So you just got your Amex Business Platinum card or "biz plat", congratulations! Now that you've activated your card, what comes next?
Final Notes and Other Referrals
Sign up Bonus
Make sure you take note of the sign up bonus terms you agreed to, and the timeline you have to hit the spending requirements. Whether it's the most common $15k in 3mo or $75k in 4mo or some other offer, you'd hate to be a day late or a dollar short. Id make a calendar reminder or to-do/alert of some sort with a healthy margin of safety of I wasn't confident that I'd easily hit it in short order.
Credits/Offers
The biz plat comes with several predictable credits and a some targeted and varying offers that help offset the hefty annual fee.
$200 Annual travel credit - to be used through the amex travel portal, I would recommend you use this either for a car rental or a hotel purchase because these typically have good cancellation policies, avoid the usual downsides of booking portals, and earn an extra 1pt per dollar through the portal. Consider if you want to try out amex's Fine Hotel and Resorts, or book something prepaid and refundable but far in advance. The credit posts after the transaction and as of writing does not get pulled back if you subsequently cancel.
$100 Nexus credit q4yrs - for new application or renewal
Unfortunately the other credits/offers have to activated.
Log in to the amex website
Make sure you have your biz plat selected if you have multiple cards
Scroll down to where it says Amex Offers
Register any and all that feel of interest to you
$10/mo wireless credit benefit - move a cellphone bill to the card and after each bill posts you'll get a $10 credit back.
$100 dell credit q6mo - dell supports split tendering, so you could put $100 on this card and the rest on another if you wanted to get this credit but pay with a personal card for the rest for easy bookkeeping.
$10x2 q1mo Instacart - if you're unlikely to use instacart 2x a month, consider this trick: make a small order, then after finalizing add at least another $10 in items to the order. The additional items process as a separate transaction. This allows you to get $20 on a single order. Or if you have a cobalt and you'd rather get 5x on the purchase, consider using the biz plat to pay for instacart premium subscription to trigger the credit.
You'll also see various targeted offers that change over time. For example I recently had these:
Perks/Benefits
Similar to the credits, some of these are automatic and some require activation/enrollment.
Go here to enroll with
Avis Preferred
Hertz Gold Plus
Hilton Honors Gold - 80% bonus points, daily continental breakfast etc
Marriott Bonvoy Gold - 25% bonus points, minor room upgrades, etc
Priority Pass - one of several ways you get lounge access through this card
15% back on parking
waived valet fee
priority security lane (this is separate from Nexus and requires generating a QR code)
Lounge access
In addition to priority pass membership as above, you have access to several lounge programs by showing them your biz plat card. You can search them here
Plaza premium
Delta sky club when flying delta
Escape lounges
Executive Lounges by Swissport
Fine Hotel and Resorts
FHR is an Amex program of luxury hotels that have agreed to offer a package of benefits to Platinum card holders who book through the amex travel portal. These are often more expensive rates, but the perks can give you an experience that normally would require high level elite status. In Canada it is certainly harder to get elite status outside of Marriott and Hilton, so I find this most appealing for unaffiliated hotels, or members of Hyatt, IHG, etc.
For example in Toronto I would consider the Shangri-La, Park Hyatt, 1 hotel, or the Hazelton as I can already get perks through Marriott status at the St. Regis and Ritz Carlton.
Benefits typically include:
$100 USD property credit
Room upgrade on arrival*
Noon check-in*
Daily breakfast for 2
Gauranteed 4pm late checkout
*Subject to availability
For shorter stays, the property credit and early check in/late check out can be very valuable. For longer stays the breakfast and room upgrade can really shine. In either case it can be a luxurious experience and can be a fun way to use your Hotel credit.
They also have the less luxurious but similar The Hotel Collection.
Paying Taxes
Head on over to Paysimply if/when it makes sense for you to pay your business taxes (installments, payroll remittances, GST/HST etc). If you haven't already you can read about why this makes sense here - in the very least consider this to help you hit the sign up bonus if it would otherwise be a challenge.
Using Your Points
A reminder that the highest value for Amex points is almost always via transfer partners. These transfers are one way, so I wouldn't advise pre-emptively transfering them. Once you've found a great flight, then transfer to the appropriate program. But head to the transfer page and link your relevant frequent flyer programs. If you don't have these programs I would recommend you at least make an Air France/KLM Flying Blue, British Airways Avios, and Delta Skymiles account (and Aeroplan of course if you don't already have one). Registering them to this page is usually quick but can be delayed if there are inconsistencies in your name/contact info, so getting them connected now will save you time later.
If you're interested in second step transfers from BA Avios such as to Aer Lingus, Iberia, Finnair, or Qatar, then I similarly suggest that you make those accounts. Some of them, such as Iberia, have rules about minimum account ages before certain account activity like transfering is allowed.
Get searching either with my favourite paid tool Roame and save with discount code REWARDSMD, you can find my review of it here. Or if you're less sure about paying for a tool, try PointsYeah which has a better free version, but consider upgrading to premium for wider searching, alerts, and hotel alerts - my review of this site is here. If you're interested in attending a redemption help session reach out to me to discuss when the next one is.
Final Notes
If you want to chat about your plan at any time, reach out and we can discuss next moves whether its questions like what card to get next, when to close a card, getting another sign up bonus from a business platinum with a second business (eg. holdco etc).
Interested in other cards? Check out our new card comparison and referral page, on a trial basis as of April 2025 signing up for certain TD, RBC, Scotia, Amex, and other cards through this portal, if you save confirmation of such, will earn you an RMD credit redeemable towards redemption support.
I'm always interested in referral of colleagues, and on a trial basis as of April 2025, each referral that subsequently signs up their first business card and consents to me confirming this to you will earn you an RMD credit redeemable towards redemption support.
Looking for other ways to travel? If you haven't already, check out my article on the intriguing but controversial world of custom travel conferences for MDs with Intellectures where you can sign up with discount code RewardsMD for 20% off.
