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I am a big fan of the Ameriprise Platinum Card from American Express. It has all of the American Express Platinum benefits that other varieties of the cards do, but comes with no annual fee the first year. Now while I have become more willing to apply for (and keep) cards with large annual fees (SEE ALSO: Am I really going to pay a $450 annual fee?) the name of the game is still AVOIDING paying cash for things, so paying hundreds of dollars in annual fees is something I try to avoid
(SEE ALSO: The 4 cards I will pay the annual fee on)
(SEE ALSO: Mind if I skip the annual fee?)
It is true that the Ameriprise Platinum doesn’t (usually) come with any welcome offer, but it also has a waived annual fee the first year. So that fact means that it’s a bit of a loophole to the American Express rules that say you can only get one signup bonus per card per lifetime. If there’s no welcome offer, then there’s no way to be EXCLUDED from getting that (non-existent) welcome offer. That was the reason that I applied for an American Express card a 2nd time
Renewal time
Fast forward a year, and now (as expected) I am being assessed the annual fees
You’ll remember that the annual fees on the Platinum card were recently raised from $450 to $550, with an additional Uber credit added. Authorized user fees are $175 on the Platinum card, but those are waived for your first 3 authorized users on the Ameriprise version of the card for the first year. So I added 3 authorized user cards which is the only way that I can get my whole family into the Centurion lounges
What to do next
While I’m a bit more accepting of paying annual fees than I once was, I can’t justify paying over $1000, so tragically, I will end up canceling this card. I may sign up for it again in a year or so – I’ll have to think about that. Or my wife may sign up for it (she has had it before a few years ago), though we are still figuring out where she (or I) want to be with regard to 5/24 status.
Readers – what would you do? Pay the annual fees, cancel, or sign up again later? Leave your thoughts in the comments
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Get the Morgan Stanley version…60.000 MR and one AU free
I’ll have to check that out!
1 comment & 1 question:
-On the garden variety Amex Plat it’s $175 for the 1st 3 authorized users (and $175 for each additional one after that), so having 3 AUs would cost you ($550+$175=)$725, not ($550+ [3*$175]=)$1,075 (still a good size chunk of change).
-Other than your wife, who do you have as an AU that would be a travel companion? Can you have a child AU?
Ah that makes sense – it looks like I misunderstood the AU policy. Yes – I put my wife and my 2 older kids (the ones that are 13+) on the card as AUs
I have delta reserve, I feel like I’m getting gipped.
I would put your tweenagers on as AU’s, it is $175 for 3. Online signup age is 13 minimum. Good end run around the Amex offers limitations.
Why don’t you alternate with your wife? Something like: You get the Ameriprise one year, she gets it the next. Then the person who is not holding the Ameriprise gets a card with a fee? That would serve to give you lounge access for everyone.
And while, on the surface this would also cost you money in credit card fees, it is actually money you would get back if you time it right, between double dipping (perhaps even triple dipping) airline credits, uber credits, lounge access fees and loyalty programs – and you could subtract the authorized user fees from that amount as well.
After a bit you would not be able to get a signup bonus, but you would still come out ahead monetarily and benefit-wise. There are enough cards with airline credits that you would be able to benefit even without a signup bonus if it came to that. Use Citi mailers or something else for the bonus if the need arises.
Yes – that is one thing that we’re thinking about doing. Like I said, we’re also considering waiting to get 1 (or both) of us under 5/24