Amex Platinum Travel Credit Card Upgrade Offer (Targeted)

By | March 21, 2019

American Express not only sends upgrade offers on their platinum charge card but these days they’re also pretty much aggressive in sending out targeted upgrade offers to other Amex cardholders. Here’s an offer sent to one of the Amex Membership Rewards (MRCC) cardholder.

  • Offer: Upgrade to Amex Platinum travel Card (Paid) + Get Rs.1,000 Amazon Voucher + Keep the existing MRCC Card (FREE)
  • Terms & Conditions

Note that as long as American Express is concerned, there is no concept of “upgrade”. Even if it does for charge cards, they’re totally different accounts and they don’t transfer your dues.

So with credit cards, they just issue a new card which is totally a new Ac. But Amex calls it an “upgrade” in this to sound relevant to customers. Moreover, “upgrade” is a nice marketing term too.

Is it worth it?

Well, as of now Amex platinum travel card is free for a limited period, so it may not make sense for many. 

But if you’re a person limited by spends and love travel benefits, it makes sense, as you can get two cards and need to care about renewal charges only on one A/c.

By having two cards, you also have an advantage of enjoying benefits on some merchant offers like the zomato offer.

Bottomline

It’s interesting to see how American Express is doing cross selling to existing customers. With the kind of merchant offers and user acquisition efforts that Amex is putting in this year, I won’t be surprised if Amex grew by 50% in card accounts during 2018-19. Let’s see how it goes in the upcoming quarters.

Have you received these kind of upgrade offers on your account? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.

Author: Siddharth

Helping Indians to choose right credit cards, pick right offers and enjoy luxury vacations for less. Day & night exploring the spiritual reality of our human existence.

64 thoughts on “Amex Platinum Travel Credit Card Upgrade Offer (Targeted)

  1. SH

    My wife also got this offer even though she got a new Plat Travel around a month and a half back. This offer is not as interesting as the one with the first year fee waived.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      Maybe Amex is hoping not everyone reads the blog about FYF offer 😀

      Reply
  2. Karthik

    Here i thought amex was different from other marketing teams

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      Yes, these kind of cross-selling strategy makes total sense. Hope other banks start to copy.

      Reply
  3. Karthik

    I still wonder why AMEX is not promoting Gold Credit Card (Basic) for new customers. They can target young professionals easily with that.

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      Gold credit card is issued only as a companion card isn’t it? I’m yet to put my brains to use to figure out the diff. b/w gold credit/MRCC. Have you?

      Reply
      1. Hardik

        Gold credit card is issued as a primary card too,i am holding it as ltf as i didn’t wanted to pay fees for mrcc so the AMEX executive offered me this option!🙂

        Reply
      2. Karthik

        I am referring to Everyday Spend Gold Credit Card which is available as standalone card.

        Annual Membership fee : Rs.495 + Applicable taxes
        Get a renewal fee waiver on eligible spends of Rs.39,999 in the previous year of the Card membership

        Accelerated Earn Rate
        Earn 10X Membership Rewards® Points on purchases made at Flipkart and Ola and earn 5X Membership Rewards Points on purchases made at Big Bazaar, UBER, Amazon, BookMyShow, and many more.

        Earn Rate
        You earn 1 Membership Rewards Point on every Rs. 50 spent except for spend at Fuel, Utilities, Insurance and Cash Transactions

        This is the very basic card offered by amex india who has 4+ LPA salary.

        Reply
        1. Karthik

          Caps – 10X Membership Rewards Points will be capped at 500 Points per month per Card Account for Flipkart. 10X Membership Rewards Points will be capped at 500 Points per month per Card Account for Ola. For 5X partners, 5X Membership Rewards Points will be capped at 250 Points per month per Card Account for all the partners put together.

          Reply
          1. SH

            I have seen that before. The cap does not make sense to me. And it is too much restricted in terms of the merchants where one get the 10X and 5X. Just from that perspective alone, the MRCC makes more sense – it gets you 1000MR for 4 x Rs 1000 transaction.

        2. Subham sikdar

          I hold a membership rewards card from American express ..and have received an offer regarding upgrade to platinum travel card..my question is like other credit card companies are the rules relaxed for American express existing customers or the upgrade is same like a fresh application..what are the chances of getting the card?

