Major devaluation: Amex Business Platinum restricting 35% points bonus

Starting Sept. 18, The Business Platinum Card® from American Express is drastically changing its beloved 35% Pay with Points bonus for the worse.

Currently, the Pay with Points bonus applies to first- and business-class tickets booked on any airline or tickets booked in any cabin with the airline that a cardmember selects for their up to $200 airline fee credit (enrollment required, terms apply). This perk allows you to get back 35% of your points redeemed, up to 1 million points back each calendar year.

Until now, this was one of the biggest perks of applying for the Amex Business Platinum. Unfortunately, Amex is devaluing this perk in a major way. Let's get into it.

Amex Business Platinum 35% points bonus changes

As of Sept. 18, the 35% points bonus for airfare booked through Amex Travel will only apply to the airline that a cardmember selects for their airline fee credit (enrollment required, terms apply), regardless of fare class. Amex states the following:

Effective September 18, 2025, eligible flights will no longer include First and Business Class tickets booked on an airline that is not your selected qualifying airline.

Qualifying airlines include:

• Alaska Airlines
• American Airlines
• Delta Air Lines
• Hawaiian Airlines
• JetBlue Airways
• Southwest Airlines
• Spirit Airlines
• United Airlines

As you can see, this is a major devaluation as the eligible list of airlines only includes domestic carriers. For cardmembers of multiple American Express cards, the 35% bonus was an easy way to earn points through another Amex card's bonus categories and then redeem the points for good value for travel in a premium cabin through Amex Travel as a Business Platinum cardmember.

Remember, a designated airline can only be changed once a year in January.

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This development affects the value proposition of the Amex Business Platinum. In October 2023, American Express removed the 25% points bonus from the American Express® Business Gold Card. It appears that Amex is making an overall shift away from this type of redemption.

Potential work-around for the 35% points bonus changes

Currently, cardmembers of the Amex Business Platinum can continue using the 35% bonus as-is until Sept. 17. However, once the changes are in effect on Sept. 18, there is a work-around to receive the 35% points bonus even when flying on other airlines.

It'll be worthwhile to choose certain airlines over others from Amex's list of qualifying airlines. These include Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.

These domestic airlines are part of the larger airline alliances of Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance. When an airline is part of an alliance, it can sell codeshare flights, or flights that are operated by another airline within the alliance, but marketed and sold by the domestic carrier under its own flight number.

For example, this round-trip business-class flight is operated by British Airways, but sold and marketed by American Airlines, as indicated by the flight numbers, AA6983 and AA6992.

American Express confirmed that codeshare flights marketed and sold by a selected qualifying airline of your choice would be eligible for the rebate as long as the flight is sold through Amex Travel.

Since codeshare flights are eligible for the 35% bonus, these changes are still a negative development, but not as bad as it might initially appear. It can be a creative way to book flights and still enjoy a perk that cardmembers love.

Bottom line

With so many credit card changes happening recently, this is just another negative development that may strike the Amex Business Platinum off the list of useful cards for business owners. Although the card still has many other useful benefits, limiting a cardmember's redemption options never bodes well, especially one that well-loved.

Codeshare flights can receive the 35% points bonus, so there's some silver lining; otherwise, this is a major devaluation, and prospective cardmembers may be better off exploring other business card products.

Related: Amex Business Platinum card review