One of the perks of having the American Express Platinum Card is the $240 Digital Entertainment Credit. This is a $20 monthly credit for purchases from Disney+, a Disney Bundle, ESPN+, Hulu, The New York Times, Peacock, and The Wall Street Journal when you purchase directly from one or more of the providers.
Since I upgraded to the Platinum Card, this is the one benefit I’ve been able to use every month. That’s because we have a New York Times All-Access digital subscription. This costs $9.75 per week and is charged $39 every four weeks.
American Express Uses Math To Skip Payment
Every month since I had the card, AMEX has issued the $20 credit on 1-3 days after my New York Times bill is charged to my Platinum card. Except for April.
When I called AMEX in May to ask why I hadn’t received the credit for my $39 charge, the representative told me I had already received my $20 credit for April. Because the NY Times bills me every 28 days, I ended up with 2 payments posted in the same month. The American Express credit is monthly—not every 30 days or every 4 weeks, but based on the calendar month.
When my next bill hit on May 28th, I did receive the $20 credit.
Silver Lining
While I could be upset about this, I’m not. While researching for this post, I realized I didn’t need to pay for an All Access subscription, as all we need is the news, which only costs $20 every 4 weeks.
My AMEX Platinum Digital Access credit will cover the entire subscription, except for the 1-2 times a year when I have two charges per month. This will save me $19 for each payment, for which I have AMEX and the NY Times to thank for having me look closer at my account.
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4 comments
I had my subscription go up to $20/mo after the initial trial period. I chatted with their support and told them point blank it was worth at most $10/mo to me. They reduced the cost to $9/mo for the next six months without much pushback.
NYT is a company you can definitely negotiate the price with, FWIW.
Leaves me room for a WSJ subscription and a peacock ad-free package also covered by the plat credit.
im paying $1/week for all access. find yourself a better deal
I’ve run into this issue with other digital platforms when they bill on the wrong days, etc. I think Walmart+ did this to me in 2022. I always wonder why people subscribe to the NYT or any digital newspapers anymore but yikes. I didn’t know it was $39 a month! Even with Amex paying $20 of that it’s still $19 a month or $228 a year for content that’s mostly available for free elsewhere.
If you cancel the NYT and sign up at thanksgiving then it is 1$ a week – fully covered by Amex along with wsj, barrons etc etc