The Amex Business Platinum Card is one of the most powerful premium business credit cards available to Canadians—but only if it’s set up correctly. Many of its most valuable benefits are not automatic, and business owners who skip key steps often miss out on thousands of dollars in value.
This guide covers exactly what to do after getting the Amex Business Platinum, in the right order, so you can maximize welcome bonuses, airport lounge access, travel credits, and long-term rewards.
1. Automate Full Balance Payments & Move Key Recurring Bills
As soon as your Amex Business Platinum is approved, set up pre-authorized payments for the full statement balance. Paying in full every month avoids interest, reduces administrative friction, and allows you to confidently put large expenses on the card.
Next, move predictable recurring business expenses onto the card. This may include professional association dues (such as OMA fees), insurance premiums, software subscriptions, utilities, and your cellphone or wireless bill. Moving your mobile phone bill is especially important because the Business Platinum offers a $10 monthly wireless credit, which is explained in more detail in Point #7.
Doing this early creates reliable monthly spend without changing your behaviour, simplifies bookkeeping, and ensures you automatically benefit from recurring statement credits.
2. Record Your Approval Date and Plan for the Welcome Bonus Minimum Spend Requirement (MSR)
Once payments and recurring bills are set up, record your approval date in a spreadsheet, notes app, or task manager. This date determines the deadline for meeting your welcome bonus minimum spend requirement (MSR) (normally this is something along the lines of, spend $15,000 in the first 3 months to obtain 80,000 points).
The welcome bonus is the single largest source of value on the Amex Business Platinum, so planning for it is critical. Write down the MSR and exact deadline clearly, then set a calendar reminder for approximately 2.5 months after approval. This gives you time to course-correct if you are falling behind.
If the MSR feels high, plan strategically. Many business owners time their application around a large purchase or use tools like Chexy for rent, corporate tax installments, payroll remittance, GST/HST remittance, or professional fees (think, CMPA fees for doctors). Prepaying subscriptions or insurance premiums can also help. If you are close near the deadline, buying a few gift cards for places you already shop can help close the gap responsibly.
Missing the welcome bonus is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make with this card so planning ahead is important.
3. Set Up Airport Lounge Access (One of the Amex Business Platinum’s Best Benefits)
Airport lounge access is one of the most valuable Amex Business Platinum benefits, especially for frequent travelers—but it requires proper setup.
The card provides access to multiple airport lounge networks. Some lounges—such as Centurion Lounges and Plaza Premium lounges—allow entry simply by showing your Business Platinum card and a same-day boarding pass. Others are accessed through Priority Pass, which is included, but must be activated manually. The easiest ways to activate your priority pass are by using the Chat feature after logging into your Amex account or by calling the number on the back of your card.
Use the Amex Global Lounge Collection tool (selecting a Canadian-issued Platinum) and the Priority Pass app to confirm lounge access before you travel.
4. Use Your $200 Amex Business Platinum Travel Credit
The Amex Business Platinum includes a $200 annual travel credit, redeemable through the Amex Travel portal for flights, hotels, or car rentals.
This credit resets on your card anniversary, not January 1. Using it early ensures it doesn’t go unused and immediately offsets part of the annual fee.
One advantageous way of using this $200 credit is to book a hotel that is part of Amex’s Fine Hotels and Resorts.These luxury hotels offer benefits to Amex platinum card holders who book through the Amex travel portal. Some examples include Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland, Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge in BC, Shangri-La Hotel in Toronto, and various Fairmont, Four Seasons, and Ritz-Carlton locations.
Benefits can include:
- Room upgrade on arrival, subject to availability
- Noon check-in, subject to availability
- $100 USD property credit
- Daily breakfast for 2
- 4pm late checkout
Given that most of the above benefits are given to Marriott and Hilton Gold elite status members, it is best to use these at other hotels that are not part of Marriott or Hilton.
If you would rather have the $200 as a statement credit on your card, type “RHT Amex travel credit” in your favourite search engine or AI assistant and explore this “trick”.
5. Create Airline Loyalty Accounts and Link Them to Amex (But Don’t Transfer Yet)
If you don’t already have them, create free airline loyalty accounts with Aeroplan, Avios, and Flying Blue (and for hotels, Marriott Bonvoy) at a minimum.
Once created, link them inside your Amex online account under Membership Rewards transfer partners. This allows instant transfers later when you’re ready to book.
A critical rule: do not transfer points until you have a specific flight in mind and confirmed award availability. Membership Rewards transfers are one-way and irreversible, so keeping points with Amex preserves flexibility.
6. Enroll in Marriott Bonvoy Gold and Hilton Gold Status
The Amex Business Platinum includes complimentary Marriott Bonvoy Gold and Hilton Gold status, but you must enroll to activate them.
These can unlock room upgrades, late checkout, bonus points, and sometimes breakfast. For best results, email the hotel a few days before arrival, mention your status, and politely ask about any complimentary upgrades—this works especially well in Europe and Asia.
