American Express
$799 a year buys $400 of credits, a NEXUS rebate and the best lounge access in Canada, though the lounge benefit is being cut in January 2027. The earn rate is ordinary and there is no travel medical cover at 65.
Rates and features verified 2026-08-18Full terms and conditionsHow we research cards
What we like, and what we don’t
Worth having
- American Express Global Lounge Collection, over 1,550 lounges, including Centurion Lounges
- $200 annual travel credit and a separate $200 annual dining credit
- $100 NEXUS credit every four years
- $5,000,000 travel medical, trip cancellation, interruption and a full insurance package
- Fine Hotels and Resorts benefits, plus Hilton Honors Gold and Marriott Bonvoy Gold status
- 120 days of purchase protection, the longest on this page
Watch out for
- $799 a year, and $250 for each additional Platinum card
- LOUNGE ACCESS IS BEING CUT. From 1 January 2027 Priority Pass and Plaza Premium drop to six visits a year unless you spend $20,000, and 2026 spending decides your 2027 access
- Travel medical stops completely at 65. Not reduced, stopped
- 2 points a dollar is an ordinary earn rate for the most expensive card in the country
- The headline 100,000 point bonus needs you to still hold the card 15 months later, after a second $799 fee
- The dining credit resets on the calendar year and the travel credit on your anniversary, so they are easy to lose
- It is a charge card, so there is no purchase interest rate. Overdue balances are charged 30%
- American Express publishes no foreign transaction fee, so we cannot tell you what one costs
What this card earns
- Dining and restaurants
- 2x
- Travel
- 2x
- Everything else
- 1x
- What we value a point at
- 2¢
The earning fine print
2 points a dollar on dining and on travel, 1 point on everything else, with no cap. Amex Travel Online bookings earn a third point. Groceries are explicitly excluded from the dining category, and local and commuter transport is excluded from travel. Everything is decided by merchant category code, so a restaurant inside a department store earns 1 point.
The welcome offer
- Welcome bonus
- 70,000 points after you spend $10,000, within 3 months
What the offer actually requires
The headline is 100,000 points. Only 70,000 is reachable in year one, on $10,000 of spending in three months. The remaining 30,000 needs a purchase made between months 15 and 17, which is after you have paid a second $799 fee. Amex's "up to $2,800 in annual value" assumes $57,000 of annual spending and a paid lounge guest, and excludes both the annual fee and the welcome bonus.
Fees and interest rates
- Annual fee
- $799
- Additional card
- $250
- Foreign transaction fee
- Not published by the issuer
- Purchase APR
- Not published by the issuer
Who can get this card
- Minimum personal income
- Not published by the issuer
Insurance and benefits
- Travel medical
- $5,000,000 first 15 days of a trip, age 64 and under
- Trip cancellation
- $2,500
- Trip interruption
- $2,500
- Flight delay
- $1,000
- Baggage delay
- $1,000
- Rental car damage waiver
- Included
- Purchase protection
- Included
- Extended warranty
- Included
- Airport lounge
- Included
- Annual travel credit
- $200
- NEXUS fee credit
- Included
- Concierge
- Included
What the benefits really mean
This is a CHARGE CARD, not a revolving credit card. There is no purchase interest rate because the balance is due in full each month. A 30% rate applies to delinquent charges and an optional Flexible Payment Option carries 21.99%. Flight delay and baggage delay share a single $1,000 limit rather than $1,000 each. Travel medical covers 15 days and only if you are 64 or under on your departure date. Instacart and Walmart Plus credits both end on 31 December 2027.
Our verdict
The Platinum works if you use it, and most people do not. The two $200 credits and the NEXUS rebate cover half the fee before lounges, but the travel credit only pays out through Amex Travel Online on a single booking, and the dining credit needs a one time enrolment most people never complete.
Two things would give us pause before paying $799. Lounge access, the main reason people buy this card, is being cut in January 2027 unless you spend $20,000 a year. And there is no travel medical coverage at all from age 65, which is a strange gap in a card sold on travel.
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Where this came from. americanexpress.com/en-ca product page, apply page, benefits pages, certificate of insurance PDF. We take every figure from the issuer’s own pages, never from another comparison site, and we leave a field blank rather than guess at it.