Amex Platinum $240 Digital Entertainment Credit Guide [2021]

The American Express Platinum Card recently increased its annual fee from $550 to $695. Along with this increase came a host of new credits that you can use to offset the annual fee. One of these credits is the digital entertainment credit, which I will go into detail below.

What is the Platinum digital entertainment credit?

The digital entertainment credit is a credit that provides you with a monthly $20 credit that can be applied towards subscriptions of one or more of the following: Peacock, Audible, SiriusXM, and The New York Times.

Tip: Use WalletFlo to help you keep track of all of your monthly credits! It’s free and is one of the best ways to manage all your credit cards and promotions!

How does it work?

Enroll

In order to take advantage of this credit you must first enroll your Platinum Card.

This means that you need to log-in to your American Express Platinum account and then click over to the “benefits” section. From there, click on the digital entertainment credit where you will see the call to action button “Get Started.”

That will take you to a new screen and you should see the “Enroll Now” button when you scroll down a little bit.

Simply check the button indicating that you understand and agree to the terms and conditions and then click enroll now and you’ll be 50% done!

Note that if you are an authorized user, you will need to contact the primary cardholder to enroll.

Subscribe to the service

Once your Platinum Card is enrolled you then need to subscribe with your choice of service(s):

• www.peacocktv.com
• www.audible.com
• www.siriusxm.com
• www.nytimes.com

If you are going to be a new customer you can simply go directly to the website and sign up with your Platinum Card as your method of payment.

If you already are a subscriber and you are billed through a third-party such as Apple you can still receive the credit but you will need to subscribe directly with the service.

In my case, I was already a subscriber to Audible so I simply logged into my Audible account via my Amazon credentials and then changed my Audible payment (under the payment settings) so that my Platinum Card will be charged.

Some things to consider

Make sure that the subscription is directly through the partner’s website. If you have purchased a subscription through a mobile app the purchase will not be eligible for the statement credit.

The terms of state that purchases of gift cards from third-party retailers for use at these partners is not eligible.

The authorized user cannot enroll in the benefit but they can take advantage of the credit. However, statement credits between the primary card and all authorized users will not exceed $20 per month.

Membership prices

Since you are given $20 a month you’re probably wondering what the prices are for the eligible membership services. I’ll give you a breakdown of these below.

Peacocktv

Peacock is a video streaming service owned and operated by NBCUniversal and was launched on July 15, 2020.

• Peacock Premium: $4.99/month
• Peacock Premium Plus: $9.99/month

Premium Plus provides you with everything Premium does but without ads. Note that you may be able to get Premium for free if you have COX or Xfinity.

Eligible purchases do not include subscriptions bundled with cable services or other bundles, promotional offers through third parties, or gift cards.

Audible

Audible is an online audiobook and podcast service owned by Amazon.com Inc. where you can purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of audio content like podcasts.

• Audible Plus: $7.95/month
• Audible Premium Plus: $14.95/month

Premium Plus will provide you with access to originals, audiobooks, and podcasts but also allows you one premium selection per month.

Basically, you will be issued one credit every month that can be used for a premium book. You can also purchase credits for around $12 each and I assume that this credit will work on those credits as well.

If you never have given audiobooks a try I would highly recommend it. I never thought I would be an “audio book person” but I gave Audible a try and it is now one of my favorite apps that I use!

All Audible purchases made directly through www.audible.com are eligible, including Audible subscriptions (Audible Plus and Audible Premium Plus) and audiobook purchases.

SiriusXM

SiriusXM is a satellite radio service offering tons of different channels for music, sports, and other forms of entertainment.

• Streaming Platinum: $10.99/month (first three months free)
• Streaming Select: $5/month for 12 months then $16.99/month
• Streaming All Access: $8.25 per month for 12 months then $21.99/month

Streaming Select offers you access to XM in your vehicle which is the big difference between the Platinum and Select. Streaming All Access gives you even more channels and allows you to create your own stations based on the artists or songs that you like. You also get two dedicated Howard Stern channels.

I am a pretty big fan of SiriusXM because we do a lot of road trips and you can only listen to your library so many times before you start going crazy and need to mix it up.

Eligible purchases do not include SiriusXM safety, security or Telematics services (Connected Vehicle), SiriusXM for Business subscriptions, SiriusXM ad sales or Pandora.

NY Times

Everyone knows about the New York Times but this is the subscription service so that you can access all of the articles online.

• Basic Digital Access Subscription: $4.25/week (billed at $17 every four weeks for one year). There is currently a limited time offer for one dollar per week.

Basic Digital Access Subscription does not include e-reader editions (Kindle, Nook, etc.), NYT Games (the Crossword) or NYT Cooking.

Eligible purchases do not include advertising services, NYT conferences, gift cards, the TimesDigest or purchases from the NYTimes company store.

The most attractive combinations to me are: Audible + SiriusXM or Audible + Peacocktv. That would be a nice way to completely use up the $20 of credit every month.

Final word

The increased annual fee is obviously not very popular with a lot of people but the new credits do make the fee increase very doable for a lot of people. For people like myself who already take advantage of eligible membership services this credit is a nice way to knock down the fee by $240.