What is American Express?

American Express, or AmEx, is a New York-based bank and payments company that issues its own cards, runs its own network, and signs up its own merchants. Visa and Mastercard do one of those jobs. AmEx does all three, which explains the high fees, the heavy perks, and the occasional shop that still turns the card down.

If you have wondered why a Platinum costs $895 a year, or why a corner deli sometimes says “no AmEx,” the answer is the same: the company built a business on a smaller group of people who spend more, and it charges both sides for the privilege.

My own AmEx Credit Cards

At the time of writing I hold both the AmEx Platinum and the AmEx Delta Reserve credit cards to make flying just that little more comfortable. Read about my point hacking strategies for getting luxury travel.

I carry the AmEx Platinum as I travel for a work a lot, especially to Ireland. You can see my reviews of Hotels and Restaurants here.

Best AmEx Platinum Benefits

Here’s what I want from it:

• Lounge Access
  • Centurion Lounges
  • Delta Lounges
  • Priority Plus Membership
    • Minute Club
• Hotels
  • Hilton Gold
  • Marriott Gold Elite
  • LHG Sterling Club
• Flight Insurance
• Dell Reward Credit
• Hulu
• Free Phone Insurance
  • +$10pm off my bill
  • I have my AmEx pay off my AT&T Bill
• Lulu Lemon $75 per quarter

A short history of AmEx

Henry Wells, William Fargo and John Butterfield founded American Express in 1850 as a freight and express-delivery business in Buffalo, New York. The company moved into money orders in 1882 and launched the Travelers Cheque in 1891, a product it sold for more than a century.

The card arrived late. AmEx issued its first charge card in 1958, eight years after Diners Club invented the category. The card was purple, then plastic and green in 1969. Gold followed in 1966, Platinum in 1984, and the invitation-only Centurion (the “black card”) in 1999.

Today the company reports four segments: U.S. Consumer Services, Commercial Services, International Card Services, and Global Merchant and Network Services. It trades on the NYSE as AXP, and Berkshire Hathaway has held a large stake since the 1990s.

How AmEx differs from Visa and Mastercard

Swipe a Chase Visa at a restaurant and three companies touch the transaction. Chase issued the card. Visa routed the payment. A separate acquiring bank serves the restaurant. Swipe an AmEx and one company does all of it. The industry calls this a closed loop.

The loop gives AmEx two things the open networks lack. It sees both ends of the purchase, so it knows what its cardholders buy and where. And it sets the merchant fee itself, which has run higher than Visa or Mastercard rates for decades. The company pays for that with acceptance: it has had to sign merchants one at a time, and in its April 2026 shareholder letter it put its network at more than 170 million locations worldwide.

The AmEx Credit Card Range

AmEx sells two kinds of personal card. A charge card expects you to pay the full balance each month (the company now lets you carry some of it under “Pay Over Time”). A credit card works like any other credit card. The famous metal cards sit in the first group.

The Platinum fee rose from $695 to $895 for renewals on or after January 2, 2026, and AmEx added new credits at the same time. Additional Platinum cards cost $195 each.

Beyond the house brands, AmEx issues cobranded cards with Delta, Hilton and Marriott, and it claims 4.3 million U.S. small-business customers through its Business Gold, Business Platinum and Blue Business lines. Corporate cards for large companies round out the lineup.

Membership Rewards and the perks

Most AmEx cards earn Membership Rewards points. You spend them three ways: book through AmEx Travel at about one cent a point, cover a charge on your statement at a worse rate, or transfer them to an airline or hotel program such as Delta, British Airways or Hilton. Transfers are where the hobbyists find the value, because a business-class seat can cost far fewer points than its cash price implies.

The perks are the other half of the pitch. Platinum holders get into Centurion Lounges (32 locations as of mid-2026), Delta Sky Clubs when flying Delta, and Priority Pass lounges. The card bundles hotel elite status and a list of statement credits for airline fees, hotels, streaming, Uber and more. AmEx values the bundle at over $3,500 a year. You collect that only if you enroll in each credit and spend in the right places, which is the catch the fee is built around.

Acceptance, fees and who should get one

In the U.S., the acceptance gap has mostly closed. AmEx’s OptBlue program, launched in 2014, let small merchants’ existing processors add AmEx at rates closer to Visa and Mastercard, and the company now reports U.S. acceptance on par with the other networks. You will still hit holdouts: some independent restaurants, small landlords, and a stretch of businesses abroad. Carry a backup Visa or Mastercard when you travel.

The merchant side is the part cardholders rarely see. A shop paying 1.8 percent to take a Visa might pay 2.5 to 3.5 percent to take an AmEx. That spread funds the points and the lounges, and it is the reason the deli owner winces.

An AmEx card pays off when two things are true. You spend enough in the card’s bonus categories to earn points at 4x rather than 1x, and you will use the credits without changing how you live. A Gold holder who eats out and buys groceries at U.S. supermarkets clears the $325 fee on points alone at roughly $8,000 a year in those categories. A Platinum holder needs to fly often enough to want the lounge, and to care about the hotel and airline credits, before $895 makes sense. If you carry a balance month to month, skip the premium cards. The interest wipes out the rewards, and AmEx’s cheaper cards or a plain cash-back card will treat you better.

Bottom line

American Express is a 176-year-old company that turned a delivery business into a payments network it controls end to end. It charges merchants more, charges cardholders more, and hands part of that money back as points and perks to the people who spend the most. If your spending fits the card, the math works in your favor. If it does not, you are paying for someone else’s lounge.