          Reply
          1. Srikrishna Raajan

            It was an easy process in my case.
            As far as this upgrade is concerned, there is no need to submit any fresh application. Just fill the form which was sent in the email.
            You will get to know the status of the upgrade via SMS in a day or two and the card will the dispatched after that.
            The CL of the new card will depend on existing card membership and the financial data they have in their system.
            There may be some cases that they might request for KYC or Income document.

          2. Kiran

            Upgrading with Amex is like fresh application you need to mail them all the documents in order to process your application.

            Hope this helps.

            Cheers,
            Kiran

      3. Srikrishna Raajan

        The difference is card membership annual fees, 1000MR points on 4x INR1000+ spends and the term “Rewards” printed vertically on the right side of the card doesn’t appear on Gold credit card 😛

        Reply
        1. Siddharth Post author

          Great find with the “Rewards” printed on the card 😀

          Reply
      4. Ishant Dave

        1. Charge Card (Gold) vs Credit Card (MRCC)
        2. You need to make 6/4 transactions to get 1000 bonus points in Gold/MRCC card.

        Reply
      5. Pradeep

        1. 4*1000 doesn’t give 1k points/month in gold credit card
        2. Annual fees is less mostly offered LTF
        3. any transaction above 5k, convert to emi for 15% p.a.
        4. targeted offers like spend 15k in fliPkartfor EMI and fer 500rs cashback, bigbazar group spends, etc

        Reply
  4. Amit pandey

    My ca told me to dont use credit card after 2 lacs in one fy my itr is 10 lacs kindly suggest i have three credit card different bank . I can use as much as i can or just limit my use

    Reply
    1. AS

      The limit for yearly spends at which credit card providers are required to report to IT Dept has been increased from 2 Lakh to 10 Lakh.

      Reply
    2. Jay

      Chuck your CA :-), There is nothing like that. But that doesn’t mean you can spend 1cr.

      Reply
    3. Prashant Gupta

      You can use as much as you want. Just dont clear the dues with cash regularly.

      Reply
    4. Amit G

      If your annual (FY) spend on one card is more than 10 Lacs or u settle card dues of more than 1 Lac in cash, Bank shall file Annual Information Return (AIR) with I.T. Deptt. then deptt. use data analytics to match your ITR with your spending pattern and pick for scrutiny, Say you show your income as 10 Lacs and your spend alone one card is more than 10-12 Lacs you should be picked up for further scrutiny. if you have spent on behalf of someone else (family / friend) you can just keep the record of the same to show to Deptt. if needed.

      PS: i m a CA by prof. and use more than 5 cards with more than annual spend of 2 lacs on each, just don’t worry.

      Reply
      1. MT

        Depends on bank , have been spending more than 10lkhs on 1 card for multiple years , no AIR till date in 26AS statement, cash transactions may get reported, only Tata mutual fund reported transactions in AIR

        Reply
        1. Amex Guy

          I’ve noticed this too. Older system lagged by 2-3 years but IT always got informed somehow if a card spent over 2.5 lacs. The new system should be more real time, but banks aren’t complying. Even interest isn’t reported by multiple banks.

          Reply
  5. Satish Kumar Agarwal

    Looks like Amex is planning to make this year a grand one for card issuance. Have applied for their Everyday Spends Gold cc few days back. Hope they issue this card to me here in Lucknow.

    Reply
  6. Vineet

    Hi sid, I too got this offer. My question is that points accumulated from both, will they be pooled in one account? And will these points expire since validity of points in MRCC is life long but is 3 years in plat travel. To get around this can we convert plat rewards to airmiles and thus prevent its expiry?
    Also will spending on plat travel card be counted into the spend offer of 1000 rupees 4 times giving you 1000 points a month.

    Reply
  7. MAA-traveler

    They are also giving the MRCC as LTF (companion card offer) so long as you hold the Plat Travel Card. I have MRCC and Plat Travel for Rs 5900 per year. Get to earn at least 20k MR points plus the travel vouchers of AmEx and Taj for spendings of Rs 4.5 lakhs or so.

    Reply
  8. MAA-traveler

    Anyone having more details on this Gold Credit Card (not the Gold Charge Card). Is it like MRCC for earning 1K points or like Gold Charge card? What are the fees?

