Uplevel your travel

While we travel on the cheap a lot, the experiences we have are luxurious.  We like to refer to this as ‘ballin on a budget.’  We utilize our airline and hotel status for free upgrades and perks, along with certain credit cards that provide excellent benefits.  Hotel suites, first-class airline tickets, free food vouchers, airport lounge access, TSA Pre-Check, Global Entry, Clear membership, and more can be yours when you’re playing the points game correctly.  Here’s a card that is our all-in-one favorite for travel perks. 

American Express Platinum Card

• Sign-up bonus – 80,000 membership reward points ($1200 value)
• The minimum spend requirement is $8000 in 6 months 
• Earn 10x points when you shop small businesses and use at restaurants.  
• Annual fee $695 
• 5x points on all flights booked with the airline or AMEX travel portal
• 5x points on prepaid hotels through the AMEX travel portal
• 1x points on all other purchases
• $200 per year in prepaid fine hotels/resorts. 
• $300 per year with Equinox Gym ($25/month towards membership) 
• $200 per year in Uber credits ($15/month plus an extra $20 in December that can be used towards Uber rides or Uber Eats)
• $100 Saks 5th Avenue statement credit per year ($50 semi-annual basis)
• $240 digital entertainment credit (i.e., Peacock, Audible, SiriusXM, NY times)
• $200 airline incidental credit that you can use for a specific airline of your choice towards baggage fees, drinks, food, or paid upgrades.   
• Access to the Global Lounge Collection
• $100 towards your fee for TSA Pre-Check or Global Entry is refundable if paid with your AMEX Platinum Card. (this is one of our favorites) 
• $189 towards Clear membership.  (this is also one of our favorites) 
• Automatic Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite status, which can get you upgrades with Marriott. 
• Automatic Hilton Honors Gold status, which can get you upgrades with Hilton.  
• AMEX points are transferable to multiple airlines and hotels on a 1:1 basis.  
• Trip delay and cancellation insurance are included when you’ve booked your travel with this card.  
• Plus, so much more!  

This card makes sense and is a keeper card for us because we would be paying for Clear, Uber, and SiriusXM anyway, costing us $629 a year, and that doesn’t include all the other benefits listed above.