Amex to RADICALLY Change Platinum Card Credits (Rumor)

So we have a rumor video for you today. I love a good rumor video. And this time we have some rumors and also some confirmed data points about changes that Amex is making to the credits on the Platinum card, its premium travel rewards card. The most notable thing right off the bat is that Airbnb is apparently getting added to the hotel credit, but it's not quite what you think. And there are some negative changes too. So it's very important that you listen to this. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shifu. And on this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. And this video is brought to you by Amex Rewards. But more on that later. Okay, so first up, we have some information from the Chinese credit card forums, from people who are able to access those links that Amex uses to test new web pages. Maybe they're Chinese spies working at Amex or just really smart Asian American tech bros. I don't know who they are, but whatever. They are able to access these secret pages and they have been correct in the past about changes that are going to happen. So let's go through what they say. Rumor, FHR big change for the worse. Two night stays required. Added Airbnb Luxe, no effing use coupon. Now Airbnb Lux is a collection of Airbnb's most luxurious homes and Airbnb actually inspects them themselves. so they are a lot more professional than your average Airbnb and they often have unique selling points like they're on a private island or they have a massive pool or whatever. Let's keep going with the Chinese credit card forum. The Amex Platinum will add a $250 Airbnb experience credit but to unlock it it seems you need to first book an Airbnb Luxe stay. The FHR credit will rebrand to the Lodge, I'm guessing lodging here it's probably Chinglish, lodging credit and and will support Airbnb Lux stays. And then the guy is like, F word, I miss one sentence. And he then directly copy and paste from this site that he's looking at on Amex. Effective January 1st, 2027, fine hotels and resorts bookings will require a minimum two night stay to be eligible for the $600 lodging credit. Now let's talk about that last part first, because if that is the case, that is a significant downgrade. So this year I actually used the credit twice for two back-to-back one-night stays at the same property, the Conrad DC, and I got the full $600 credit refunded. And I think I paid probably $200 out of pocket since the room was about $400 per night, and I stayed two nights. If this change goes through, I would be forced to book that as one booking, two nights on one booking to get refunded $300, and then pay $500 out of pocket. So I would turn something that is almost free or certainly significantly discounted into something that is just slightly discounted. It kind of flips it around, all right? The discount is the smaller part and the out-of-pocket is the bigger part. You'd be paying like, you know, it's like a 30% discount or a 40% discount and then I'm still spending a significant amount of money out-of-pocket. The thing is the edit from Chase, which is a similar hotel collection, requires a two-night stay to get the credit on the Sapphire Reserve. So maybe Amex sees that there is not much competition and thus wants to make this change to make the card more profitable for them and their hotel partners. So anyway, that would be very disappointing if that change is made. Right now, the hotel collection from Amex does require a two-night stay to get the benefits of the collection, like free breakfast, late checkout, et cetera, and also the refund through the hotel credit on the Platinum card. But the Fine Hotels and Resorts collection does not require a two-night stay for either of those things. Now, unfortunately, I can see this as a realistic change that could be made. One of those things where we had it so good for so long, and in the end, they close the obvious loophole and make it harder to use. But I really hope this one isn't true. Let's now look at the other things talked about Amex adding Airbnb to the credit, etc. But first, if you're serious about getting every little bit of value out of your rewards credit cards like the Amex Platinum, you have to check out the app Max Rewards. Not only does it show you your balances, transactions, points and rewards balances across all your credit cards, even if they're from different issuers so that you can see everything in one app, but it also incorporates really useful features like the card value tracker, where you can clearly see the value you get back in a year versus the annual fee. You can see on my Amex Gold, we have the value of the points I earned, the offers and the credits I use. In the most recent update, they have redesigned the benefits page to give you a very clear picture of your coupon book style credits. You can browse across all your cards like the Amex Dining credit, Lululemon credit. You can even see your spend progress towards a free night on this Hilton card. So it's very easy to see where you can maximize value and where you missed out. Look, I forgot to use my Amex dining