    Reply
    1. Karthik

      See the above comments i made. go to www. americanexpress.com/in/everyday-spend-gold-credit-card/

      Reply
    2. Satish Kumar Agarwal

      Dear MAA-traveller

      I have applied for Amex Everyday Spends Gold card few days back. If I am approved for it
      (only issue is my city not in their service location), will try to make a review shortly.

      Reply
      1. MAA-traveler

        @ Karthik & Satish Kumar Agarwal,
        I was referring to Gold Credit Card and not Everyday Spends Gold Card or the Gold Charge Card.

        Reply
  9. Aman

    I also got the offer but it is useless as if i plan to close the plat travel credit card in future then my exiciting card i.e mrcc which is ltf will get annual memership charges of 4500 .
    Read the conditons carefully before applying rather then losing both cards in future

    Reply
    1. BGL

      The big catch in the T&C:
      ” Your existing American Express ® Membership Rewards Credit Card will become lifetime complimentary as long as you continue to pay the fee for American Express ® Platinum Travel Credit Card. The lifetime complimentary American Express ® Membership Rewards Credit Card will become fee bearing in case membership of American Express ® Platinum Travel Credit Card is canceled”

      With this “upgrade” offer, Amex hopes to gradually convert the LTF cards floating in the market to fee bearing.

      Reply
  10. Srikkanth

    Hello All! Is there any Amex card for taking on under 5 lakhs ITR for self employed ? TIA

    Reply
    1. Himanshu

      I don’t think so. Apart from Everyday gold spends card which requires net 4.5L annual income. Not sure its for salaried or for both. Amex sales team can help you better.

      Reply
  11. Animesh

    I also got this offer. Currently holding MRCC card. It’s not really worth to get this card as for MRCC card I don’t have pay any fees as long as I spend more than 1.5 lac per year. But with the Platinum Travel card I have to pay 5000+ per year.

    Reply
  12. Shashank

    I hold an MRCC lifetime free and was told my amex customer care that if I apply for FYF platinum travel card, I’ll not be eligible for FYF as I’m an existing amex customer and offer’s only for new customers. Can someone validate that ?

    Reply
    1. Siddharth Post author

      That’s true with airport offers but not here when you use above referral links.

      Reply
  13. Saran

    How long does it take to receive the Platinum Travel Card if applied through this. Has anyone received it ?

    Reply
  14. Nipun

    Why dont they count Payback card as there member for Offers and deals, Payback card is being treated as there step card.

    Reply
  15. AJ

    Today i got an call from Amex informing me that my 3 accounts have been temporarily suspended as i need to send them my last 3 months bank statement and CA certified ITR Copies as i am self employed. I hold MRCC from past 20 months Platinum Travel Card from August 2018 and gold charge card issued in the month of Feb 2019. Amex calls it as ” CREDIT REVIEW ” after submitting the documents they said that i need to wait for 4 days for the outcome.

    Has anyone been thru this already ?

    Reply
      1. AJ

        Over all spends on my 3 cards total to 8.5 lacs surprisingly my itr was for 8.75lac. What would be the outcome of this review as i maintain a very high savings account balance of around 15 lacs which has been shared with AMEX on email.

        Reply
        1. Siddharth Post author

          I don’t think this is based on the spend. Could be based on “Spend type” or other factors.

          Reply
          1. AJ

            I have used paytm and mobikwik where ever amex wasn’t accepted. Today i have received call from AMEX and said account is active now but just call us before spending more than 10 lacs on my charge card.

  16. Arun

    @Aj – nothing much to fear about the financial review. If what you shared while applying for the card is the same, they would easily clear your review.

    Also, there are 2 types of review, what you received is the financial review, which when my review happened was told they plan to do it for all soon. So nothing much to worry about, you are maintaining a very high balance anyways.

    Also, there is a credit review which gets triggered by the system when you spend high in a month and more than half of it is a wallet transaction. The system feels that you are bypassing their cash advance fees.

    I recently made a large purchase from a seller in US and paid via PayPal and it triggered a credit review even though my financial review was done 6 months back which I cleared.

    Anyway I have shared the bill and details of the seller so should be cleared soon but it does suck to have the account suspended.

    Reply
  17. Himanshu

    Didn’t know amex suspends the card. I am not a amex holder. I should be applying in few months.

