Our feedback on the Air France KLM American Express Platinum card: Miles, XP, lounges, luggage, insurance, deferred debit, limits and profitability for us.
During our last cruise, a question came up several times in the course of a conversation or when we pulled out our card to pay for a purchase: "But why do you have an American Express Air France?"
This question ultimately gave us the idea for this article. Because while we use our Air France KLM American Express Platinum quite naturally today, we realized that its functionality and, above all, its benefits remain fairly unknown. Some think you need to have a bank account with American Express, others imagine it is intended only for frequent business travelers, while many wonder how a card costing €66 per month can actually be worthwhile.
For our part, we chose the Air France KLM American Express Platinum. Let’s be clear from the start: with a fee of €66 per month, or €792 per year, this is not a card you choose simply to earn a few Miles. Its value lies rather in the sum of numerous benefits that we actually use when we travel, but also in certain expenses that we have been able to eliminate since we started owning it.
And since several people have asked us about this card, we decided to go all the way with this approach. At the end of this article, we will offer our American Express referral link for those who, after discovering our feedback, might feel that this card could also be a good fit for them. Depending on the offer available at the time of your request, this referral may allow you to benefit from a specific welcome offer. For our part, we may also receive a reward if the referral is validated. We prefer to state this immediately, in full transparency.
This article is therefore not intended to convince you that everyone should own an American Express Platinum. On the contrary. We are going to tell you why we chose it, how it fits into the way we travel, what it really brings us, but also its limitations and the precautions to be aware of before signing up.
A card that corresponds above all to our way of traveling
When you travel regularly, and particularly when you go on cruises, the airplane often becomes an integral part of the trip. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Barcelona, Hamburg or many other ports of embarkation sometimes require a flight, to which can be added a hotel before departure, a car rental, and various expenses incurred even before catching sight of the ship.
It is precisely in this context that we began to take more interest in the Flying Blue ecosystem. Since we were already flying and had regular expenses to pay anyway, why not try to turn some of these expenses into benefits for our future trips?
The Air France KLM American Express Platinum is directly linked to the Flying Blue program. It allows you to accumulate Flying Blue Miles through expenses made with the card, with currently higher earnings on certain expenses made with Air France, KLM, Transavia, and Hertz. It also allows you to obtain additional XP each year under certain spending conditions, up to 80 annual XP according to the scale currently offered.
For us, this is one of the keys to understanding its value. A purchase we would have made anyway can now contribute to accumulating Miles that will eventually be used to finance part of a future award ticket.
But there is one essential rule we impose on ourselves: we never spend more just to earn Miles. The benefit of the system exists only when you use the American Express to pay for expenses that would have been incurred anyway.
€66 per month… but there are two of us using the card
This is a particularly important element in our situation, which already changes how we view the cost of the Platinum.
The main card allows you to have an additional Air France KLM American Express Platinum card for free, which allows a couple, for example, to each have their own card attached to the same American Express account, according to the conditions set by the program.
That is our case. We can therefore both use our American Express for our expenses without having to pay two Platinum fees of €66 per month.
And inevitably, that changes our perception of the price.
If we simply break down the fee to our usage as a couple, the €792 annually amounts to €396 per person per year, or €33 per month per person. Please note: this is not the official price of the card, and we do not have two independent Platinum contracts. The fee remains €66 per month for the main account, and the additional card is attached to it.
But in our daily usage, there are indeed two of us who can use American Express and route some of our usual expenses through the same account.
This also makes it possible to centralize more household expenses and thus accumulate Miles more easily, without changing our consumption habits.
However, an important distinction must be made: the free additional card does not mean that all benefits are automatically doubled. Some benefits are linked to the account or the primary cardholder. Therefore, you should not assume that a second card automatically entitles you to a second Flying Blue Extra Essentiel subscription, two new lounge accesses, or a second annual XP bonus.
But when you analyze the cost of the card for our household rather than for just one person, this free additional card is clearly part of the equation.
Flying Blue Extra Essentiel: one of the benefits that interests us the most
One of the benefits that considerably strengthens the value of the Platinum today is the inclusion of Flying Blue Extra Essentiel.
American Express currently values this subscription at €379 per year. It must be activated from your Flying Blue account and provides several additional benefits within the program.
Among them, we notably find an accelerator allowing you to earn more Miles in certain situations, access to a specific selection of Promo award tickets, and various benefits related to Flying Blue rewards.
But the one that probably attracts the most attention is the provision of two airport lounge access vouchers each year.
For those of us who travel regularly, this is a real plus. An airport lounge is obviously not essential for flying, but when you arrive several hours before your flight or have to wait during a layover, the experience is very different.
