American Express Concert Tickets Review: (Presales & Seating) [2020]

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American Express has a partnership with Ticketmaster which allows Amex cardmembers access to presales for advance ticket purchases and special preferred seating for certain cardmembers. There are also ways to use your Membership Rewards points for concerts and events and special benefits for Amex Platinum cardmembers as well. This article will tell you everything you need to know about American Express concert ticket benefits.

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What are American Express Concert Tickets?

American Express concert tickets are tickets that you can purchase through Tickemaster.com. You can often find deals exclusive for Amex cardholders and also find tickets that will go on pre-sale before the public gets a chance to purchase these tickets. In addition, you can get special access to Amex reserved seating at certain events.

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How to find American Express concert tickets

To search for American Express concert tickets, you can go to this website here. 

At that website, you’ll be able to look for:

• All cardmember offers
• Ticket pre-sales 
• American Express seating 

You can also just filter your results by clicking on ticket “Type.” You’ll see fields for American Express® Preferred Seating and for presales.

American Express ticket pre-sales

To find the presale tickets, simply go to the Ticketmaster website here. Next, click on “Ticket presales” on the left of the screen to bring up eligible upcoming events. You might see events in your nearby city listed first and then options for events nationwide below that.

You’ll see the time and date that the presale will begin and then you can click on “More Info” to find out more about the event.

One the “More Info” page you can sign-up to be one of the first people to receive a notification when the presale goes live by simply entering in your phone number. There’s only a select number of presale tickets available for each event so make sure that you set an alarm or sign-up for notifications so that you’re one of the first people to purchase your tickets.

American Express preferred seating 

You can search for American Express preferred seating by utilizing the filter when searching for tickets (but note that not every listed event will actually have preferred seating). 

As you would expect, the preferred seating options are going to be more desirable and often closer to the center of the venue. The image below shows how the filter works and also gives you an idea of the sections available for the preferred seating.

In order to redeem or buy a preferred seat, you will have to provide the 10-digit Customer Service phone number on the back of your Card when prompted. Simply click on the lock icon and this should pull up the window needed to input that number.

Eligible cards

Only select American Express cards are eligible for preferred seating. Here is a list of eligible cards for the preferred seating: 

• American Express® Corporate Gold Card
• American Express® Gold Card
• Business Centurion® Card from American Express
• Business Gold Card
• Business Gold Rewards Card
• Business Platinum Card®
• Classic Business Gold Card
• Corporate Platinum Card® or Corporate Centurion® Card from American Express
• Delta Reserve for Business Credit Card
• Delta Reserve® Credit Card
• Executive Business Card
• Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card
• Hilton Honors Aspire Card, Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant™ American Express Card
• Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express Card
• Platinum Card®
• Centurion® Card from American Express
• Platinum Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card
• Platinum Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card

American Express® Card Member Onsale

There is also something called American Express Card Member Onsale. This can be found the same way as above by utilizing the filter. You will find designated sections for American Express Card Member Onsale although they may not be as exclusive as the preferred seating.

Take a look at the map below and you’ll see the seating options for American Express Card Member Onsale — they are much more limited than the seats above.

The difference with these seats is that they should be open to all American Express cardmembers.

Do you have to use your Amex credit card to pay?

The official terms and conditions state that you must use your Amex card to pay for your charges.

Seat/order limits

Sometimes there might be restrictions on the number of seats or orders that you can purchase. For example, when reviewing tickets for Christina Aguilera: The Liberation Tour, I saw the following message:

Please note: American Express has set a two-order limit for this offer. This limit applies across all Cards associated with all of your American Express accounts. Prepaid Cards are not eligible for this offer.

There is a four (4) ticket limit for the Artist and Spotify Presales. There is an 8 ticket limit for this event.

Redeem Membership Rewards

You can use Membership Rewards points for most events on Ticketmaster.com, and on many of those events there’s a Check Points button so you can easily see how many points you have before you search for tickets.

Note: If you don’t see the Check Points button you may still be able to use Membership Rewards points for that event – just look for the Membership Rewards Points from American Express payment option during checkout.

You redeem points after you purchase by following these steps:

1. Select “Membership Rewards® Points from American Express” on the payment page during checkout. (Your American Express® Card will be charged for the total ticket purchase.)
2. On the confirmation page, enter your 4-digit security code to verify your point balance. If you have more than one American Express Card, please make sure the code matches the Card on file for your Ticketmaster account.
3. After your purchase is completed, you may select to use points for all or part of your purchase. Choose how many points you want to use (minimum 2,000).
4. Your Card will be charged the full amount of ticket purchase and a statement credit for the points redeemed will be applied to your account within 48 hours.

Your points will be worth 0.5 cents each when using them for these events. That is not very good value at all for Membership Rewards as you can get at or over 1.5 cents per point when transferring your points to Amex travel partners. And if you’re using your points to fly business class or first class you can easily get above 10 cents per point (so 20X or more value)!

For those reasons, I think that you should avoid using your Amex points for these tickets unless you really have no use for your Amex points otherwise. 

One cool thing about using your points is that you don’t have to cover the full cost of your ticket, so you can use your points to top off if you want to save some cash.

Amex Platinum Special Events

The Amex Platinum Card (full review here) comes with several benefits that are great for concert-goers. These include the following perks:

• Membership Experiences (take advantage of presale tickets and special events)
• By Invitation Only® (invites to high profile events like Cannes, celebrity chef events, etc.)
• American Express® Preferred Seating (get better seats at games, concerts, shows, and other big events)

The Platinum Card also comes with a concierge service that you can utilize to find you tickets to concerts and events. To reach them call 1-800-525-3355 and press 2 to reach the concierge. To find out more about the Platinum Card’s benefits click here. 

Final word

Overall, it’s nice to get access to presale tickets and to have the chance to purchase preferred seating if that’s your preference. If you’re a fan of attending concerts and events, then you should definitely consider utilizing your benefits that come with your American Express cards to the fullest.