The Platinum Card from American Express may be one of the most expensive cards to carry in your wallet at $699 per year but there’s good reason for that. You have an amazing lounge access program, you get automatic hotel elite status with numerous hotel chains, you get the Fine Hotels & Resorts program and much more. All of which are amazing travel benefits but there isn’t much travel going on. The $699 fee is softened by an annual $200 travel credit that you can utilize for bookings made via American Express Travel, which pre-pandemic was utilized by many. But now that we are in the thick of things many Platinum Cardmembers have not been travelling and have not been able to use the travel credit (unless you know the hotel refund trick 😉 ). American Express knows that cardmembers have stayed and like everything else great they have done during the pandemic they are appeasing the customer and extending or issuing new travel credits for those that expired after October 1, 2020 or will expire by September 30, 2021
Here’s the verbiage from the email we received yesterday and also pointed out to us by our Twitter follower Paul M:
American Express is committed to serving its Canadian customers. Nothing
is more important than ensuring that our commitment to you does
not waver.We understand you may not have had or will not have
an opportunity to use your Annual Travel Credit(s) before it expires.
We will be proactively issuing you a replacement credit(s) if it has
expired or is set to expire between October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021,
and you have not already used it. There is nothing required from you at
this time, and we will be in touch with more details on how the
replacement will be updated on your account.If your Travel Credit(s) has already expired and
you are looking for replacement credit(s) to use right now, please call
the number on the back of your Card and select the option for Travel.
I just received my travel credit for this year at the end of last month:
However I did not utilize mine from last year as we didn’t travel anywhere to use it. Based on the email I should expect it to be replaced in the near future. This is awesome as that will give us $400 towards travel which we’ll most likely utilize for a hotel stay – maybe Banff or Lake Louise via Fine Hotels and Resorts once we are ready to travel out again. Who knows. Only time will tell.
Again, I must applaud American Express as they have really taken their customers into consideration during these crazy times and continue to do so. It is initiatives like these that have set them and programs like Aeroplan apart from many others.