Trouper, like Marc said, it has to be the regular Amex Platinum that costs $395 a year, more now I am sure. Otherwise, you don't get the benefits.

Kathy is my kind of gal. You work that card and get the most out of it. I always have been that way with previous reward credit cards. I don't travel as much as I used to so I don't get as many points as I used to.

However, the Plat. card gives you 2 points for every dollar as opposed to 1 on Gold and Green. So it adds up faster. Also, you get the collision damage waiver on car rentals that I don't have on my Gold card, even though I usually use Visa for car rentals that has it.

Now if I could only get an airline to open seats so I could use some of these points for a trip. It's getting so hard to find rewards seats it's almost not worth collecting points if that's your goal. On our recent trip flying into Munich I was trying to upgrade just one way, found a date that would have worked but didn't lock it in, 2 days later it was gone, no seats ever were released again in May for rewards on U.S. Airways to Munich. This one date in May I found was back in early November and I was constantly checking to see if seats became available, never happened again. I could shoot myself for not taking the date when I had it but at that point I didn't know if the waitlist on Crystal would come through and didn't dare take the chance of getting the tickets and finding out Crystal wouldn't clear us. After Crystal cleared us I tried all kinds of combinations on other airlines and couldn't find anything that would work, very frustrating to say the least.

The media has been reporting that the airlines have cancelled a lot of flights which is causing planes to be filled. That was our experience on this trip. I think there was one seat not filled to Munich and 3 on the Venice return. I think it's going to be hard to find reward seats for a long time with fuel prices high. Also, it looks like everyone is going to have to plan further in advance than they had to before just to secure the seat on the airline, paying more than in previous years to boot.

Oh well, the adventure continues.

KarenM

Amex has another frequent flyer plan (I don't know if it is just for the platinum card or all cards) but you can pick your own flights, call Amex's office, and they will book them for you. This is different than calling the airline because with that plan, they only put certain seats available for points. This one costs double the points, but you can pick the flights you want. After you make your plans, if you don't have enough points, they charge you for the remaining cost. It is good to use when you can't find a flight with points the regular way.

Karen,

I have the Small Business "Executive" Platnium card and I don't get double miles. Wish I did. For several years, I was president of a business group who had a monthly dinner meeting and I put that on the card. That was a boost! Karen, you almost have to book award travel when the seats are open - 330 days out. Search the old mesages here - there has been a lot of discussion. Also look at www.flyertalk.com

Judith,

That is a brand new program - you can use it for hotels or other travel too. Airlines only were double points. It's a nice option. Delta used to have a program like that where you could use miles for unrestricted fares.

Good for you Kathy. I also use my Plat card for business and Delta Amex for personal. We were able to get 4 First Class tix to Ireland last year all with points. I think the total cost out of pocket was about $40. Of course we had to get started on booking a year ahead but everyone on this board knows what it is like (it's FUN) to book waayyy ahead of everyone else in the civilized world! Anyway I love my Plat card and would not give it up. You just have to figure out the ins and outs to get the most benefit from it.