If you have an American Express Platinum Card with a big annual fee due soon (or you’ve already been charged the fee), you should call the number on the back of your card or chat with an Amex agent online. You might be offered a huge retention offer that more than makes up for the annual fee!
Here’s exactly how I got a $695 statement credit on my Amex Platinum Card and how you can also get a credit or bonus points on your Amex card too!
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Amex Platinum Retention Offer: My Story
I’m a big fan of the American Express Business Platinum card. It’s one of the cards I ranked at the top of my 10 Best Credit Cards list.
I’ve had the card for 20+ years now because it offers amazing benefits, including great travel protection (e.g. $500 credit per person for a flight delay, $200 airline credits, $400 Dell credits, free Global Entry/TSA PreCheck, etc.).
Not to mention that you can earn 250,000 Amex Membership Rewards points (worth between $2,500 to $5,000 depending on what you redeem them for) as a sign-up bonus when you apply for the card.
But it also comes with a hefty $695 annual fee. While the Amex Platinum Card features and benefits more than make up for it, that fee is a pretty big chunk of change.
Well, guess what? I got the annual fee credited back to my account through a retention offer, which means I get to use my Amex card for free for the next year!
By simply chatting with an American Express customer service representative online to relay my concern that I haven’t used the card as much due to the pandemic, the rep offered to give me a $695 statement credit to offset the card’s annual fee:
Even if you don’t have any intention of canceling your card, it’s worth a short call or a quick chat online. It doesn’t hurt to ask and you have nothing to lose.
If you do want to cancel and you don’t get an offer, it could make your decision to cancel easier.
Other Amex Retention Offers: What’s Available?
My Amex Platinum retention offer is pretty huge, but by no means is it the only offer you can get (and it’s not the only Amex card you can get an offer on).
There are plenty of other retention offers of statement credits and bonus points that consumers have recently received.
American Express is known to be very generous in order to keep their customers renewing for another year. Here are some examples:
- My brother chatted with Amex online and said he was considering canceling his personal Platinum Card due to the high annual fee. He was offered 60,000 Membership Rewards points for spending $4,000 in the next three months. That’s an awesome deal considering the personal Platinum Card has a $550 annual fee.
- The Money Ninja reader Dan was offered an immediate $100 credit and another $200 credit after $4,000 in spend on his Amex Gold Card.
- A Flyertalk member named Annie spoke to a rep and stated that she hasn’t been able to stay at Marriott hotels as much as before and the agent offered her 30,000 Bonvoy points if she was willing to keep her Amex Bonvoy Brilliant Card. This was two months after the annual fee posted.
- One of my friends with an Amex Platinum Card was offered a $150 statement credit or 15,000 Amex points – it was his choice between the two. This was on top of an offer he received two years ago when they offered him a $500 statement credit of 50,000 Membership Rewards points.
How To Get Amex Retention Offers
Before I show you how to ask for a retention offer with Amex, keep in mind that exactly what’s available to you depends on many factors:
- your history with American Express
- what type of Amex card you have
- how long you’ve had the card for
- how much you spend on it annually
- whether you received a retention offer recently
While no one knows the exact formula, we do know that the retention offer is predetermined in your account based on those variables above. So if you don’t get an offer this time, you can’t simply hang up and call again (HUCA) and hope for a different result.
Another thing to be aware of is you can’t get a retention offer every year on the same card. There are numerous data points that you can only receive one “loyalty credit” every two years.
With that out of the way, here are two ways you to get a retention offer:
Method 1: Call American Express
Call 1-800-525-3355 to reach cardmember services or use the phone number on the back of your Amex card.
Method 2: Chat with Amex Representative
You can chat with an Amex rep by logging on to your American Express account.
On a desktop web browser, there should be a chat box icon floating on the bottom right-hand side of your monitor. If you use the Amex mobile app, the chat box is located on the top right-hand side of the screen.
The Bottom Line
Credit card companies like Chase, Citi, and Discover also provide retention offers to their cardmembers to encourage them to renew, but American Express is the most generous when it comes to this.
Numerous data points from sites like Flyertalk suggests that the Amex Platinum cards in particular have the best retention offers. But if you have other popular cards like the American Express Gold Card, Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, or Delta SkyMiles Reserve American Express Card, it’s worth calling Amex to see what offers are available.
Have you done this before? What type of retention offer have you received?
I meant “getting 45,000 points but I had to spend $4000 first.”
Hi John,
I read your post and contacted Amex to snag a retention bonus for my Platinum care and was extremely disappointed by the service I received. Not only did they not give me anything to continue using the card another year, their best offer was to push me into getting 45,000 points by spending $4000. I refused. Not impressed. I was expecting better from Amex based on what I’ve read.
Hi Nicholas – getting retention bonuses can be confusing. Note there is a policy that retention bonuses can only be offered once every two years and that your account usually has a specific retention offer tied to it. It’s based on a variety of factors (age of account, annual spend, types of purchases, customer score), but not all of them are known. Getting an extra 45,000 points for spending $4,000 is decent but not the best offer as you’re already aware.