Welcome to 2019!

Welcome back! I had to take a break from the blog in the last half of 2018, but hopefully in 2019 I will get to share some exciting and useful things here! Even though I wasn’t writing, I was still busy on the travel front:

• went to Ontario in August 2018 for a wedding
• went to Victoria and Vancouver for a long weekend in October 2018
• went to the UK for 3 weeks in November 2018
• started figuring out this miles and points thing!!

In May 2018 I had applied for the Amex Platinum card, and I (hoped) but wasn’t sure if it was worth the steep annual fee ($700!). I sincerely hoped it was, but gave myself a year to figure it out. Here we are in January 2019, and I can say that I honestly believe it is worth the steep fee. While the card will not get you “free travel” it can be a great tool with travelling that you were going to do anyways, and makes your money go further by acquiring rewards towards additional travel.

How can it be worth $700?

Date	Lounge	Lounge Type	Destination	Airlines	Est. Saved
16-Aug-18	Winnipeg	Plaza Premium	Hamilton	Flair	$50
19-Aug-18	Toronto T1	Plaza Premium	Winnipeg	Air Canada	$50
17-Oct-18	Winnipeg	Plaza Premium	Victoria	Air Canada	$25
17-Oct-18	Calgary	Chinook	Victoria	Air Canada	$25
09-Nov-18	Winnipeg	Plaza Premium	London LHR	Air Canada	$25
27-Nov-18	London LHR	Plaza Premium	Winnipeg	Air Canada	$25
					$200

Above is a table of the times when I used the airport lounges. With the AMEX Platinum, you automatically get a Priority Pass card, which lets you go into 1000+ lounges for no additional charge. When I eat a meal in a lounge I value it at $25. Once, I missed using the lounge in Toronto Pearson and a hot sandwich, drink and snack did come to over $25 so this is a very fair number. When I travelled with a guest I calculated for both of us.

So for the trips that I have already done this year, I have saved $200.

Item	Est. Saved
15% AC discount	$108
Travel insurance	$30
Travel credit	$200
	$338

AMEX does email you with many special offers, of which I only used one. In the fall, they sent me a special promo code to be used with Air Canada. Luckily, this was just the time I was booking my flight to the UK so I got to use it. This saved me $108 on the ticket price, an offer which I would not have received without being an AMEX member.

The card also comes with travel insurance. Over 15 days you have to top up the coverage, but since coverage to the UK cost me $50 in the past, and the top up was $20, I considered that a savings of $30.

Another great perk of the card is the $200 travel credit, which I used on my flights to BC in October. Definitely would not have had that without the card.

Between my $200 savings in lounges and the $338, we are at $538.

• My flights to Asia are already booked, and I anticipate using at least 4 lounges = $100
• I have not yet purchased my travel insurance for Asia, but I will guess it is a $30 savings too.

With that in mind, we are at a total savings of $668. The annual fee was $699.

$699 – $668 = $31

We have not even accounted for:

• the 2019 travel credit of $200 that I get
• the 60,000 Membership Reward bonus that I got for meeting the minimum spend
• The MRs that I get on anything I purchase, at a rate of 1.25x

So all-in-all this is a VERY good deal in my opinion. Again, for someone travelling anyways this really makes sense. You do need to spend the money upfront, but with some planning it can really all work out very well.

Apply for the AMEX PLATINUM.
Amex encourages referrals, so by using my link you will get 60,000 Membership Rewards instead of 50,000 with a $5000 minimum spend in 3 months.

I will be posting soon about my experience applying for the card, and what to do and not to do when you get it.

Happy Travels and looking forward to 2019! x