Credit Cards - Luggage Guru

by Daniel | Last Updated Nov 9th, 2022 We may earn a commission for purchases using our links, at no cost to you. The American Express Gold and Platinum Business cards both come with a whole host of great benefits and user perks. With the Gold card, it is possible to receive more points per dollar spent when spending on business-related purchases than the Platinum card, at least up to $250k.Although, with the Platinum card it is possible to earn more points for Flights or Prepaid Hotels that are booked through AmexTravel.com. Now, as the Amex Platinum Card is $400 more on an annual basis, you would expect to receive quite a lot more value than the Gold card, and thankfully you do. In this article, I'm going to talk about how it is possible to receive a large sign-up bonus from either the Amex Business Gold or Platinum card. I’ll also go over some of the additional benefits that are only on offer with the Platinum card. Learn more about the Platinum Amex card here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz_jplCk-j8 Get The Best Sign-up Bonus Possible Now at the time of making this video, Amex is currently offering the ability to receive 70,000 Membership Rewards Points with the Business Gold Card, and 120,000 Membership Reward Points with The Business Platinum Card. Business Gold Card - 70K Sign-up Bonus Business Platinum Card - 120K Sign-up Bonus And when using the points through American Express Travel for flights, flight upgrades, or hotel bookings through the Fine Hotels & Resorts program, these points are worth 1 cent per point.So this means that the Amex Gold Business cards sign-up bonus is worth $700 and the Platinum cards sign-up bonus is worth $1,200.And in my opinion, this is really quite good, but it is possible to do even better than this. Now the first way I was able to find a better sign-up bonus for each of these cards was to open a new web browser that was using incognito mode.And as soon as I searched for the Amex Gold and Platinum Business cards I was offered an even better sign-up bonus than before.With the Amex Business Gold card, the sign-up bonus available was 110,000 points (as you can see below) and this is worth $1,100 based on points being worth 1 cent per point, which is a $400 increase in value from the first offer.Then with the Platinum Business Amex card, the sign-up bonus was 170,000 bonus points, which is worth at least $1,700, and this is an increase of $500 compared to the previous offer. Business Gold Card - 110K Sign-up Bonus Business Platinum Card - 170K Sign-up Bonus Now it’s worth noting that this doesn’t always happen, but considering the extra value that is potentially on offer, I think it's always worth trying to find the best deal.Also, this offer didn’t last that long on my browser, once I did refresh the browser after about 15 minutes it automatically reverted to the original offer.So If you are trying this technique, I recommend that you are ready to apply for the card immediately. Now besides this method, there is one other option for finding an increased sign-up bonus. CardMatch Tool So if opening an Incognito web browser didn’t help you find a better deal, it’s worth trying out the CardMatch tool that is available on the website creditcards.com. CardMatch Tool This is a super simple way of finding out if you are able to receive a better sign-up bonus.And how this works is quite simple, once you input the required information into the CardMatch tool, it will perform a soft credit check to see if there is a better sign-up bonus available for you.Best of all, it only performs a soft credit check which shouldn't affect your credit score at all. Make The Most Out Of Your Membership Reward Points So what makes the Business Gold and Platinum cards stand out from the personal variations of this card is the ability to earn back membership reward points when using them to book flights through American Express Travel.With the Amex Business Gold card, there is a 25% Airline Bonus available for bookings made on any airline as long as it is a First or Business class booking.If you want to book an economy ticket it can only be from a qualifying airline that you have pre-selected from the list of airlines that are partners of Amex. Now this gives you the opportunity to redeem up to a total of 250,000 bonus points per calendar year.So if you have 1 million points and use them all for airline purchases through Amex travel, you will receive 250,000 points back, anything more than this won't receive any credit until the next calendar year. Now the Amex Business Platinum card also has a similar benefit but it is even better.Basically, it is possible to receive a 35% Airline Bonus which is 10% more than what the Amex Gold Business card is offering.It also allows you to redeem 4x more points in a calendar