TLDR: The revamped American Express Platinum Card® is offering an up to $400 annual credit towards restaurants that are listed on the Resy platform. With this credit you could get up to $100 in credits quarterly on Resy restaurants.
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This is an amazing credit for restaurant lovers and those looking to save some money on special occasion dinners. Resy offers a wide variety of high quality restaurants along with wide ranging cuisines.
Even though Resy markets their restaurants as all being high quality, there’s a rating system on Resy itself. The cool thing about Resy is that although there are more expensive restaurants, you can still find quality restaurants for reasonable prices.
Resy is a platform that connects diners and restaurants to create an amazing dining experience. Customers can use Resy to see what restaurants are highly rated and to book reservations. Resy’s restaurants have access to Resy OS to help them manage their restaurants on everything from service guest touchpoints to offering reservations directly through Resy.
Resy offers more than 10,000 restaurants in the United States. They have restaurants on their platform abroad but they are not eligible for the Resy credit on the American Express Platinum Card®.
You can go on Resy’s site to see what restaurants are on Resy and how they are rated. This is key for the up to $400 Resy credit as the last thing you want to do is go to a restaurant that is not partnered with Resy and have to pay full price.
The Resy credit can be used on any restaurant that is on Resy’s platform. All you have to do is go to Resy.com and check out restaurants near you. Before you head to the restaurant make sure you go on your American Express app or log in to your American Express account and activate the Resy credit on your American Express Platinum Card®. The process from there is pretty straightforward—all you have to do is pay the bill with your American Express Platinum Card® and you will receive the Resy credit in your account.
I believe the $400 Resy credit is quite useful as you have a solid amount of restaurants to choose from. I will say that in the bigger cities the options are much better. There are of course a bunch of really good restaurants that are not on Resy. However, I will say that I’ve never been to a Resy restaurant that I did not enjoy.
If you live in an extremely rural area, the $400 Resy credit may not be for you. The amount of Resy restaurants tends to really tail off the more rural the area is. Although if you travel to cities or more populated areas regularly, it could still be worth it.
It's important to note that the Resy credit is split up into $100 of credit per quarter.
Obviously I would prefer to have $400 of Resy credit annually to use whenever I would want to, but this is still solid. Think of it this way: if spend $100 in a quarter at restaurants, you could go out to eat four times a uear with your significant other. Or you could go out for one nice dinner in a quarter with friends or family in a party of 4.
Full disclosure, I have an American Express® Gold Card and have been able to take advantage of the Resy credit it offers. With the Resy credit on the American Express® Gold Card, you will get up $100 in Resy credits annually. The credits are split into two up to $50 increments each half of th eyear.
When I was looking for Resy restaurants in the Boston area, I noticed many of the restaurants had some hefty price tags. Resy shows you on average how much a restaurant is going to be with this sign: $.
If there’s 4 of them on a restaurant it's quite pricey ($$$$).
If there’s one or two, it's more affordable for the most part ($$).
I was able to find a restaurant in the Financial District of Boston, close to South Station. The restaurant my girlfriend and I agreed on was Stillwater. They offered American cuisine.
As for the food, my girlfriend got the Marry Me? Chicken and I got the Cajun Bucatini Pasta. My girlfriend really enjoyed the chicken as she said it was cooked well and came with delicious tomato parmesan sauce. I liked the Cajun Pasta too as the sauce was creamy with a unique cajun flavor without being too spicy.
We were able to make it out of the restaurant spending $55 (we both got non-alcoholic drinks) including the tip. It was lovely to be able to take my girlfriend out to a nice dinner paying just $5!
With the American Express Platinum Card® jumping up to a $895 annual fee, the $400 Resy credit becomes an important part of the value calculation. If you eat out at least 6-8 times a year, you can definitely get the full value of this credit. That would account for almost half of the $895 annual fee.
If you use the full value of the $200 Uber Cash credit, the $300 Lululemon credit and the $300 Digital Entertainment credit along with the Resy credit you are at $1,200 in value. And that’s not even including a plethora of the other credits offered with the revamped American Express Platinum Card®.
The revamped Chase Sapphire Reserve® comes with a brand new benefit of up to $300 to spend on Chase Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables which are their high end restaurants. These restaurants are available through a special version of OpenTable.
I’ll say that the $400 Resy credit on the American Express Platinum Card® is definitely better than the $300 credit to the Chase Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables on the Chase Sapphire Reserve®.
The Resy credit applies to a lot more locations and restaurants than the Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables. With the Exclusive Tables, you only have access to restaurants in big cities—Washington DC, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco etc. Resy on the other hand gives you access to suburban area restaurants. Let’s look at places in Florida as an example.
For Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables, you only have access to restaurants in Miami. As for Resy, you have access to restaurants in Miami, Orlando, Sarasota, Tallahassee, Fort Myers, Jacksonville etc. A massive difference.
Not only would you have to travel to these select cities that are offered with the Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables, but you would also be staying there most likely. At least for a night. And since these cities are expensive, you can only imagine how much the hotels might cost.
To expand this example to a national level, Resy has over 10,000 restaurants on their platform in the United States whereas there are only over 200 restaurants on Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables in the US. Even in the big cities, Resy still has more options than Chase’s Sapphire Reserve Exclusive Tables.
WIth the Resy credit, it is much more likely that there will be a restaurant in your area where you can put the credit to use. And let’s say you are visiting a relative or a friend in a moderately populated area. There’s a good chance you have access to restaurants nearby.
The $400 Resy credit is one of the more straightforward and useful credits that the revamped American Express Platinum Card® is offering. From my experience, everyone I know likes a nice dinner out. And if there is a credit discounting the meal? Even better.
The $100 credit is more than enough for a dinner with two or three people most times and if you do not want to pay any cash, you can always go just under the credit amount. Everyone needs to eat of course and if you can get one or two meals at a restaurant every quarter, fantastic!