American Express has improved the benefits portfolio of the Business Platinum Card and added an annual US$200 credit for Hilton Hotels, which cardmembers can use to offset Hilton expenses covered with the card.
The card—which carries an annual fee of US$695—already comes with numerous credits, and this new Hilton benefit of $50 credit per quarter was suddenly added to the benefits section of the online account.
You can find the Amex Business Platinum charge card on their website (see here).
If you want to apply for this card, I recommend searching for the currently best signup offer, for example, by using the CardMatch tool. The signup offers on the Amex website are usually not the most lucrative ones.
Strangely, the new credit isn’t even advertised on the American Express website or product description for the Business Platinum, and I don’t see any reason for that. I reached out to our contact at American Express but haven’t yet received a reply. Once I hear something that provides additional details, I will update this post.
However, once you log into your account and go under the benefits section, you can see the new Hilton credit as a benefit, and it has to be manually “activated.”
In order to do this, click the Enroll Now button in your account:
The caveat: This credit will not be given all at once but quarterly in the amount of $50 per quarter. You have to spend at least US$50 or more at an eligible Hilton hotel per quarter to get the credit. Apparently this also works with Hilton gift cards as per some reports on social media.
Also, the terms state that “a Hilton for Business membership is required. If your business does not already have a Hilton for Business account, you will be registered for one at the time you enroll in the benefit…”
It’s important to complete this step or the account will not be eligible for the credit.
What I find interesting is how suddenly this benefit was added and that it didn’t replace anything else, meaning nothing was taken away. So I guess, sometimes things do improve. Although it has been rumored that Amex plans a price increase for the Platinum line of charge cards.
Conclusion
American Express has updated the benefits for the Platinum Business Charge Card, which now includes a $200 p.a. credit for Hilton Hotels and Resorts. The credit will be issued quarterly in $50 increments and requires active enrolment in the card’s online account.
Members are also required to enroll in a Hilton for Business membership (Hilton’s SME program) to be eligible for this feature.
This new benefit is simply an add-on to the existing product and doesn’t replace any other card feature. Reimbursements should work the same as for the other Hilton cards in the Amex portfolio, meaning post-purchase, it can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before a refund shows up in the account.