7. Activate Amex Offers to Offset the Business Platinum Annual Fee
Amex Offers are essentially modern day digital coupons that must be manually activated by going into your Amex account/app, going to the “Amex Offers” section and activating the offers. They can significantly reduce the effective annual fee of the card.
The most valuable recurring offer is the $10 monthly wireless credit, worth $120 per year, effectively reducing the annual fee from $799 to about $680.
Another recurring benefit is the Dell credit, which provides $100 every six months at Dell.ca (when you access Dell through the link inside the Amex app). While I personally value this benefit at $0 when calculating the card’s effective annual fee—because not everyone would naturally spend at Dell—it is still an easy way to pick up genuinely useful items at no net cost. This can be free cables, keyboards, a mouse, a backpack, or even an external monitor.
Another common offer is the Instacart credit, typically $10 twice per month. While Instacart may include service fees or price markups, it can still be worthwhile for the occasional convenience. Make sure your Amex Business Platinum is added to your Instacart account so credits apply automatically.
Because offers change frequently, it’s worth checking the Amex app every few weeks.
8. Use Chexy to Pay Expenses That Normally Can’t Be Put on a Credit Card
Chexy is a Canadian payment platform that allows businesses to pay expenses with your card that normally cannot be charged to a credit card, such as professional fees (including CMPA), corporate tax installments, payroll remittance, GST/HST remittance, property taxes, rent, and other large payments.
Chexy charges a small processing fee per transaction, but in exchange, it allows you to put these expenses on your Amex Business Platinum, earn points, and significantly increase your ability to hit large welcome bonus thresholds—especially in the first few months.
To get started, create a free Chexy account and register as a small business. Once set up, you can begin routing eligible payments through Chexy and turning unavoidable business expenses into Membership Rewards points.
Bonus: Find amazing redemptions easily using Roame
Earning points is only half the strategy—redeeming them well is where the real value appears.
Roame is a powerful tool for finding award flight availability across multiple programs (including Aeroplan, Avios, and Flying Blue) quickly and efficiently.
Start with the free version to get familiar with the platform, but the real value comes from the paid version, called Friends of Roame. With Friends of Roame you can search award availability in 60-day blocks (called Skyview), set up alerts for specific routes and dates so you don’t need to monitor flights by repeatedly checking airline websites, and you can search across regions as opposed to city to city (think Toronto to Europe, instead of just Toronto to Madrid).
There is a Friends of Roame discount via referral, and you can use promo code PP10 for 10% off a paid subscription.
Is the Amex Business Platinum Worth It?
For business owners who travel, have large expenses, or value premium airport lounge access, the Amex Business Platinum can deliver outsized value—but only if it’s set up properly.
Handled correctly, it becomes less of a credit card and more of a travel and rewards platform.
Benefits specific to the Amex Personal Platinum:
The following benefits apply only to the Personal Platinum and are not included with the Business Platinum:
– NEXUS application fee credit (up to $100)
– $200 annual dining credit at select restaurants
You may wonder, shouldn’t I get the personal platinum if it comes with these extra benefits above the business platinum? The answer, for the vast majority of professionals and business owners is no, the personal platinum is not the best choice. The main reason being that the personal platinum base earn rate is 1 point per dollar whereas the business platinum is 1.25 points per dollar. This may seem a trivial difference, but if you are spending $50,000, $75,000, or $100,000 or more, the extra 0.25 points adds up very quickly to a meaningful amount of points. Additonally, if you are using Chexy, the extra 0.25 makes a substantial difference in offsetting the 1.99% Chexy fee.
Referrals
If you found this article helpful, please consider using one of my referral links to support the work I do. It costs you nothing extra and by using a referral you are often able to get elevated sign-up bonuses, access to points promotions, or a discount. Most importantly, this helps convince my wife that the hours I spend on this hobby are worth it!
For Amex credit cards earning Membership Rewards, the most powerful and flexible travel points in Canada, like the Cobalt, Gold, Business Gold, Platinum, and Business Platinum please reach out to learn about the best sign up bonus options.
If you shop a lot (>$550 month) at Costco and are interested in flying to Europe, the Brim Flying Blue Mastercard is a solid choice and can be applied for using this link.
After your flight is sorted out, you’ll need a hotel room. For Amex credit cards that earn Marriott Bonvoy points such as the Marriott Bonvoy Amex and Marriott Bonvoy Business Amex, please reach out to learn about the best sign up bonus options.
To supercharge your points earning, use Chexy via this link to pay for things like rent, taxes, professional fees and other expenses that normally cannot go on a credit card.
Once you have accumulated points, you will need to search for flight redemptions efficiently. Roame is the best tool to quickly search multiple programs, multiple destinations, across many dates. Please use the following link and use code PP10 for 10% off the Friends of Roame subscription.
If you are new to points and rewards and want to learn more about optimization and have a personalized approach, please reach out to me for a free one-on-one session.
