The Amex Business Platinum card has a $595 annual fee, but if you use these 9 benefits you could get up to $7,000 in value

Amex Business Platinum cardholders receive shopping, travel, and small-business benefits that can be worth thousands of dollars. Crystal Cox/Business Insider

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• The Business Platinum Card® from American Express is one of the most premium cards available.
• It's packed with benefits like airline and shopping credits, upscale travel perks, and bonus points.
• The $595 annual fee (See Review) is well worth it if you can maximize these benefits each year.
• Read Insider's guide to the best small-business credit cards

The Amex Business Platinum Card is one of the best — and most expensive — small-business credit cards currently available. While its annual fee of $595 might seem exorbitant, the card comes with plenty of value-added perks similar to its personal counterpart, The Platinum Card® from American Express.

The Amex Business Platinum Card includes benefits like up to $200 annually in airline incidental fee credits, up to $200 in statement credits for U.S. Dell purchases each calendar year, complimentary Gold elite status with Marriott and Hilton, and more. Cardholders who tend to spend a lot on business-related expenses, especially travel, should be able to leverage those benefits each year and reap rewards worth much more than the card's annual fee.

Amex Business Platinum card review: A huge bonus and top-notch benefits worth far more than the annual fee

It's a good time to consider the Amex Business Platinum Card, because it's currently offering a welcome bonus of 85,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on eligible purchases within your first 3 months of account opening. Plus, new cardholders can earn 5x points on eligible US purchases on shipping, wireless telephone services, advertising in select media, office supplies, and gas stations in the first three months of account opening, up to 80,000 bonus points per category. 

Before you apply, ask yourself if you're able to fully maximize the following perks so that paying the annual fee is worth it to you.

We're focused here on the rewards and perks that come with each card. These cards won't be worth it if you're paying interest or late fees. When using a credit card, it's important to pay your balance in full each month, make payments on time, and only spend what you can afford to pay.

American Express Business Platinum card basics 

Here's a quick sketch of the card's main details, and then we'll jump into its specific benefits and their potential worth to frequent travelers.

Annual fee: $595

Welcome offer: 85,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on eligible purchases within your first 3 months of account opening. New cardholders can also earn 5x points on eligible US purchases on shipping, wireless telephone services, advertising in select media, office supplies, and gas stations in the first three months of account opening, up to 80,000 bonus points per category. 

Earning points: Earn 5x Amex Membership Rewards points on flights and prepaid hotels booked through Amex Travel. The card earns 1 point per dollar on everything else, but you'll earn 1.5x points on purchases of $5,000 or more (up to 1 million additional points per calendar year)

Here are the key areas where the Amex Business Platinum Card benefits can more than make up for its sizeable annual fee.

Amex Business Platinum welcome bonus

The public welcome offer on the Amex Business Platinum Card isn't the highest we've ever seen (it's gone as high as 100,000 Membership Rewards points in the past), but it's still substantial. Granted, to earn the full bonus, you have to spend a lot of money in a short time frame.

On the surface, those points are worth 1 cent apiece toward flights, hotels, rental cars, and more when you redeem them directly through Amex Travel, so we could peg the value of the bonus at around $850. However, cardholders also get a 35% points rebate on certain flight redemptions (more on that below).

Amex points are some of most valuable credit card rewards, and there are several options for both earning and redeeming them

You can also transfer points to over 20 Amex airline and hotel partner programs including Delta, British Airways, Air France-KLM, Singapore Airlines, Marriott Bonvoy, and Hilton Honors, which can potentially increase their value many times over depending on where you transfer them and what you redeem for. It's possible to get 2 or more cents per point in value when you use points this way.

Ongoing value: The value of the welcome bonus is limited to the first year, but expect to get at least $850 out of it and possibly more than $1,700, depending on how you redeem your points. That's not including any spending bonus points you'll earn in the 5x intro bonus categories, which could boost your return even more.

