Amex Platinum Card Losing 5X on MPX?

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The Platinum Card from American Express is an extremely valuable travel rewards credit card. But most of its value comes in the form of benefits, such as lounge access, $200 Uber credits, and a $200 airline credit. The Platinum Card does earn 5X on airfare and pre-paid hotel purchases through the Amextravel.com but outside of that, it doesn’t offer compelling bonus earning potential.

However, it’s been possible to have purchases made on the United MPX App to code as travel which in turn activated the 5X bonus earning on the Platinum. This allowed users to earn 5X on all sorts of dining and shopping purchases (in addition to United miles), which made the Platinum Card an extremely valuable bonus earning credit card for many.

Platinum Card lost 5X on MPX?

But now data points are indicating that the Platinum Card is no longer awarding 5X on MPX purchases, even though they are coding as travel.

This is a major loss to the Platinum Card for those who regularly took advantage of this. While it hurts to see it go, we all knew that this was a type of loophole that would eventually come to an end. The first sign was when MPX purchases no longer triggered the $200 airline credit and so the 5X coding actually lasted even longer than I initially thought that it would.

Does this affect the value of the Platinum Card?

For anybody who regularly used the MPX App such as myself, I think this does alter the value proposition of the Platinum Card. This easily loses me 10,000 to 20,000 Membership Rewards or more a year, so it would be difficult to say that it didn’t affect the value of the card.

I’ll still be holding onto my Platinum Card for the Centurion Lounge access but this does mean that my Platinum Card will be getting a lot less action in the future. Other cards such as the Sapphire Reserve have been known to still earn bonus points on specific categories (such as dining) when making purchases on the MPX App, so that will probably be my go-to for the future.

H/T: The Frequent Miler / Flyertalk