    What should be reason to suspend the card? Do they review each card holder’s a/c?

    Reply
  18. Vineet

    Any idea how long does it take for a amex plat travel card to be delivered after applying through the above offer. Does it make a dent on the cibil score as I already applied for HSBC this month?
    Will there be a verification call again on application of amex plat travel
    Thanking you

    Reply
  19. Tejas Ghongadi

    I have received this targetted offer too.

    My MRCC is currently LTF. I went through the TnCs of this upgrade offer and was skeptical on the statement indicating that ‘If Platinum Travel Card is cancelled, MRCC becomes a paid card.’

    I called up Amex customer care and enquired about this. The response was very clear. The MRCC has been given as LTF based on the Income criteria. So, even if I upgrade to Platinum Travel and later close the Platinum travel, the MRCC will still remain as LTF. Do you guys think Amex will honour such a commitment.

    Reply
  20. Vineet

    Just came to know that NPS payment through Amex credit cards doesn’t accrue any points as they come under Utilities.
    Can someone please qualify what all come under utilities. According to T&C its just gas, electricity.

    Reply
    1. Praveen Katiyar

      @Vineet
      I think NPS (National Pension Scheme) comes under Insurance, apart from Utility (phone/water/electricity bills) Amex does not give points for Fuel & Insurance (except when Amex run 3x/5x/10x offers which comes on your email or cardexpert.in, which u can then call and confirm).
      I use SC Titanium for these unless Amex is running some promo.
      Amex do count spends on Utility, Fuel and Insurance for fee reversal (1.5L for MRCC).

      How much trxn charge (% or fixed amount) was levied on the amount you paid to NPS ??

      Hope it helps.

      Reply
      1. Vineet

        13.71 rupees on 1500 payment. But having got 40 RP WORTH 20 Rupees for Regalia

        Reply
        1. Praveen Katiyar

          Was Rs. 13.71 fixed or % of your payment?
          In this case Rs. 6.29 (=20-13.71) comes out to be 0.41% reward.
          If its not mandatory to make payment when did, and if u want to use Amex, wait for their insurance promo. U would get more RP (3x/5x). In promo days Amex do considers these payments for RP.
          Hope it helps.

          Reply
      2. raulnayak

        Actually. I have paid NPS using my Amex; didn’t get the points and so I called them. They said they will revert and gave me the points. They said whenever I want to pay, call them and they will credit the points.

        Reply
    2. S&S

      If the spend description says utilities you don’t get regular reward points. If it’s above 1000 though, it is considered an eligible transaction towards 4*1k transaction for MRCC.
      I found this when paying ACT Fibernet (Internet) bill.
      When I’ve paid through the app regular points don’t accrue and narration says Paytm Utilities.
      When paid through the ACT website though, regular points accrue.!

      S&S

      Reply
  21. Subham Sikdar

    I also got the same offer .Could you please let me know if this offer means that eligibility criteria for Platinum travel card is relaxed for the persons to whom offers arebeing rolled out or its same as new customers.I want to make sure of this before applying as I dont want my cibil to be affected.Please suggest as to what are the chances that platinum travel card will get approved under thee offer.

    Reply
  22. Anirban Chowdhury

    a strange experience with Amex – I am an existing Amex platinum travel card holder and was bombarded with the free lifetime companion rewards card offer. Initially I declined but since that offer again popped up in my mobile app, went for it. After couple of weeks I called up amex cc to get a status update on the new card and to my surprise I was told that my request was declined for the companion card. The didnt disclosed the reason. I have been a amex card holder for nearly 2 years never missing any payment. Not sure what went wrong.

    Reply
  23. Guru

    Quick question… I already have a Membership card. If I apply for Platinum Travel card, will there be any Cibil inquiry or they will provided the card on basis of my existing relationship with Amex.

    Reply
  24. Bala

    Hi All,

    Can we apply this amex platinum travel card on card to card basis. Pls suggest.

    Thx
    Bala

    Reply
    1. Kiran

      Amex none of the cards can be applied in card on card basis. If you have minimum ITR of 6 lac you can apply.

      Hope this helps.

      Cheers,
      Kiran

      Reply
  25. Chethan

    Amex has extended my Taj voucher for 180 days without asking, it is suppose to get expired on 20th July.

    Reply

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