Massive earning potential

The Amex Business Platinum Card is squarely targeted at frequent travelers and big spenders — which makes sense for a premium card created for business owners and other professionals.

New cardholders who spend a lot on U.S. purchases in shipping, wireless telephone services, advertising in select media, office supplies, and gas stations can earn up to 400,000 bonus points. As part of the welcome bonus, the card earns 5x points in those categories in the first three months of account opening, up to 80,000 bonus points per category. 

The Amex Business Platinum Card also richly rewards cardholders who plan to spend a lot on travel specifically, as well as on individual large purchases. That's because the card earns 5x points per dollar on flights and prepaid hotel bookings made through Amex Travel with no earning caps. It also earns 1.5x points per dollar on purchases over $5,000 up to a maximum of 1 million extra points per year. 

Ongoing value: This will depend on your spending habits. But let's keep it conservative and say you'll use this card solely for business trips, of which you take 10 per year and spend $1,000 total on each including airfare and hotel bookings. On that $10,000 of spending, you could earn 50,000 points, worth somewhere between $500 and $1,000 toward travel redemptions.

If you run an office or small business, large purchases probably come up fairly regularly. But to keep it simple, let's say you make five $10,000 purchases per year of things like office equipment, IT services, and event services or planning. You would earn 1.5x points per dollar on each of them for a total potential haul of 75,000 points – 50,000 at regular earning plus 25,000 with the big-purchase bonus. Those 25,000 extra points are roughly worth between $250 and $500.

A 35% rebate on airfare when you pay with points

Although much of the value of the Membership Rewards program lies in the ability to transfer points to its airline and hotel partners, don't forget that you can actually redeem points directly through Amex Travel, too. Flight and other travel redemptions yield a value of 1 cent per point.

How to use the Amex Travel Portal to book flights, hotels, rental cars and more — and make the most of your Membership Rewards points

However, the Amex Business Platinum Card will refund cardholders 35% of their points when redeeming for business or first-class flights on any airline, or economy flights on one airline of choice (which must also be the same airline as the one selected for your $200 incidental fee credits). This benefit is capped at 500,000 refunded points per calendar year. Stay under that, and you are essentially getting 1.54 cents per point in value.

Ongoing value: Let's say you are using this benefit on a few economy redemptions valued at a total of $1,000 (so 100,000 points total), and a single first- or business-class redemption each year of around 300,000 points (worth $3,000 toward airfare). You would get back 140,000 points worth between $1,400 and $2,800.

Airline incidental fee credits

Like with the personal Platinum Card, Amex Business Platinum Card cardholders are eligible for up to $200 in statement credits each calendar year on incidental fees with the airline of their choice. Eligible charges include fees for seat selection, checked bags, lounge passes, and pets, but not tickets, upgrades, gift cards, or mileage purchases. Wi-Fi not charged by the airline itself will also not count.

Ongoing value: Up to $200 per year

Airport lounge access

You can access more than 1,200 airport lounges with the Amex Platinum — here are the best ones

One of this card's most robust benefits is the wide-ranging access it gives you to a variety of airport lounges around the world. Not only can you get into over 1,200 Priority Pass lounges along with two free guests, but you'll also be able to enter Amex's own swanky Centurion Lounges along with two free guests, and Delta Sky Clubs when flying Delta (with no free guests).

Ongoing value: Let's say you visit lounges 20 times per year. What with free food, beverages, Wi-Fi, and the use of shower facilities here and there, you can easily get $50 or more in value per visit. But let's be more conservative and say you're getting around $30 each visit. That doesn't seem too high considering Priority Pass lounge passes are $29 per person, Delta Sky Club passes cost $39 for those who have certain Delta Amex cards, and additional guests to Centurion Lounges cost $50 each. In this scenario, your savings amount to around $600 in value per year.

International Airline Program

The Amex International Airline Program is a little-known benefit of the Amex Business Platinum Card and can translate into significant savings on first-, business-, and premium-economy ticket purchases made with either cash or Pay With Points. You can book tickets on over 25 partner airlines including Air France-KLM, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta, Emirates, Lufthansa, Qatar Airways, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic among others.

