How the Business Platinum Card can help scale your business

Scaling any business comes with a litany of challenges — frequent travel to new business sites, expanding and retaining your workforce and paying for costly tools and materials needed to keep things running smoothly.

When you need enhanced spending power to fuel your business growth, the Business Platinum Card® from American Express can help you address those challenges and earn travel rewards in the process. When looking toward growth, having the right business credit card can empower you and your employees when growing gets tough. For instance:

• Elevate the work travel experience: The Business Platinum Card comes with solid hotel and airline perks, travel insurance and reward opportunities to foster connections that may help business growth through employee retention and client interactions.
• Save on business services: Unlock over $1,000 in statement credits for travel and business products and services such as Adobe, Dell, Indeed and a wireless credit to help run and grow your business.
• Earn Membership Reward points: Earn from 1X to 5X points on eligible purchases with your Business Platinum Card to offset the remnants of inflation.

What are the obstacles to growing a small business

Guiding your business in a new direction, like adding a new product or service, taking on bigger clientele, or expanding locations, means you’ll encounter an obstacle or two. Having the resources to handle obstacles efficiently could make the difference between success and failure.

Less than half (48.9 percent) of small businesses formed between 1994 and 2020 made it to five years, according to a 2023 data compilation from the U.S. Small Business Administration. A common factor in business failures is a lack of working capital to keep daily operations flowing. When you’re scaling and expanding, your need for working capital grows too because you’re facing the following challenges:

• Scaling your technology and systems alongside your business
• Expanding your production capability with better equipment
• Hiring and retaining quality staff
• Purchasing essential materials
• Traveling between locations as needed

Although longer term solutions like business loans could help solve some of your larger funding needs, you’ll need a more fluid financing solution that’s designed to handle day-to-day expenses and help you maintain a healthy cash flow.

Grow business connections and retain employees with travel benefits

When you’re scaling the reach of your business, it’s important for your partners, clients and employees to stay connected no matter the distance. Fostering collaboration and enabling face-to-face interactions can help you stay competitive in the market.

For many businesses, the need for in-person collaboration at meetings and events grows even more important as many employees continue to work in a remote and hybrid work environment. And travel benefits are where the American Express Business Platinum Card shines.

American Express’ benefits for airlines, hotels and more can elevate the work travel experience during a season where travel is essential to your business. As the account owner, you earn points for every eligible purchase on your Business Platinum Card, which can be redeemed for flights, hotels and other rewards. Plus, when you use Pay with Points for first or business class flights booked with American Express Travel, you can get 35 percent points back, up to 1 million points back per calendar year.

The American Express Business Platinum Card also offers a variety of travel-related statement credits such as up to $200 annual for airline incidentals, such as baggage fees, with a preselected airline. Additionally, cardholders can receive up to $100 every 4.5 years or four years for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application fees, respectively. There’s also up to $189 statement credit annually for Clear Plus membership, getting you through airport security quickly and efficiently. Once you’re through security, you can access over 1,400 lounges through the Global Lounge Collection, allowing you to unwind and get work done on the move.

Even canceled and delayed trips don’t have to be a headache. Amex offers delay, cancellation and interruption insurance for eligible trips. Your business can also earn Membership Rewards points, which can be transferred to multiple airline frequent flyer programs.

Adding American Express Business Platinum cards for your employees to your account can give you an edge in retaining your traveling rockstars for an additional fee. While many employers are hoping to hold on to top talent by offering competitive salaries and better employee benefits, you can earn more points and share some of the premium travel perks you love with your employees when you make them authorized users on Business Platinum.

Keep in mind that you’ll need to pay another annual membership fee of $350 for each additional Business Platinum card if you want to grant your employees some of the same benefits you enjoy as the primary cardholder. Business Expense Cards under the Amex Business Platinum are free to add, but don’t have access to benefits like the Global Lounge Collection or car rental privileges.

Card members can travel in comfort with Amex’s Fine Hotels + Resorts Program. In addition to staying at top-rated hotels, this program offers perks like complimentary breakfast, guaranteed 4 p.m. late check-out and an experience credit to use at the property.

Business Platinum authorized cardmembers can also enjoy access to the Global Lounge Collection  Global Entry or TSA PreCheck. Travel perks like these can become an advantage of the job, making travel easier for employees on the go. This has the potential to energize your employees to foster face-to-face interactions and put their best foot forward with colleagues and clients.

