American Express India is aggressive in promoting Metal card ever since 2019 as they sent out the upgrade offers to “almost” all existing Amex Cardmembers with 125K points as welcome bonus, instead of the usual 100K points. That’s where it started!
After that Amex was only sending upgrade offers in the range of 100K-110K MR points. But in Jan 2024 they’ve come up with a great offer for Amex Plat Charge Card: 135,000 Amex MR points.
And now in Nov 2024, they’ve sent the best upgrade offer of the decade: 140K Points, because anyway they hiked the fee. Here are the details along with the previous best offers we saw in the past.
140K Upgrade Offer (Nov 2024)
Joining Fee: Rs.66,000+GST = Rs.77,880
Welcome Offer: As part of Welcome Gift, Cardmember will get 1,00,000 Membership Rewards® Points within 120 days of Cardmembership, upon net spending ₹50,000 on the Basic Card within the first 60 days of Cardmembership and payment of first-year fee of ₹66,000 plus applicable taxes. The additional 40,000 Membership Rewards Points will be credited to Cardmember’s account upon fulfilling the above criteria and within 120 days from the offer end date.
Offer valid from 1 Nov 2024 – 30 Nov 2024 (likely to be extended).
Note that this can be availed only if you’ve received the targeted offer on your existing American Express Credit Card.
Assuming 55Ps/Marriott Point (1:1 via Amex), the MR points easily takes care of the joining fee, rest of the benefits on the card are free for a year.
Totally worth it, for most who can get value out of the MR Points via Marriott (or/and then to other airline reward programs like AA).
Even-though it’s worth the cost, it’s not lucrative compared to the 135K offer with the previous joining fee. However, now that there is no option left, I think 140K is good and this might probably go upto 150K sometime in the near future, as most have gone for the upgrade with the previous offer already.
135K Upgrade Offer (Jan-Oct 2024)
Joining Fee: Rs.60,000+GST = Rs.70,800
Welcome Offer: Get 1,00,000 Membership Rewards® points on upgrading to the Platinum Card & upon spending Rs. 50,000 on the Card in first 60 days of Card membership. Additionally, as part of this offer, an additional 35,000 Bonus Membership Rewards® points will be credited to your Card Account within 120 days from the successful processing of Card application and fulfilment of requisite criteria. So total 135,000 MR points.
Offer valid from 1 January 2024 – 31 January 2024 (extended through Oct 2024).
If I have to compare it with the previous offer, it seems they’ve removed the “renewal” benefit, which anyway isn’t a big deal as you can see below.
125K Upgrade Offer (Previous best)
Joining Fee: Rs.60,000+GST = Rs.70,800
Welcome Offer: Get 1,25,000 Membership Rewards® points on upgrading to the Platinum Card & upon spending Rs. 90,000 on the Card in first 3 months of Card membership. (100K regular points + 25K points extra)
Renewal offer: Rs.20,000 worth Taj Vouchers on first year renewal.
This maynot be the best upgrade offer as few of them were able to grab the metal card for 35K+GST joining fee (by swapping jet card) and lock in that low fee for life – which is amazing but that may not return anytime soon.
Should you go for it?
For first year, its an outstanding offer and if 50% or even 30% bonus on Marriott points transfer offer shows up this year too, you would be lucky as you could get an amazing value when you redeem the points with Marriott Hotels or by further transferring to American Airlines (or) even to United Mileage Plus (even after the devaluation).
If you prefer simpler redemptions, you may as well go for Taj/Amazon Vouchers or others via Amex Gold Collection (24K or 18K) as long as either Gold charge (or) MRCC is in the same pool of points as they can be linked together.
That aside, getting value on regular spend or via benefits that comes with the card demands a lifestyle of it’s own. Do have a look at the detailed review of Amex Platinum Charge Card (updated for 2024) for more on that.
What’s your take on the latest Amex upgrade offer in 2024? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below,