A writer at The Points Guy recently did the maths on the two American Express cards he uses most — the Platinum and the Gold — and the total came to $4,645 in value over 12 months. After subtracting the combined $1,220 in annual fees ($895 for the Platinum, $325 for the Gold), that's a net of roughly $3,425, earned mostly on spending he was doing anyway.
How does a number like that stack up? Two buckets. First, statement credits: the Platinum produced $1,610 (the full $300 digital entertainment credit, $400 at Resy restaurants, $600 on prepaid hotel bookings via Amex Travel, $200 in Uber Cash, plus targeted offers), while the Gold added $478.20 through dining, Dunkin', Resy and Uber credits. Second, points: he earned 127,842 Membership Rewards points across both cards — 5x on flights booked directly or via Amex Travel on the Platinum, 4x at restaurants worldwide and US supermarkets on the Gold — which he valued at 2 cents each, about $2,557.
The key to making this work, he stresses, is honest self-assessment. He sorted every credit into three piles: purchases he'd make anyway, nice-to-haves, and perks that don't fit his life — and only counted the first category. Things like the $300 Lululemon credit and the Walmart+ reimbursement were excluded because he wouldn't pay for them out of pocket. He also left out lounge access (Centurion Lounges and Delta Sky Club visits) and another 74,194 points earned through the Rakuten shopping portal, since he wanted a conservative figure.
Timing matters too. Both cards currently carry targeted welcome offers — as high as 175,000 points on the Platinum after $12,000 of spend in six months, and up to 100,000 on the Gold after $8,000 — and because most credits reset on the calendar year, applying before the end of the year could let a new cardholder use part of this year's allotment and then a fresh batch from 1 January.
Worth noting for anyone considering the pair: Amex's application rules can block a welcome bonus on the Gold if you currently hold or have held a Platinum, so if you're starting from zero, the Gold is usually the smarter first application. And if you wouldn't naturally spend on dining, groceries, flights and hotels, a card built around those credits won't pay off — the value here came from matching perks to habits that already existed.
For frequent travellers, the takeaway isn't "get these cards" so much as "audit what you have." If you carry a premium travel card and have never tallied its credits against its fee, you may be leaving hundreds of dollars on the table — or discover the fee isn't earning its keep.
