The annual fee is very high…so do I keep this card in my pocket for another year
For a couple of years now, I have dabbled in the land of annual fee credit cards. If you told 30-year-old me that I would someday pay $900 per year for a credit card, I would have definitely told you that you were crazy. I’m currently carrying the Amex Platinum card, and they recently bumped the annual fee up from $695 to $895. The $200 jump in cost definitely got my attention, but they also added some new benefits with the price increase. And since I needed to run the numbers in order to make sure that I can still get my money’s worth on this card, I figured I could do it in a blog post, and possibly help out some clients and friends who might be facing a similar decision.
Right off the jump, I can tell you that I’m not looking at sign on bonuses or point accumulation possibilities. I’m strictly looking to see if I can make my $895 back through the benefits offered with the card. A lot of cards will offer you a great sign on bonus that will usually more than pay for the annual fee in year one alone. This will be the second year of having this card, so I’m only looking at other benefits that could make keeping this card worthwhile.
Streaming services are a part of life now. We don’t love the monthly payments, but we do enjoy having access to watch shows we are interested in. Amex Platinum offers $300 in credits for certain streaming subscription services each year. It’s important to note that in a lot of these types of offers, they break the credit up into monthly limits. In this example, the $300 annual credit is really $25 per month. Currently we have Hulu and Peacock, and combined that adds up to $22 per month. So we are using $264 of this credit per year. My advice on streaming, make some notes of what you want to watch on each platform and cancel them when you finish up those shows. $264 down and $631 to go to breakeven.
Another thing I love about this card is the Walmart+ membership. If you don’t know, Walmart+ allows you to get things delivered for free from Walmart. This is great because I can just order through the app and have anything Walmart sells delivered to my home, to my son’s dorm room, somewhere we are on vacation, etc. The best part is not having to go into a Walmart. They have done a lot in this space to compete with Amazon, and since I can get things delivered the same day, this makes it even more attractive. The cost is $12.95/month, and I would definitely pay for this out of pocket if I didn’t have this card. So the savings here is $155/year, bringing my balance down to around $500 to break even.
New this year is a $400 RESY credit. If you are not familiar, RESY is an app that offers restaurant reservations. If you dine at a RESY restaurant, you can get $100 per quarter in credit back to your card. Since we enjoy going out to dinner semi frequently, this one seems like a layup. These days $100 for two is nearly impossible to not exceed. Just for this example, we will plug in $300 for this credit. That leaves us with about $200 to get our money back.
If you are a traveler, there are lots of benefits to this card. Lounge access, airline bag fee credits, swanky hotel stay credits, and credits for the purchase of CLEAR and TSA Pre Check and/or Global Entry. The credits listed above are things that I can occasionally hit on, but I feel comfortable saying that will easily push me past break even for the year.
I didn’t mention their new $300 ($75 per quarter) lululemon credit, or the perks you get with things like car rentals. You also can get $15/month in Uber credits, and a couple of other things that I am not interested in (Oura, SoulCycle, Saks Fifth Ave).
There are lots of ways to make this card worthwhile, and I think I have a plan in place to keep it around for another year. The key is to make sure you are taking advantage of those things that will help make the card work for you. We always pay off the balance each month, and we more than make our money back on the annual fee. As a reminder, if you cannot pay off your bill each month, none of this will matter. Credit cards are great when you can use them to your advantage. There are few types of debt that are more destructive to your finances when they are not used properly.