Being able to settle in comfortably, eat something, have a drink, recharge your devices, or simply enjoy a generally quieter environment sometimes makes it possible to start the trip in much better conditions.
However, one must avoid confusion: owning the Air France KLM American Express Platinum does not mean having unlimited access to Air France lounges. In the case we are discussing here, the two annual passes come notably from the Flying Blue Extra Essentiel included with the card. The terms and eligible lounges must therefore be verified before use.
Miles… but also XP
Miles are obviously the best-known part of Flying Blue. You accumulate them through flights and certain expenses before being able to use them, notably to book reward tickets.
But when you start traveling regularly with Air France, KLM, or their partners, XP also become important.
Unlike Miles, they are not a currency to spend. They are used to reach and maintain the different status levels of the Flying Blue program.
The Air France KLM American Express Platinum currently allows you to obtain 30 annual XP, to which additional XP can be added depending on the expenses made with the card, up to 80 XP per year under current conditions.
Obviously, the value of this benefit depends enormously on each person's profile. For someone who is not interested in Flying Blue status, the XP will have almost no importance. For those who travel regularly and are a few XP away from a renewal or a change of status, their value can become much more significant.
This is, moreover, a constant with this card: its profitability depends much more on the benefits you actually use than on the number of benefits listed in the brochure.
Checked baggage: a particularly interesting benefit for travelers
When we talk about cruising, there is a subject we all know: luggage.
A cruise of a week or more rarely requires traveling with just a small backpack. When you have to take a plane to reach the port of embarkation, the cost of a checked suitcase can therefore quickly be added to the price of the trip.
The Platinum currently allows you to benefit from an additional or free checked bag under certain conditions on short and medium-haul Air France and KLM flights. American Express currently values the average savings at around €72 for a round trip.
For a couple, this can therefore represent interesting savings when the conditions are met.
Be careful, however: this absolutely does not mean that all Air France or KLM tickets automatically include an additional suitcase thanks to the Platinum. The conditions vary according to the route, the ticket, and the benefits you already have.
This is notably a point to check when you are going on a cruise in the United States or the Caribbean: do not assume that your long-haul flight to Miami will automatically entitle you to free baggage thanks to the card.
Insurance: a benefit that changed our calculation
This is probably one of the elements that weighed the most in our own calculation, and yet it is not necessarily the one you think of immediately when talking about American Express.
The Platinum incorporates an extensive set of travel-related insurance and assistance.
We find in particular, subject to the conditions provided for in the contract, guarantees concerning the cancellation, postponement, or interruption of a trip, medical expenses abroad, assistance and repatriation, certain luggage problems, transport incidents, civil liability abroad, or even various protections related to rental vehicles.
The current guarantees can reach up to €10,000 per insured person per year for certain cancellation, postponement, or trip interruption situations, while coverage for certain medical expenses abroad and repatriation can reach much higher amounts depending on the circumstances provided for in the contract.
And in our case, this had a very concrete consequence.
We previously had other travel insurance covering some of these same risks. We therefore took the time to compare what we were paying separately with the guarantees already present in our American Express.
After verifying that some of these coverages met our needs, we were able to eliminate several insurance duplications.
This is important in our way of calculating the real cost of the Platinum. We do not only look at the €792 we pay each year. We also look at what the card allows us to stop paying elsewhere.
If an insurance that previously cost several tens or hundreds of euros per year becomes useless because suitable coverage is already included in the card, this saving must logically enter into the calculation.
Be careful, however, with the insurance conditions
This is probably the most important warning in this article.
Never cancel an insurance policy simply because you have just received an American Express Platinum.
The insurance policies associated with the card include conditions, caps, exclusions, deductibles, and precise rules concerning, in particular, the payment of the trip. Some Air France KLM American Express Platinum guarantees also require that the trip include a route meeting the criteria provided for by the contract.
Our decision to eliminate certain insurance policies therefore corresponds to our personal situation, after comparing the guarantees.
The right approach is to take the contracts you already have, compare them with the general terms and conditions of your American Express, and only then determine if certain duplicates can really be removed.
An insurance saving is obviously of no interest if it leaves you less well covered.
American Express is not a bank
This is probably one of the most frequent misconceptions.
We did not open our main bank account with American Express.
American Express provides a payment card here that is linked to an existing bank account. You simply need to provide the bank details (RIB) of an account that meets the conditions required at the time of subscription.
The distinctive feature is that expenses are made via deferred debit.
Unlike an immediate debit bank card where each purchase is quickly deducted from your checking account, American Express purchases are grouped together. A statement is generated on a specific date, and the corresponding amount is then automatically deducted from the associated bank account.
