Using the American Express Platinum Concierge for cheaper Business Class Virgin Australia flights

One of the relatively unknown perks of the American Express Platinum Card are the ‘Platinum Flight Discounts’ you can get when booking through Amex Platinum Concierge. The discount primarily applies to paid (i.e. not points redemption) Business Class and First Class flights across a range of different airlines.

For those not familiar with this service, Platinum Concierge is a personal travel concierge / travel booking service specifically for holders of American Express’ high-end cards through American Express Travel. It offers great service with some even opting to use it like their own personal travel assistant.

In this guide we compare prices of Virgin Australia flights as posted on their website, when using a discount code, as well as those quoted by Amex Platinum Concierge.

When we tried to run some comparisons for other airlines we had some mixed results, so couldn’t draw any conclusions on the level of discounts offered with other airlines – but we’ll keep digging and report back.

Comparing Prices: Public Search vs. Amex Platinum Concierge

The table below compares the prices of the same Virgin Australia Business class flights across different dates and routes if booked directly via Virgin Australia’s website, with and without using a discount code, versus prices quoted by Amex Platinum Concierge.

The lowest prices are highlighted in bold and the last two columns show the differences in percentage across all three prices. Flight pricing research was completed across various dates in the first two weeks of March 2017, and of course there are no guarantees that similar discounts may be available for other routes you are looking at in future.

Results: In our comparison, Amex Platinum Concierge came out a good percentage cheaper than many of Virgin’s published rates for domestic routes and slightly ahead for international routes. Again, we looked at Business Class as this is where the maximum saving would be. That said, using a discount code on some routes resulted in even cheaper prices.

It’s worth noting though that discount codes only generally work when used at least 20 days prior to the desired booking date so Amex Platinum Concierge will likely be the better choice for any last minute bookings.

Read our full guide to using discount codes for Virgin Australia flights here →

We also found that in many (but not all) cases, discounts on Virgin Australia flights were not available when booking through Amex Travel even when logged in as a Platinum cardholder – it seemed to be hit and miss, so I would always start by submitting a request for a quote to the Platinum concierge over the phone or by email – [email protected].

The Platinum Flight Discount program currently extends to this list of airlines:

British Airways
Delta
Emirates
Etihad
Hawaiian
Japan Airlines
LAN Airlines
Malaysian Airlines
Qantas
Qatar
South African Airways
Singapore Airlines
United Airlines
Virgin Australia

However we haven’t performed extensive research on the discounts outside of Virgin Australia yet.

Summing Up

If you are an Amex Platinum Card Member booking Business Class with Virgin Australia, with access to the Platinum Concierge service, our results indicate that it’s worth checking pricing with Amex for any upcoming Virgin Australia flight bookings. Albeit not something you can count on every time, there is a high chance they will be able to provide you with very competitive prices.

Have you scored great discounts with Amex Platinum Concierge service? We’d love to hear them in the comments below!