towards the end of this video, we're going to be going over whether or not this is the signal to something that we should be worrying more about. What I mean by that is, Could this be the start to a world where we continue to travel with credit card points all for free start coming to an end.

Anyways, First benefit that American Express has knocked off the Platinum is the fact that the welcome bonus offer is going to be a little bit harder to get with the old offer. you would be earning 80 000 membership reward points after you spend six thousand dollars on purchases within the first six months of card ownership. Now the new offer, they pretty much just increased the amount of money you have to spend within that six month period from six thousand dollars over to eight thousand dollars. Now this benefit here isn't too much of concern for me personally, only because if they did something instead where they decrease the amount of time you had to spend from six months back to the original offer which was three months, then it would be a little bit more worrisome.

When you put together the fact that most people get the Platinum Card are getting it because they want to experience better luxurious travel. Usually you know if you're traveling with your family, you pay for your kids, your wife, you know, at their hotel, their flights, the travel expenses, the food. You'd find that six months and still spending eight thousand dollars is more than enough time to be able to hit that welcome bonus requirement. Regardless though, this is still something that you should keep into consideration when applying for this card because I know there are people with much tighter budgets.

Now this next change they made is the one that has really ticked a lot of people within the community off. And it's the fact that American Express is now charging way more for their authorized user cards for the Platinum card. So instead of adding up to three users for a total of 175 dollars, now each authorized user for the Platinum card is gonna cost you a hundred and ninety five dollars each. So the way this normally works is if the head of the family has the Platinum Card they'd be able to give two of their kids an authorized user card and your spouse one and you would only have to pay 175 dollars Max per year.

That right, there was a pretty good deal because it meant that each authorized user on your account you're paying about 60 a year for them, they would have access for just sixty dollars. all the free airport lounge access Centurion lounge access, getting free food, free drinks, and more. So normally when there are good deals and people take advantage of it, it leads to situations like overcrowding in certain lounges now. I've talked about it here on this channel the last few times I've gone into the Centurion Lounge It was not a great experience.

There were too many people in there, practically people sitting on each other's laps. You have kids running around, people yelling on their phone. Felt like a McDonald's playground. Well it's clear American Express has been trying their best in order to make the Centurion Lounge a more enjoyable premium luxury experience once again and we saw the start of this happening within the last year where American Express stated that for any new guests that you're bringing into the lounge, you're going to have to pay an additional fee.

Now the workaround to that is if you spend 75 000 on your Amex platinum card then you would be able to get the complimentary guest access which was once for free. Now lucky enough for us on my business platinum card because I have a ton of business expenses, we're able to knock that out and get the free benefit there. but I just personally can't imagine someone doing that on their personal card without a business. Now is it still worth it for you to get an authorized user card? Well if you got a kid and they traveling a lot and they really want the Platinum Card I would say then it still might be worth it But generally speaking, if everyone gets their own platinum card and you at least score that welcome bonus off for that first year, you're still coming out net positive.

Combine that with all the perks and benefits and even some of the tips and tricks that I mentioned in one of our recent uploads going over some of the things that you need to do for your platinum card, you should definitely be coming out ahead. Now this next change they made I don't think is a con at all. I Think it's much more of a benefit and it's the fact that with the platinum card if you didn't know you can actually add another member to your account and you would get like this really watered-down version of the gold card. This whole thing really confused a lot of people because you have the actual American Express gold card and then you have the authorized free account gold card that came with the Platinum one.

Well to make things a bit more clear, Amex is now rebranded that free option as the companion platinum card instead. This card just has a name change. It's a bit more clear on how it works and from what I've realized and actually reordering myself a version of this card because I'm curious on what it looks like. it looks online, like it's more white than how the Platinum Card looks.

more silver in person. Now if you don't know how to get the free version of the new Companion Platinum card on your Amex account, here's a quick 60 second walkthrough from pixelated Brian Alright guys, so in order for you to get that Companion Platinum card, it's really simple. Log into your American Express Account go into account services right here. From here you just go in to manage other users and then you go into add, add someone to your account and then I'm going to do my platinum card from there.

