American Express Credit Card Reviews

The Amex Platinum annual fee is $550 – a steep price to pay, even for a premium travel rewards card. The fee is included on the first monthly bill after you open an Amex Platinum account, then each year on your account anniversary. American Express will refund the full Amex Platinum annual fee if you cancel the card within 30 days of the closing date for the billing statement the fee appears on.

Cardholders can offset the cost of the Amex Platinum annual fee by spending a lot on travel every year and capitalizing on the card's substantial benefits and rewards. Amex Platinum's initial bonus of 75,000 points will pay for the annual fee, but only for the first year. Other perks, such as the $200 annual credits for both airline expenses and Uber rides, will go a long way toward offsetting the $550 charge every year.

Amex Platinum cardholders may add up to three authorized users to the account for a single $175 annual fee. The fee applies whether you add one, two or three authorized users. For the fourth and all subsequent authorized users, the annual fee is an additional $175 each.

Amex Platinum may not be worthwhile for occasional travelers who won't spend enough in a year to cover the card's $550 annual fee. A less expensive alternative worth considering is the Amex Gold card. It comes with fewer perks and rewards than Amex Platinum, but its annual fee is $250.

The American Express Blue Cash card rewards consist of cash back. It's 1% cash back on everyday purchases (gas, groceries, drugstores) and 0.5% on everything else.

If you spend more than $6,500 in total, it switches to 5% on everyday and 1% on everything else. Pretty awesome.

Amex is a nickname for American Express, which is one of the largest financial services corporations in the world. Amex was founded on March 18, 1850 and began as a mail delivery business. But it now is a provider of credit cards, charge cards, traveler's cheques, bank accounts and more.

Amex is probably best known for its credit cards. American Express is one of the four major American credit card networks, the others being Visa, Mastercard and Discover. Some of the best available Amex cards include Blue Cash Preferred for bonus cash back, Cash Magnet for no annual fee, and the SimplyCash Plus card for business owners. In addition, Amex is the only major credit card company that offers charge cards, where the balance must be paid in full every month. Those include Amex Platinum, which is great for travel, and the extremely exclusive Amex Centurion, also known as the “Black” card.

Amex is similar to Discover in that both networks issue their own credit cards. Visa and Mastercard do not; all of their cards are issued by banks and credit unions. Amex has the lowest merchant acceptance rate of the four issuers both domestically and abroad.

The American Express Blue Cash foreign transaction fee is 2.7%. Both American Express Blue Cash Everyday and American Express Blue Cash Preferred have that same foreign fee, applicable to any purchases processed internationally.

American Express offers cards that do not have foreign transaction fees, like the Premier Rewards Gold Card and The Platinum Card. The tradeoff here is their large annual fees. The only American Express cards with no foreign transaction fee and no annual fee are the Delta SkyMiles Blue Card and the Hilton Honors Amex Card.

American Express Blue Cash Everyday Foreign Transaction Fees & More:

Foreign Transaction Fee: 2.7%

Annual Fee: $0 for Blue Cash Everyday; $0 intro 1st yr, $95 after for Blue Cash Preferred

Rewards Rate: 1% to 3% cash back for Blue Cash Everyday; 1% to 6% for Blue Cash Preferred

APR: 13.99% - 23.99% (V)

Keep in mind American Express may not be the best choice to take abroad due to lower international acceptance than Visa or Mastercard. While Visa and Mastercard are accepted in 200+ countries, Amex lags behind at around 160 countries. There are lots of credit cards with no foreign transaction fee on those other networks, too.

You cannot get an SPG credit card with 50,000 bonus points, as there is no SPG credit card available in the market right now. There used to be an even better offer, though: 75,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months with the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express.

But since this card is not available anymore, you might want to check out some other hotel credit cards.