year, which means the cap is set at 1 million points.So if you do spend quite a lot through your business each year and travel a fair bit, the Business Platinum card offers quite a bit more value. Now both of these cards have a minimum redemption of 5,000 points if you want to take advanced of the Airline Bonus.Also, if you do happen to book on either Spirit Airlines, Southwest Airlines, or Frontier Airlines, you will need to contact American Express Travel and Lifestyle Services at 1-800-428-0253 to make sure the points get credited back to your account. Hertz Presidents Circle Status Now a new update that is only available with the Amex Platinum personal and business card is the ability to upgrade to Hertz Presidents Circle status. Hertz Presidents Circle status This is currently the highest status level that is offered by Hertz and comes with the following benefits: Add additional drivers free of charge Dedicated customer service phone number Earn 50% more Gold Plus Rewards points Guaranteed car class upgrades Now if you do decide to upgrade to Hertz Presidents Circle Status, it usually takes approximately 24-72 hours for your status to be updated. Additional Benefits of the Amex Platinum Business card So as I mentioned at the start of the video, you would hope to receive more benefits with the Platinum Business card than the Amex Business Gold as it is $400 more each year for the annual fee.And thankfully you do receive quite a bit more.First of all, there are 4 main business-related benefits that are available to you which are worth over $1000 in value.These benefits are: A $400 statement credit that can be used for purchases at Dell Technologies.And this is provided as a $200 credit for the first 6 months of the year, and then another $200 for the last 6 months of the year. Dell Technologies There is then a $360 statement credit that can be used through “Indeed”.And this is provided at a $90 credit each quarter. Indeed Another useful benefit is a $150 statement credit that can be used on Adobe Creative Solutions. Adobe Creative Solutions Then finally there is a $120 Statement Credit that can be used towards wireless telephone service purchases.And this is provided in $10 allotments each month throughout the year. So just these business-related benefits alone are worth up to $1,030. Now there are a few other valuable benefits that only come with the Amex Business Platinum card, and are mostly focused on travel. And one of the most valuable benefits in my opinion is access to The Global Lounge Collection, assuming you travel a lot for work. I’ve found this benefit to be really quite valuable as I spend a large amount of time traveling across the US and Overseas to Europe and Australia.It’s really nice to be able to relax in one of the many lounges that are available to you as a Platinum card holder.For example, when I visited the Delta Sky Club at LAX earlier this year I was able to have a great meal, coffee, and a glass of wine, (free of charge of course) and then have a nice hot shower before I had to fly. Delta Sky Club - LAX Now along with the Delta SkyClub, there’s access to the following clubs: The Centurion Lounge Escape Lounges Plaza Premium Air Space Lounges And that's not all, as with most premium credit cards there is also a complimentary Priority Pass Select membership that provides you with access to more than 1,000 lounges all over the world. Now a couple of other nice benefits that come with the Amex Platinum Business Card are a $200 Airline Fee credit that can be used for incidental fees that are charged by an airline such as baggage fees or inflight food and beverages.And to use this credit you must first select a qualifying airline from the list available in your Amex account. One other benefit that I have found quite useful is the $189 CLEAR credit.If it happens to be quite busy at the airport you are traveling from, this will make getting through airport security quite a bit quicker as you can basically skip the line of people waiting to get through. Final Thoughts So that covers my general comparison of these two cards and how to receive a large sign-up bonus. And as you can see the Platinum card really does offer quite a lot more value, although it will cost an additional $400 each year Now, this may not make sense for you and your business to spend extra money on a Business credit card, and this is fair enough.In all honesty, the Amex Business Gold card still offers fantastic value.It has very similar insurance coverage to the Platinum card and has the ability to earn quite a decent amount of points from your business-related expenses which is quite valuable. Now if you’re interested in finding one of the best hotel reward credit cards available now, why not check out my review here where I show you how to get the exclusive Chase Ritz-Carlton Credit card