Amex hikes Platinum Charge Card fee by 10% with refresh of benefits

American Express India is increasing the joining/annual fee by 10%. This change will take effect on October 8, 2024, and along with the fee hike, they’re also refreshing the benefits. However, I don't see these changes as positive.

**New Benefits:

1. **Renewal Benefit**: A voucher worth 35,000 INR for Taj, Luxe, and Postcard Hotels. As a current cardholder, I know we already receive about 30,000 INR in benefits as a retention offer, so this feels redundant, especially since the spending requirement is set unrealistically high.

2. **Complimentary OTT Memberships**: They are offering an Amazon Prime "lite" membership, which seems underwhelming for a Platinum cardholder. It would have been much better to provide a Netflix Premium subscription instead.

3. **Complimentary Hotel Memberships**: They’ve added Accor Plus, Postcard Hotels, and iPrefer memberships. While Accor Plus has some value, it's available with the Amex Reserve Credit Card and can also be obtained through Accor points. Most Platinum cardholders I’ve spoken to don’t even prefer Accor hotels. The Postcard Hotels Platinum tier is decent, but their hotels tend to be pricey, making it less appealing. iPrefer Titanium is good, but the limited options make it hard to derive value.

Instead of these overlapping benefits, a Marriott Platinum membership would have likely been a much better addition.

**Benefits Going Away:**

The removal of the birthday benefit and the 10K Taj voucher is particularly disappointing. So, is the Amex Platinum still worth the increased fee of 66,000 INR? For many of us, this change means losing 10,000 INR in value while paying an additional 6,000 INR. That’s a net loss of 16,000 INR on a card that’s already expensive.

It feels like the team responsible for refreshing the benefits didn’t fully understand the ultra-high-net-worth individual (UHNI) segment and instead offered benefits more suited to a much lower-tier card. This oversight is surprising coming from American Express.

Overall, these changes don’t align with what we expect from Amex, and even the communication about them has been misleading. If things continue this way, I fear the Amex Platinum Charge Card may be heading towards decline. I genuinely hope that Amex Global steps in to address these issues in their India operations.

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