Leverage business services with Amex

Leveraging partnerships for your business to provide the best service possible is key to supporting business growth. Expanding and scaling a business can include upgrading equipment, adding new software, hiring the best talent possible and finding new ways to automate your tasks — all while keeping costs in mind.

For your equipment needs, the Business Platinum Card offers up to $400 in statement credits for U.S. purchases with Dell Technologies ($200 semiannually). Amex also offers an annual $120 credit for wireless telephone services (up to $10 monthly). Enrollment required.

For creative services, Amex offers up to $150 a year for eligible business annual prepaid subscription purchases with Adobe when using your Business Platinum Card. Enrollment required.

Additionally, Amex can help you get the upper hand on recruiting with up to $360 in statement credits for Indeed, giving your company access to job posts, candidate searching, resume filtering and more. Enrollment required.

It’s important to note that three of these four statement credits are currently set to expire on Dec. 31, 2024. The only one without that posted expiration date is the $120 wireless credit. The removal of the Dell, Adobe and Indeed statement credits would add up to a value of $910 which is a significant change to this card’s incentives.

Amex hasn’t yet released information regarding whether these benefits will, in fact, expire at the end of 2024 or mentioned whether they could be replaced with something else. But they have provided this statement to The Points Guy:

“We are committed to making sure there is significant, well-rounded value on our Business Platinum Card. You are seeing this expiration date because we are uncertain if these statement credit benefits with these merchant partners will be available after this date as we continually evaluate our offerings. If or when any of these benefits change, we will notify Card Members in advance.”

— AmexAmex for The Points Guy

To be safe, if you’re planning to get the Amex Business Platinum Card, make use of these benefits ahead of their expiration date. Then, re-evaluate whether the card is a sustainable choice for you and your business. In fact, Bankrate recommends doings this whenever there are substantial changes to a credit card’s benefits, especially ones with an annual fee as high as the fee for the Amex Business Platinum Card.

Manage inflation prices

It’s no secret that prices for everything from travel to labor to raw materials have risen. Managing an increase in expenditures while avoiding — or minimizing — the impact on your customers is an essential and delicate balancing act for a growing business.

Supply chain and lingering inflation woes don’t have to put your growth on hold. The Business Platinum Card allows you to get value back for every eligible dollar you spend, meaning that rising costs can give you the opportunity to subsidize other expenditures in your budget with card rewards.

The American Express Business Platinum Card offers Membership Rewards points for every eligible dollar you spend. These points can be redeemed for statement credits, travel and hotel bookings, gift cards, charitable donations and more. You can use these rewards to cover business expenses at retailers such as Amazon, Staples and GrubHub.

In addition, you can use points to cover travel costs or reward your employees with trips and gift cards, saving you money and rewarding your hardest workers.

While all eligible purchases with your Business Platinum Card can earn you at least one point per dollar spent, purchases in certain business categories will earn you 1.5X points for up to $2 million in purchases per calendar year. These categories include electronics and software cloud services, tools and construction supplies and shipping. You also earn 1.5X points on all your purchases of $5,000 or more.

After you apply and are approved, you may be able to take advantage of point offers as a welcome bonus, earning you thousands of points as soon as you reach a certain spending threshold. Offers like this can allow you to save and redeem your rewards straight away.

Business Platinum: A card to grow with

Running and growing a business isn’t easy, but it can definitely be rewarding. Finding the right business credit card to scale with can unlock opportunities and set you up for a lifetime relationship with a financial partner that can meet your business’ unique needs.

The American Express Business Platinum Card offers exemplary benefits for travel and lodging, allowing you to connect with employees and offices without the usual pain of transport. You can reinvest in your business and reward employees by adding Employee Business Platinum Cards.

American Express has been considered one of the best companies and card providers for businesses — and for good reason. With exclusive travel perks, competitive bonuses and flexible payment options, it might just be the card that gives your business the launchpad it needs to start its growth journey.

The bottom line

There is no shortage of things to think about as a business owner, especially when it’s time to take your business to the next level — whatever that looks like for you. Any number of top small business credit cards could offer you the cash flow and perks you need to achieve your business goals, but the American Express Business Platinum Card offers a unique slate of benefits and perks that could save business owners hundreds of dollars as they take the next step. From statement credits for travel expenses to credits for common business expenses, Business Platinum features opportunities to save money while offering convenience and comfort to you and your employees.