amex platnum: companion ticket
 

Amex offered to turn my card into a plat. for another $50 a yr. The alleged benefit it a free companion ticket. Has anyone tried to use this feature? I am not sure I understand how it works; does it make using ff even tougher?
Does it mean you buy your ticket at full price from any carrier and then amex picks up the tab??? (Cant be) Thanks.

Only valid for full-fare business-class or first-class tickets.

Still, clearly a good deal, if you (or your company or patron) are buying such a ticket.

And no limit to the number of trips you can get such a deal (between now and Dec 31).

Best wishes,

Rex

We've done two trips using my husband's AMEX platinum card. My husband pays full fare for business, and my fare amounts to the taxes on that fare. Both passengers must have the same roundtrip itinerary, and the trip has to originate in the U.S.

I am a big fan for the most part. But you should know that this program is only available with certain carriers that partner with AMEX, and only certain flights on those carriers. And in some instances, you have to take a connecting flight( not in business class) to reach your final destination.

Also, to really benefit from this program, you have to plan your trip as far ahead as possible. Just to give you an idea, we were shut out of a trip for next winter even though I had looked into it this past spring.

Seems strange to me that it would cost only $50 for an upgrade to a Plat. What kind of card do you have now?

You have to call them and book the Business or First tickets with them. You pay for one, get the second essentially free. When I called them a few months ago for BC tickets to Italy, it turned out that the fare that was offered to me was about the same as what I could get for 2 directly from the airline, and which was a better schedule for me. So I made my own arrangements.

I'm sure the fares and offers vary, so it might be good to know beforehand what you can get them for on your own. ((*))

If this is a Delta Skymiles Amex, you may want to search the Delta forum at flyertalk.com (link below). Most folks find this "benefit" difficult or impossible to use, because of restrictions. Note that I do not have this card, so my information is second-hand.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=489

Good luck.

JSPowell

the amex platinum card is $300 a year. the two for one is mostly business only and not first class.

$395

Yes it's $395.

Since there are more and more discount business tickets available - I am not talking about using consolidators, but direct from airlines - I question how valueable this is.

The main "value" in the Plat AE card is the access to NW, DL and CO lounges. That's worth $300-350 by itself.

When we looked at this last summer, the ticket that AMEX wanted us to buy was $2-3k higher than my husband's company's travel agency was going to charge us. It would have been a real hassle to do and we would have had to pay the difference between the 'company negotiated fare' and the AMEX 'full price fare'. We decided it wasn't worth it and instead cut a deal where we bought 2 economy tickets instead of his one authorized business-class ticket. He was kind enough to sit in cheap (and small!) seats with me to make my airfare free.

In our case, this was a last minute trip in July, so we had little time to find cheap fares.

Remember, 'there is no such thing as a free lunch'!