Amex Platinum Changes: September 2025

The American Express Platinum Card®’s annual fee has historically increased every 3ish years and this 2025 is no different: many rumors have been circulating around the internet about yet another increase to the annual fee.

Of course, when annual fees increase, new benefits/card changes come along as well.

What’s The New Expected Annual Fee Behind The American Express Platinum Card®?

The last annual fee change was in 2021, when the American Express Platinum Card® hiked its annual fee from $550 to $695. Now, father time is upon us, and it’s been widely rumored that the Platinum annual fee is going up to $895.

If this is true, this would make the American Express Platinum Card® carry one of the heftiest annual fees around for personal credit cards:

• Chase Sapphire Reserve®: $795 annual fee

• Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card: $395

• Citi Strata Elite℠ Card: $595

• United Club℠ Card: $695

Yeah. Pretty large to say the least. I think it’s a true statement to say that this new rumored Platinum annual fee would be the largest annual fee for any consumer credit card around. Sheesh.

It only feels like a matter of time before the first $1,000+ annual fee credit card comes rolling in… and I’m not totally sure how I feel about that notion.

What Are The Rumored Credits On The New Card?

It looks like a few things are suspected to be changing about the card’s credits:

• Fine Hotels Resorts Credit (FHR): Up to $600/year (up to $300 semi annually)

• Lululemon Credit: Up to $300/year (up to $75 per quarter)

• Resy Credit: Up to $400/year

As far as we can tell, it doesn’t seem like any of the other credits are being changed/removed except for the Equinox credit. It feels like the Lululemon one is basically replacing the Equinox credit.

Are The New FHR, Lululemon, and Resy Credits Any Good?

Well, just to be clear: these are rumors based on leaks from Amex's site.

But, if we are to analyze them as if they are real… I think they are ok? There are definitely some benefits, but also some significant cons. For starters:

• I find the Lululemon credit opportunity to be significantly more valuable than Equinox. Usually when evaluating the American Express Platinum Card®, I always find the Equinox credit to be more deadweight than not. Lululemon, you could at least buy clothes with it that you could either use yourself or as a gift for someone. The major annoyance here is that they are on a quarterly basis, which means you’ll need to set quarterly reminders to make your Lululemon purchases (or you forfeit the credit).

• The Resy credits, assumably, are on a quarterly basis. This is unfortunately more annoying than it should be yet again. Since you have up to $400 in dining credits (up to $100/quarter), you’ll need to make sure to not only (1) use a Resy restaurant and (2) pay with the right credit card at the right time. If you only have an American Express Platinum Card®, that’s probably a good thing—keeping this complexity simple is probably good. But if you also have an American Express® Gold Card too, then you’ll also need to remember to use that card’s Resy credit… you can see how this can get annoying.

• The FHR credits could be useful, but I think it’s always worth reminding yourself that unless you were already going to be staying at these fancy hotels, then you’re essentially “paying” more than you originally would have. The biggest downside with the changes here is that this credit is divided up into a semiannual basis, meaning you can only get up to $300 per half of the year.

So I think my overall take here is positively lukewarm? Like I could definitely see myself getting the most out of all the credits, but it would require some mental effort.

It’s abundantly clear that using/leveraging the FHR credits is going to be critical to maximizing the value of this card. If you weren’t going to use any of the new FHR credits, then you’re likely going to be losing a lot of money on the card.

Are The New Credits Enough To Offset The (New) Annual Fee Of The American Express Platinum Card® & Make It Worth it?

It’ll definitely depend from person to person, but here’s my general, harsh valuation of each benefit, starting with the newest ones:

Even with my harsher credit valuations at play, it’s pretty clear that if you are a thinking, well intentioned credit card user, you can probably do pretty well with the new rendition of the Amex Platinum.

The biggest changes for me here (removing Equinox and adding the 2 new credits alongside expanding the FHR benefit) make the card much more worthwhile in my mind.

• For Lululemon: although I don’t regularly shop here, I would knowing that I get these random credits. If I take a 50% valuation, then it’s essentially like shopping at a discount

• For Resy: I do expect to regularly eat at Resy restaurants, but I don’t want to come in with the mindset of needing to use every inch of the credit (and then overspend)

• For the FHR benefit: even though I don’t normally stay at FHR hotels, I will say that I can probably get 1 night/half of the year for less than $300 total (in theory), which would allow me to walk out pretty comfortably

I don’t value any of the CLEAR/Precheck benefits because I already have them. Walmart+ is equally useless to me.

As you can probably tell, getting the new American Express Platinum Card® with its new structure could actually make a lot of sense, but it will definitely vary on a person to person basis

How Do You Value Lounge Access With The American Express Platinum Card®?

The American Express Platinum Card® provides several types of lounge access:

• Centurion Lounges

• Delta SkyClubs, when flying an eligible Delta flight

• Priority Pass Select

While you can somewhat justifiably put a “valuation” on the credits earlier, it’s a bit more difficult to value lounge access and these other intangibles.

For me, Priority Pass is firstly a $0 value benefit. Why? I already have access to it through cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve®—there’s no true benefit to getting a second Priority Pass.

Now, Centurion Lounge and Delta SkyClub access are both very useful benefits. I’ve been to nearly every Amex lounge in the United States and it’s still pretty safe to say that they’re solid lounges. For example:

• The Las Vegas Amex lounge is one of the rare lounges that serves beef

• The New York Amex lounge has some cool features like a speakeasy + coffee bar (I used to visit this lounge back when it had its little fitness center/spa)

• The San Francisco lounge is one of the nicer lounges at SF and is also one of the few lounges you can access with a credit card

Would I pay for Amex Lounge access? Given I do fly quite a bit, maybe a little, but I wouldn’t necessarily overvalue it too much here.

I used to love lounges a lot more, but time has become a pretty valuable asset and spending too much time at the airport just isn’t in the books as it once was. However, having this as a perk is still very useful.

So, in this case, I’d probably value a visit in lieu of a nice meal with good working spots so maybe $20/visit?

For Delta SkyClubs, while I rarely fly Delta (more of an American Airlines/Alaska dog), it’s still a “nice to have.” I would not pay for Delta lounge access, but it’s definitely something I note when considering the card.

This section was basically a long way of saying: be careful to not necessarily overvalue lounge benefits. In your card evaluation calculations, I’d actually argue to treat them as a “nice to have” not a “must” but it can definitely vary depending on your priorities.

What’s The Welcome Bonus For The New American Express Platinum Card®?

No idea.

Again, this entire article is based on pure speculation/rumor, but from what we can probably guess—it’s going to be pretty high.

Right now, the American Express Platinum Card®’s offer is “as high as 175,000 points” after spending $8,000 within the first 6 months.

If we were to take a wild guess, it feels like the offer might reach the “up to” 250,000 range? That might feel high, but from my experience, we’re in relatively unprecedented waters with this high annual fee. If this all turns out true, the American Express Platinum Card® suddenly becomes the most expensive personal credit card out there, so it better have a hefty bonus to come with it.

Might as well break a few good records while we’re at it.