I'm just going to click on additional card number one and you can also see that the annual fee for each platinum card is now 195 dollars or I can get the companion Platinum card from Amex which is no annual fee now. I'm gonna get this and I'll show you guys what it looks like when it actually comes in the mail. So from there I'm going to click on the Companion Platinum card and the reason I'm getting this is so I can get my sister the global entry TSA pre-check credit. You can see this card also has nearly none of the benefits that the other card has to offer.

So from there I'm just going to be filling out her information and then be adding her as a card member to my account. Now the main advantage of the free version of this card is that if you have a family member or you know a friend who's trying to get a TSA pre-check or Global Entry status, you can put it on this card and then give them the credit completely for free. Also, keep in mind, like most of the credit cards that we talk about here on this channel offer the compensation credit for TSA pre-check and Global Entry. So if you're watching this video, you or a family member or friend should never have to pay for TSA pre-check or Global Entry.

That is pretty much a free given credit if you're within this space. Now the next benefit that they decide to drop off but replace with another one is the 20 monthly Entertainment Credit Where before audible would go ahead and Trigger that. but as of October 2nd, American Express is removing Audible and they're adding The Wall Street Journal as an option instead. Now guys, let me know what you guys think on why American Express would remove a company and add another for me.

I Believe it's a dispute happening internally, but you never really know. Now one last major change that American Express has added to their cards is the fact that they are now cracking down on earning multiple welcome bonuses on different co-branded versions of the platinum card. So if you didn't know, American Express Platinum actually has multiple versions, they have the Charles Schwab version and also the Morgan Stanley one. It looks like American Express is really trying to shut down on people taking advantage of multiple welcome bonus offers because before you'd be able to get multiple welcome bonus offers on a similar card product.

So if you had the regular platinum card then you got the Charles Schwa Platinum card and the Morgan Stanley Platinum Card. You could have variations of the same product but still continue to get a ton of different points now. I Don't want you guys to confuse this with the personal platinum card and the business one because those are still two separate products and I had someone DM me recently Brian Are you sure I can get the personal platinum card and the business welcome bonus offer. Yes you can! There are two different products.

This new rule that they're implementing is just mainly applying to the co-branded versions within the personal lineup. So with these changes that American Express decided to make, is it worth it for you guys to now cancel your card and move on to a different product personally? for me? I Don't think so. Even though I was using Audible literally for my platinum card and actually getting that benefit back I still have a ton of different subscription services that I use paired up with it. So I know that I'm not gonna be missing out on any any credits there aside from the authorized user change that they made where personally for me.

I actually never even used the authorized user cards and if I have a family member who's traveling that much I would just tell them apply for your own. There are going to be other people who think that the changes that they made are significant and it's not worth holding this card. I Personally disagree I Think the changes are pretty minimal and moving forward. It's just showing that a lot of these card issuers are trying to limit some of the abuse that happens within the space.

I might even be on the other end where these changes aren't minimal in the negatives, but it might even be more beneficial where changes with the authorized user cards if it leads to having less crowded lounges I would prefer that. Now as you guys know, other card issuers like Chase Capital One have really been stepping up their game and if you really are that unhappy about a certain card, there are still a ton of other alternative credit cards that you can check out recently. I Got the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and I have a full unboxing of that on my channel and another review video coming out next week. If you you are interested in learning more about any luxury travel credit cards, be sure to check out some of the other videos that we've made here on this channel.

Alright, so thank you all so much again for watching today's video. Be sure to check out the links Down Below in the description also reminder: Prince of travel Summit in April I'm gonna be speaking at that. If you guys want to swing by, you can get some discount on your tickets down below. If you're signing up for any credit card, check out the links down below.

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