credit in April. And that is exactly what the credit card companies want you to do. Forget about these benefits and let them reset the next month. So this really lets you outsmart the corporations. In addition, the offers page still lets you search your offers across your cards from different banks. There is the for you tab, which finds offers based on your past spending. The popular tab showing you offers popular with other Max Rewards users and the value tab showing you the offers where you can get the most cash back or rewards. And these offers are from all your banks. Look, here is an Amex one and the next one is on my Chase cards. Some of these are premium features and require Max Rewards gold, but you can get a free trial and then a three month discount after the trial ends with my link below. Or if you download it directly from the app store, use code Ben when you sign up for the same deal. There are also a load of free features that you can try out as well. Okay, so let's look at what is happening with Airbnb being added to the hotel credit. The person posting first says that there will be a $250 Airbnb experience credit added to the Platinum card. But this is for experiences, additional things that you can book while you're staying in an Airbnb like horseback riding, photo shoots, sound healing with Drew Kaboom. Okay, what is this oh it actually looks kind of cool i do love those sound bowls all right it's really relaxing to listen to those but personally i've never booked one of these and i have stayed at quite a lot of airbnbs over the years so it is a niche thing and there is a requirement that you must be staying at a luxe airbnb at the time that you book the experience but luckily for you if all this is true amex is adding airbnb lux to the hotel credit and thus will be rebranded as the lodging credit. But unfortunately, these are the most expensive homes on Airbnb. OK, they're not places that you just casually book. All right. So while this may be great for high spenders who would do something like that anyway, for people who want to just try and use the credit for a completely free luxury stay, your best bet is still going to be to try and get a cheap weekday night at an FHR hotel in Vegas. It's just been devalued for you now since you have to stay two nights at that FHR property to get the credit. But remember, none of this is confirmed. It might not happen. But let's now look at one negative change that does seem to be confirmed. This negative change pertains to the $300 Lululemon credit, which is issued as $75 per quarter. Many people buy gift cards with this credit and then combine them with the next quarter's credit for more expensive items. But listen to this data point from Reddit. Not sure if I'm doomed, but I spent a mix of in-store purchases and gift card purchases on separate platinum cards on October 9th. All of my organic in-store Lululemon purchases credited this morning, but my $100 gift card purchases did not. So this is actually a pretty useful data point since we can see it's not that the credit didn't go through yet since he says that he was refunded for the regular purchases, but the gift card was not refunded. So it seems that Amex is able to single out gift card purchases now. Another person reports a similar thing. They bought a gift card and a pair of socks and only got refunded for the socks. Then here is an explanation of the whole thing from someone commenting on Doctor of Credit. Seeing some increasing murmurs here and the comments and over in Reddit that Lulu's in-store POS point of sale system may now be coding physical gift card purchases differently and Amex is not crediting them, matching what the terms have always stated. Rumor seems to imply this change may have happened around October 5th. I can't personally substantiate this, just flagging as I see more and more reason to personally wait before I try this redemption method again for Q4. Now personally, I really don't care about this at all. Since the Lululemon credit came in on the Platinum card, I have been gradually upgrading my wardrobe, $75 at a time. I buy underwear and socks mostly, but now I have quite a lot of pairs of those, I have moved on to pants and other clothing items. To be honest, this has been long overdue for me and the Lululemon credit has forced me to do it. So the gift card thing really makes no difference to me anyway. The only reason to get a gift card would be to combine it with the credit next quarter so that you've got $150 and you could then use it to buy a more expensive item at Lululemon. Unless you have some other way of then returning the item and getting refunded not to another gift card, but to your credit card. But I think that was already shut down anyway. So while this is annoying for me, it's really not a big deal let me know in the comments what you think will this ruin your amex platinum lululemon strategy and that is a video for today guys don't forget to get a free trial of max rewards gold and a three month discount if you continue after the trial ends with my link down below please subscribe to the channel if you're new we'll see you next time bye