Your savings will depend on the specific ticket, but can be 10% or more on international premium airfares that can easily top $5,000 or even $10,000.

Ongoing value: This will also depend on your spending, but let's say you purchase a few premium tickets each year using this benefit and spend a total of $10,000. That would mean you're saving around $1,000.

Elite status with Hilton and Marriott

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In order to earn hotel elite status, you usually have to spend dozens of nights each year in a particular chain's properties, or carry a co-branded card like the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card or the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant™ American Express® Card. Amex Business Platinum Card cardholders, however, can register for complimentary Gold elite status with both Marriott and Hilton each year.

Marriott Gold status includes perks like earning 12.5x points per dollar on Marriott purchases instead of the usual 10x, room upgrades, late checkout, free premium in-room internet, and check-in points bonuses.

Hilton Gold status earns you 18x points per dollar instead of just 10x on Hilton purchases, a fifth night free on award stays, room upgrades, late checkout, and complimentary breakfast at Hilton brands.

Ongoing value: Though room upgrades tend to be modest with both Marriott and Hilton, they are regularly worth around $20 to $60 per night. Hilton's breakfast benefit can easily top $50 per person per day. However, let's stick with the lower end of this spectrum so as not to overestimate. Let's say you spend 10 nights in Marriott hotels a year and 10 in Hiltons and get upgraded half the time. That means around $200 extra value in terms of room rates. And then add about $10 per day at Marriotts for premium internet and $20 per day for breakfast at Hiltons and you're getting another $300 in perks. So your total value here is around $500 per year.

Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit

Like many other cards, the Amex Business Platinum Card will reimburse you for either a Global Entry ($100) or TSA PreCheck ($85) application fee once every four years.

Ongoing value: Considering Global Entry usually also confers TSA PreCheck, you might as well apply for it instead. Amortized over the four-year limit on this perk, you're getting $25 of value each year.

Dell statement credits

The Amex Business Platinum Card offers up to $100 in statement credits between January and June, and another $100 in statement credits between July and December each year for U.S. purchases with Dell made with your enrolled card.

Ongoing value: Even if you use another brand of equipment, you can still easily spend $200 per year on various Dell purchases including headphones, speakers, games, and accessories.

Other Amex Business Platinum benefits

Among this card's other standout perks are waived foreign transaction fees (See Review), which can save you hundreds of dollars on large purchases outside the country.

Its purchase protections are extremely strong, maxing out at $10,000 per incident and $50,000 per calendar year for items that are lost, stolen, or damaged up to 120 days after purchase. Lost luggage is covered up to $3,000 per traveler per trip, and travel accident insurance is capped at $500,000.

Cardmembers can take advantage of priority reservations at world-class restaurants through Amex's Global Dining Collection as well as one-off events headlined by celebrities in various fields through the By Invitation Only program.

AmEx's Fine Hotels and Resorts program offers exclusive benefits to cardholders at luxury hotels around the world — here's how it works

The card also offers significant savings of up to hundreds of dollars on luxury hotel stays booked through Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts thanks to frequent third- and fourth-night-free promotions, on-property credits for things like dining and spa treatments, room upgrades, and complimentary daily breakfast.

Total potential value

Adding up the estimated ongoing value propositions each of these benefits offers (and leaving out one-time elements like the welcome bonus), you're looking at somewhere between $5,000 and $7,000 in value every year.

This assumes that you are actually using the Amex Business Platinum Card for significant purchases throughout the year and taking full advantage of benefits like its earning bonuses on travel and $5,000+ purchases, Pay With Points rebates, the airline incidental fee credit, Dell credits, and premium-booking discounts on airfare.

If you're just planning to carry the card for a handful of its perks like the lounge access or an occasional booking through Fine Hotels & Resorts, you'll find it harder to justify its $595 annual fee year after year.