American Express Raises the Stakes in the Premium Card Wars

Watch more: Need to Know: American Express, Raymond Joabar

Premium cards and premium customers are in demand these days. American Express is raising the stakes for this demographic with a sweeping upgrade to its U.S. Consumer and Business Platinum Cards, announced Wednesday (Sept. 18)  aiming to deepen member loyalty while staying ahead of rivals.

“We listen to and talk to our card members all the time. And what customers have been telling us is they wanted to have more rewards for the spend that they will incur and are always looking for new sets of tools to help them run and grow their business more efficiently,” Raymond Joabar, group president, Global Commercial Services at American Express, told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in tandem with the launch.

Joabar and Webster both framed the Platinum refresh as part of a broader financial ecosystem that ties spending, rewards and services together. “It really is a network of financial management tools and access to things that create a more efficient operating system for the business,” Webster observed.

Joabar added that American Express’ scale multiplies the value of each benefit, especially for smaller business cardholders: “We’re three times larger than the next largest competitor. We have over 4 million small businesses that we have in partnership that find our products really valuable.” That reach, he said, helps Amex continually “listen to our customers and package that up and deliver it to them,” ensuring that new features, from travel perks to cash-flow tools, gain traction quickly and add to the card’s overall utility.

Listening to Members, Adding Value

Joabar emphasized that Amex “helped create the small business category” more than three decades ago and regularly refreshes its products amid a changing competitive landscape.

Both the Consumer and Business Platinum Cards now offer more than $3,500 in annual value, backed by an $895 annual fee. For existing cardholders, the new fee takes effect later this year. Joabar said that Amex members “are really savvy. They know how to do the math, and for that $895 fee, they can get over $3,500 worth of value back.”

For U.S. Consumer Platinum Card Members, the additions range across travel, dining, fitness and digital services. Cardholders can now receive $600 in annual hotel credits through Amex Travel at more than 3,100 hotels and resorts. They also gain a $400 annual Resy dining credit, a $300 digital entertainment credit with partners, a $300 lululemon credit, and credits with Uber One.

The Business Platinum Card offers similar travel enhancements but emphasizes business expenses and high-value purchases. Members earn double Membership Reward  points on key business categories and on individual purchases over $5,000, and they now receive a $600 hotel credit, up to $1,150 in Dell Technologies credits, a $250 Adobe credit, and the potential for an additional $3,600 in statement credits after significant annual spending, including $1,200 for flights booked on AmexTravel.com and $2,400 toward the company’s One AP accounts payable platform.

Balancing Cost and Value

Beyond perks, Amex continues to focus on cash flow management for small businesses. “Working capital management and cash flow is really, really important,” Joabar said. “We have no preset spending limit that provides them the purchasing capacity to run their business.”

He added that the card is designed for a range of enterprises: “We have some customers who spend $50,000 a month, some who spend $500,000 a month, some who spend a million dollars a month. It’s all on the same product, and we can tailor that to help meet their needs.”

Joabar also pointed to the flexibility of Membership Reward points as an important feature for small-business owners: “Our membership rewards program allows them to use those points to help pay for their travel for business or reward employees, or a lot of our small business owners really love that opportunity to take what all their hard work pays off and take their family on vacation.”

Travel benefits remain central to both customer bases. Joabar noted that “traveling today, as you know, is not easy,” pointing to the expansion of the Centurion Lounge network as a key response towards easing the burdens of getting from here to there. “Those lounges offer respite from some of the travel. They can stop in, have a meal, have a drink, or sometimes run some business meetings,” he said. American Express now offers access to more than 1,550 airport lounges worldwide, with new Centurion Lounge locations planned for Salt Lake City, Newark and Amsterdam.

The Road Ahead

Looking forward, Joabar said Amex is developing new tools to help businesses manage expenses. “We just bought a company that focuses on expense management,” he explained, with a nod to the March announcement that it would acquire Center. “We’re very busy incorporating a lot of that into American Express to offer small business customers and middle-market customers some expense management tools that’ll be coming down the line.”

As competition for premium cardholders intensifies, Amex aims to keep its Platinum products indispensable — offering not just a way to pay, but a suite of benefits and services shaped by continual feedback from the people who use them.

PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster is one of the world’s leading experts in payments innovation and the digital economy, advising multinational companies and sitting on boards of emerging AI, healthtech and real-time payments firms. She founded PYMNTS.com in 2009, a top media platform covering innovation in payments, commerce and the digital economy. Webster is also the author of the NEXT newsletter and a co-founder of Market Platform Dynamics, specializing in driving and monetizing innovation across industries.

Raymond Joabar is group president of American Express’ Global Commercial Services and Global Servicing organizations. His responsibilities include the company’s U.S. small and medium enterprise and global commercial card portfolios, B2B payments, working capital and spend management businesses, and the company’s global customer service operations for consumers, commercial clients, and merchants.