The balance must be paid in full each month.
And it is a way of operating that we appreciate very much… provided you follow one essential rule.
Deferred debit requires real rigor
The main risk of deferred debit is psychological.
Imagine that your bank account shows €2,000, but you have already made €1,500 in American Express expenses that will not be deducted until a few days or weeks later.
You clearly do not actually have €2,000 available.
Part of this sum is already spent.
Deferred debit must therefore never be considered as an additional cash reserve or as a way to postpone an expense that you cannot afford.
For us, it is purely a management tool.
American Express allows you to track your transactions and outstanding balance from its application, which makes controlling expenses significantly easier. But this does not eliminate the need to know at all times what amount must be available for the next debit.
Someone who already tends to lose track of their expenses or regularly uses their overdraft will therefore need to be particularly careful with this operating method.
Our organization: a separate bank account for our American Express
We have personally chosen an organization that suits us particularly well.
Rather than directly linking our American Express to our main bank account, we use a separate bank account with a free online bank, which we mainly use to manage the debit of our American Express.
Online banks like BoursoBank, Fortuneo, or other players now offer accounts that can be free under certain conditions. The goal here is not to recommend a specific bank to you, but simply to explain our organization.
This way, we know exactly what amount must remain available in this account to cover the next American Express debit.
This separation gives us a lot of visibility. Daily expenses made with the Amex are tracked in the application, and we ensure that the corresponding sum will be present in the dedicated account at the time of the debit.
This organization will not necessarily suit everyone. Some will prefer to link their American Express directly to their main account, which obviously works perfectly.
But for us, separating the account used for the Amex allows us to enjoy the deferred debit while maintaining very clear management of our budget.
Three-installment payment for certain airline tickets
The card also offers an interesting possibility for organizing certain travel expenses: paying for eligible tickets with Air France, KLM, and Transavia in several installments.
Under the terms currently offered, some purchases can be split into three monthly interest-free payments directly from the American Express customer portal.
This is obviously not a benefit we necessarily use on every trip, but when a couple needs to purchase two long-haul tickets simultaneously several months before a cruise, this option can provide some flexibility in budget planning.
Here again, our philosophy remains the same: splitting a payment should not be used to finance a trip that one cannot afford. However, it can be convenient for managing one's cash flow.
Amex Offers and other small benefits
There is also an entire world of secondary benefits that are sometimes less spectacular on paper but can, when accumulated over a year, contribute to the profitability of the card.
Amex Offers, for example, allow you to occasionally benefit from offers or refunds at certain partner retailers after activating the offer from your account.
There are also benefits with certain travel partners, notably Hertz, as well as various services linked to American Express.
However, we apply the exact same rule as for Miles: we never buy something just because an offer exists.
If we had planned to spend €200 at a hotel and an American Express offer allows us to recover a portion of it, it is a real saving.
If we spend €200 just to get a €40 refund on something we did not need, we did not save €40: we spent €160.
This distinction may seem obvious, but it is essential when trying to determine the true profitability of a premium card.
So, is the €792 annual fee actually profitable?
This is ultimately the central question.
And we believe that the wrong method is to take the complete list of American Express benefits and add up their commercial value.
Flying Blue Extra Essentiel is currently valued at €379 per year. You can add two lounge access passes, the Miles earned, the XP, potentially baggage, certain Amex Offers, and insurance. On paper, it becomes quite easy to reach a value higher than the €792 membership fee.
But this calculation only makes sense if you actually use these benefits.
We therefore prefer to ask ourselves another question: how much would we have actually spent without our American Express?
In our situation, some insurance policies were removed because they were redundant. There are two of us using the card thanks to the free supplementary card. We accumulate Miles on expenses we would have made anyway. We benefit from Flying Blue Extra Essentiel, lounge access, and various benefits related to the way we travel.
It is the combination of all these elements that makes the Platinum interesting for us today.
And if we consider our usage as a couple, the €792 mathematically represents the equivalent of €396 per person per year, or €33 per month each.
Once again, this is not the official rate: the annual fee remains €66 per month for the account. But when we evaluate what this fee brings to our household and our travels as a pair, this way of looking at the price seems much more representative of our actual usage.
Everything is obviously not perfect
If we want to give you our honest opinion, we must also talk about what we like less.
The first element remains the price. €792 per year is a significant sum. For someone who travels little, is not interested in Flying Blue, and already possesses all the necessary insurance, it will be difficult to make the Platinum profitable.
Second limitation: American Express is not accepted absolutely everywhere. Its network is very developed today, but we still occasionally encounter merchants who only accept Visa or Mastercard.
