When to Sign Up for the Amex Platinum Card

The Platinum Card from American Express is great for people who want premium travel perks and don’t mind the $550 annual fee. In fact, the card pays for itself several times over if you factor in the travel benefits and Amex Offers. This is also one of those cards that occasionally offers a monster sign-up bonus (i.e. over 100,000 points). Since Amex has a once per lifetime policy on credit card sign-up bonuses, it’s important to time your application accordingly. This is when you should sign up for the Amex Platinum Card:

Higher sign-up bonus. Again, due to the limitations on credit card sign-up bonuses, you should get the Amex Platinum Card when the bonus is highest.  As far as I know, the highest recorded sign-up bonus I’m aware of for the Amex Platinum Card was a targeted bonus of 150,000 points. However, the 100,000 point bonus is much more common – in fact, there were targeted offers floating around as early as December. Right now, the publicly available offer is 60,000 points after $5,000 spent in 3 months. If you’re going to get an Amex Platinum card and are not in a rush, wait for the highest sign-up bonus possible.

Wait for a targeted offer. This ties back to getting the highest sign-up bonus. By ensuring you’re opted in to receive emails from American Express, you may get targeted for a higher Platinum card bonus. It’s pretty common for this card’s sign-up bonus to be 60,000 points, while targeted 100,000 point bonuses are sent out via mail and email.

Consider Timing. Assuming you can wait this long, the best sign-up bonuses often appear in the fourth quarter of every year. That’s when banks do a final push to acquire new cardholders and a large sign-up bonus (public or targeted) is usually the way to do it. No guarantees, but this is something you should keep in mind.

Get referred. Assuming the publicly available Amex Platinum card sign-up bonus is at its peak, you might want to ask a friend (who is an existing cardholder) to refer you. What do you get out of it? Nothing. But your friend can earn around 15,000 bonus points if your application gets approved. If your significant other is a cardholder, that’s even better – keep the points in the family! You’ll get your sign-up bonus and they get a substantial referral bonus. Everybody wins!

The Amex Platinum is a really great card that I think is worth the money for a lot of people. However, if you’re going to pay $550 per year and are restricted to one sign-up bonus only, why not aim for the highest possible? Hold out for a public promotion, prepare yourself for a targeted offer, and help a friend or family out when you can by getting referred. Then when you’re ready to put your points to use, be sure to read up on the best Membership Rewards travel partners.

Got any tips for getting the highest sign-up bonus possible on the Amex Platinum Card? Please share below.