Amex CEO Steve Squeri desires extra high-spending millennials and Gen Zers to affix his firm’s upper-echelon ranks. And he’s beginning to give hints of simply how precisely he plans to lure extra of them to the fold, asserting on June 16 that the corporate will implement an enormous improve late this summer time or within the early fall to its Platinum card. The corporate says this will probably be its greatest funding ever in a card program. “We’ll see two areas of investments,” provides Howard Grosfield, group president for U.S. client providers. “We’ll double down on all the things our cardmembers love now. And we’ll be adding lots of exciting new brands.”
Amex has positioned the Platinum card as the costliest in its class at $695 a yr. (Chase Sapphire at a comparable degree prices $550.) However as Grosfield factors out, the millennials and Gen Z crowd consider they’re reaping worth nicely past the annual value of entry. The proof: The teams overlaying the mid-twenties to mid-forties age spectrum now make up 75% of Amex’s new accounts acquired on its two premium playing cards, Platinum and Gold, for 2024, up from 60% in 2019. The variety of Gen Z client card members grew 40% in Q1 2025 versus Q1 2024, but the credit score document for the 2 demographics proved higher than the trade common. Final quarter alone, millennials and Gen Zers accounted for 35% of complete U.S. client spending on Amex. The fast-rising numbers signing on at $695 helped enhance internet card charge income final yr by 18%. These youthful troops, says Amex, are proving extraordinarily loyal. The corporate doesn’t disclose give up charges by class, however avows that its all-in retention determine stands at 98%.
The technique dates again to 2021, when three years into the job, Squeri reckoned that the monetary providers large’s greatest path to progress lay in attracting a far youthful technology of buyers than the prosperous boomers that had historically fashioned his enterprise’s—and the trade’s—fundamental goal. Squeri took intention at millennials, now 29 to 44, and Gen Zers, at the moment’s twentysomethings, and narrowed his candy spot for Platinum to the high-income layer boasting wonderful credit score information.
Previous to that refresh, the Platinum advantages targeted on journey, mainly providing offers on the likes of lodge stays, airfares, and entry to airport lounges. Because the COVID lockdown lifted, Squeri and his staff reckoned that the millennial and Gen Z elite could be craving contemporary adventures. So Amex vastly broadened its choices to cowl the breadth of their athletic, treat-seeking existence by including perks in leisure, wellness, and upscale buying. Amex additionally acknowledged that this cohort—starting from attorneys and funding bankers to software program engineers and rising executives—didn’t pay like their dad and mom. These had been digital natives who usually didn’t even carry money, and charged just about all the pieces on their playing cards. They had been incomes extra factors towards extra goodies than another technology, and getting hooked. Plus, they relished apps that by tapping just a few clicks might get them a seat within the hottest new eating places that had been at all times booked, or prepare a tennis lesson on purple clay courts throughout a enterprise journey to Paris.
The broader menu of perks proved a big-time lure for the youthful set
The carrot that attracted the youthful technology: a brand new array of perks overlaying all features of their leisure lives. These included a digital leisure profit award of $240 a yr towards subscriptions for such suppliers because the Wall Avenue Journal, the New York Occasions, Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu. Amex tapped the millennial and Gen Z yen for Uber by awarding $200 a yr for rides on the service, and cardholders garner $300 every towards memberships at Equinox and SoulCycle. As for buying, Platinum bridges luxe to each day staples, furnishing a $100 credit score at Saks Fifth Avenue and Walmart+ membership providing reductions on gasoline and in-home pickups for returns. The journey providers are trending extra increasingly to the one-on-one and bespoke: Amex’s crew of seven,000 private journey consultants can plan your itinerary for holidays in Croatia or ebook you at a rock live performance at Wembley.
Amex additionally hit an ace by making a serious foray into restaurant reservations. Its first transfer got here in 2018, the yr Squeri superior to CEO, by way of the acquisition of Resy; its app ensures Platinum holders bookings at super-popular eateries the place it will usually take days or perhaps weeks to get a desk. As we speak, Resy companions with 20,000 eating places in 30 international locations, and final yr purchased Tock, one other large participant that added 7,000 culinary companions, together with for the primary time, wineries from Napa to the Loire Valley. “We’re the only credit card operator with our own restaurant reservations platform,” says Amex’s Grosfield. “We unlock access to the world’s most sought-after tables.”