We therefore always travel with another bank card as a supplement. We would never advise leaving the country with an American Express as your only means of payment.
You must also think about purchases made in a currency other than the euro. The card currently applies fees to certain foreign currency transactions. For a traveler making many expenditures in the United States or the Caribbean, a second card with no exchange fees can therefore be much more attractive for certain purchases.
That is, moreover, another advantage of our banking organization: our American Express is never intended to replace all our other cards. It comes to complement our travel financial equipment.
A card that we regularly re-evaluate
We also believe that one should never keep a premium card simply because one has had it for several years.
Loyalty programs evolve. Benefits change. Annual fees can increase. Our way of traveling may itself be different in a few years.
We therefore regularly ask ourselves the same question: if we had to sign up today, with our current usage, would we get this card again?
For the moment, the answer is yes.
But if one day we no longer use Flying Blue, if the insurance no longer matches our needs, or if the benefits diminish enough to no longer offset the fee, we will have no reason to continue paying €792 per year simply out of habit.
So, why do we travel with an Air France KLM American Express Platinum?
Because it corresponds today to our way of traveling.
We use Flying Blue. We regularly fly for some of our trips and cruises. We value Miles and XP. Flying Blue Extra Essentiel and its lounge access interest us. The insurance has allowed us to eliminate certain redundancies that we were paying for previously. There are two of us who can use the card thanks to the free additional card, and we have put in place a banking organization that allows us to manage its deferred debit with peace of mind.
Taken separately, none of these benefits would likely be enough to justify the fee.
It is their combination that completely changes the equation.
And that is finally the answer we gave to the people who asked us during our last cruise.
We did not choose this American Express because we needed an additional bank card.
We chose it because it has become an additional tool in our way of traveling.
Is it made for you?
That is ultimately the most important question.
If you travel regularly with Air France or KLM, use Flying Blue, wish to accumulate Miles and XP, can really benefit from Flying Blue Extra Essentiel, use lounges, need travel insurance, and can put a significant portion of your habitual spending through American Express, the Platinum clearly deserves to be studied.
It can also become more attractive for a couple since the possibility of having a free additional card allows two people to use the same account without multiplying the fees.
Conversely, if you fly once every three years, systematically choose your flights without considering the airline, are not interested in Miles, and already possess all the necessary insurance, paying €66 per month for this card will probably make much less sense.
This is why we will never tell you that it is "the best bank card."
The best card is simply the one whose benefits truly match your way of traveling.
Are you interested? Here is our American Express referral
As we announced at the beginning of this article, we have the possibility to refer new American Express cardholders.
If after reading our feedback, checking the conditions, and comparing the different cards available you feel that an American Express matches your needs, you can use our link:
Discover the American Express referral offer
The welcome offer proposed to the referred person as well as the reward granted to the referrer can evolve depending on the period. Therefore, always look at the offer displayed directly on the American Express page at the time of your application before making your decision.
And since transparency is important to us, let us recall it: if you use our link and your application meets the requirements of the referral program, we may also receive a reward, notably in the form of Flying Blue Miles.
It does not cost you any more and indirectly helps to support the work we carry out around CWUS.
But above all, do not choose this card simply to get a welcome bonus. A referral offer is temporary. The fee, however, will continue after the first year.
It is therefore indeed the value you place on the benefits over time that must guide your decision.
Our summary after usage
An Air France KLM American Express Platinum at €66 per month does not miraculously become free because it offers Miles, insurance, or lounge access.
It remains a premium card with a significant annual fee.
But when we weigh the Flying Blue Extra Essentiel, the two lounge visits, the accumulated Miles, the XP, certain baggage benefits, the Amex Offers that we actually use, the second free card for our couple, and above all the insurance policies that we no longer need to pay for separately against those €792, our calculation becomes very different.
That is precisely what convinced us to keep it.
It does, however, require a certain discipline. Deferred debit is extremely convenient when you know exactly what you are spending, but can become problematic if you forget that the total of your purchases will be debited later. Our separate bank account helps us a great deal with this organization, but everyone must find the method that suits their way of managing their budget.
Ultimately, the right question is probably not:
“Is the Air France KLM American Express Platinum worth €66 per month?”
But rather:
“Are the benefits that I will actually use worth €66 per month to me — or to our couple?”
In our case, today, the answer is yes.
Ulrich & Sidara - CWUS - Cruising With US
The rates, conditions, insurance policies, and benefits mentioned in this article correspond to the information available in September 2026 and are subject to change. Our experience does not constitute financial or insurance advice. Always check the current contractual terms with American Express and Flying Blue before subscribing and before canceling any existing insurance.