Last month, American Express Platinum Card holders were incentivized to continue carrying their card despite the nullification of travel benefits via the lucrative Double Rewards promotion, and now it’s the turn of the American Express Business Platinum Card.
The majority of Business Platinum cardholders, if not all, have received Amex Offers worth up to $680 at Dell, FedEx, and mobile service providers, all of which can be used to cover 100% of your purchases if you choose. These are some seriously strong offers that, if maximized, more than offset the card’s $499 annual fee, so let’s take a closer look at how each offer works.
We’ve also added these offers to our dedicated resource on COVID-19 temporary benefits and relief measures.
Mobile Service Provider Offer: Four Credits of $40
This offer will probably be the most widely applicable to every cardholder. As long as you have a cell phone bill, internet bill, cable bill, or any other type of wireless plan with a telecom provider in Canada, then you’ll be eligible for a credit of $40 on a $40 purchase, up to four times, for a total of $160 in statement credits.
You have until December 31, 2020 to unlock these credits.
The terms state that each credit is unlocked by “one single qualifying purchase or cumulative qualifying purchase(s) that total at least $40 (CAD) after taxes”, which means that you’d unlock a $40 credit if you made two separate purchases of $20 as well.
However, there’s no real need to wait until you actually have mobile bills to pay: most telecom providers allow you overpay your bill and leave a credit balance on your mobile account, so that’s exactly what you can do in order to trigger the $160 in credits immediately.
You’ll want to make four separate transactions of $40 each in order to trigger the four credits. Note that some of the mobile companies’ online dashboards (in my case, Rogers) do not allow you to make payments in the same amount from the same credit card in quick succession, so you could simply make payments of $40.01 or $45 instead.
Overall, this offer could not be more straightforward. Given that we all have cell phone bills to pay, it should result in an effortless $160 in savings for every Business Platinum Card in your household.
Dell Offer: $250 of Free Stuff
Get in, we’re going shopping.
The Dell offer on the Amex Business Platinum allows you to earn a $250 credit on a $250 purchase, effectively giving you $250 worth of free electronics from Dell. You have until August 27, 2020 to unlock this credit.
We’ve seen the Amex US Business Platinum offer Dell credits as an ongoing benefit of the card for the past two years, so it’s not a surprise to see their partnership up and running in Canada as well.
According to the terms, the purchase must be completed through dell.ca/amex or over the phone with a Dell Technologies Advisor.
The dell.ca/amex URL doesn’t appear to be restrictive to any particular subset of items: it simply brings you to a landing page for the Amex & Dell partnership, and then you can use the search bar at the top to access the same wide range of items as you’d find on dell.ca itself (including some decidedly non-business-oriented items, like Nintendo Switches).
The terms state that each credit is unlocked by “ one single qualifying purchase or cumulative qualifying purchase(s) that total at least $250 (CAD) after taxes and shippings”, which means that you’d unlock the $250 credit if you made a few separate smaller purchases as well.
Meanwhile, what if you had multiple Business Platinum Cards in your household and you wanted to use the cumulative $250 credits to purchase something more expensive? That’s no problem: Dell’s checkout process allows you to split payments across up to three credit cards, so you could get a free $750 item by splitting the payment across three eligible Business Platinums if you wanted.
It’s also worth noting that there’s a separate Amex Offer for Dell going on at the moment, which gives you 10% off your total purchase in the form of a statement credit, up to a maximum of $1,000 in credits. On a $250 purchase, this would give you a further 10% back, leaving you with a $25 profit.
(If you’ve received a 10% back offer on a separate Amex card, not your Business Platinum Card, then you can always use the split payments feature to take advantage of both offers in one fell swoop!)
It’s definitely not often that we get offers as good as this one, so make sure to have some fun with it and treat yourself to something nice. Don’t forget to maximize shopping portals as well – Rakuten Canada is offering 8% cash back on Dell purchases as we speak.
FedEx Offer: Six Credits of $45
The final offer is perhaps trickier to use for those of us who don’t have legitimate shipping needs. You’ll earn a credit of $45 on a $45 purchase with FedEx, up to six times, for a total of $270 in statement credits.
You have until December 31, 2020 to unlock these credits.
Unlike the Dell and mobile provider credits, only one single qualifying purchase at FedEx of $45 or greater will trigger the credit; smaller purchases will not combine cumulatively to do so.
While business owners with shipping needs will be happy about the $270 savings, I must say that as someone who’s never shipped anything with FedEx, ever, I’m scratching my head at how to make use of these credits.
Do FedEx physical locations offer gift cards that one could keep around for future use? I don’t know, but I suspect many of us will be finding out sometime this year.
Otherwise, look around to see if there are any business owners in your circles who could benefit from some free shipping – maybe they’d be open to working something out and going 50/50 on the $270 credits, similar to how Canadians might work with their US-based friends to take advantage of the temporary perks on their Amex US credit cards.
Previously: $100 Renewal Credit
Don’t forget that Business Platinum cardholders were also informed earlier in May about a $100 renewal credit, which will be granted within 6–8 weeks of renewing their card for another year (i.e., paying another round of the $499 annual fee) sometime in 2020.
Cardholders who already renewed in the first half of the year are automatically eligible for the credit, while those with renewal dates in the latter half of the year will receive the $100 credit upon choosing to renew.
Conclusion
Adding all the credits together, the American Express Business Platinum Card is providing cardholders with $780 in additional value over the course of the year, which more than offsets the $499 annual fee. I can certainly see many cardholders being tempted into keeping the card for another year even though the travel benefits are much less meaningful at this time.
The $160 in mobile credits can be unlocked immediately after you read this article simply by pre-paying your cell phone bill, the Dell credit will treat you to some fancy new items, and the FedEx credits may require a bit more ingenuity for the average person to unlock – but I’m sure none of us will be leaving it on the table!
