American Express Platinum annual membership fee comparison per country

An interesting comparison is the yearly fee of the American Express Platinum card.
What comes out of this comparison is that the yearly fee varies widely between countries.

• € 700 (Netherlands) 
• € 700 (Italy)
• 6000 KR (Sweden) - about  € 689
• € 600 (Germany) + one time € 300 enrollment fee
• € 590 (France) 
• € 570 (Belgium) 
• € 550 (Ireland)
• € 550 (Denmark)
• € 540 (Spain)
• £450 (UK) - about €530 
• CAD 699 (Canada) - about € 500  
• € 500 (Austria)  
• 3600 Pezos (Angentina) - about  € 450
• $450 (USA) - about €330 
• € 250 (Portugal)  
• HK$1,600 (Hong Kong) - about €152
• 10000 Rupis (India) - about € 119 

It's quite remarkable to see the difference in annual fees between the various countries.
€ 700 in the Netherlands vs € 330 in the USA.

Lounge access - the options

So you want to have airport lounge access but have no frequent flyer elite status nor do you fly business class ? good news: there are ways.

  

Swiss Zurich Airport Lounge (one of my favorites)

Pay per visit access:

This is probably the most expensive way.
There are a couple of options:

• buy access on the spot (simply walk up to one of the lounges which sell access - check in advance which ones do)
• book in advance using sites like www.executivelounges.com, www.loungepass.com etc.
• book in advance on the airline website (some airlines like Delta offer you the option of lounge access)

Good for: people who don't travel much
Bad for: frequent travelers - it's a hassle and it's going to be expensive

Access using a credit card perk:
Credit cards are one great way of getting airport lounge access !
There are a few cards in the market which have airport lounge access as one of the perks of owning the card.
Here are a few examples (I will be giving examples from the Dutch market however you will typically find similar deals in other countries):

• American Express Platinum - this might be the most well known travel credit card. It gives you access to lot's of airport lounges (about 900 of them). The problem with this card is it's price. 
• Mastercard Black and World Elite - these cards come with a free Priority Pass which is a great way to have lounge access (more than 600 lounges)
• Ink from Chase (USA) comes with a free lounge club pass
• Diners Club 

Airport lounge membership programs:
 There are quite a few of those:

• Priority Pass: the most well known program with over 600 lounges available
• Lounge Club: access to about 350 lounges

Economy Carry-On Bags Size & weight by airline

Please take into account that this page is not guaranteed to be accurate and therefore I urge you to use this page only as a guideline or quick reference. You have been warned.

 
Aer Lingus
Inches: 22 x 18 x 10
Centimeters: 56 x 45 x 25
Air Canada
Inches: 9 x 15.5 x 21.5
Centimeters: 55 X 40 x 23
Weight: 22 pounds
Air France
Centimeters: 55 x 35 x 25
Weight: 12 kg
Air Jamaica
Inches: 45
Weight: 30 lbs
Air Tahiti Nui
Inches: 45
Centimeters: 115
Weight: 22 lbs/10 kg
Alitalia
Centimeters: 55 x 35 x 25
Weight: 5 kg
American Airlines
Inches: 45
Weight: 40 lbs
American Trans Air
Inches: 55
British Airways
Centimeters: 56 x 45 x 25
Inches: 22 x 18 x 10
Cathay Pacific
Inches: 22 x 14 x 9
Centimeters: 56 x 36 x 23
Weight: 15 lbs/7 kg
Delta
Combined Inches: 45 (22" x 14" x 9" or 56 x 35 x  23 cm)
Weight: 40 lbs /18 kg
EasyJet
No wight restrictions
Centimeters: 56 x 45 x 25 (this size is acceptable but not guaranteed to go onboard on very full flights)
Centimeters: 50 x 40 x 20 - guaranteed to go onboard
El Al
Inches: 22 x 18 x 10 Centimeters: 56 x 45 x 25
Weight: 17 lbs /8 kg
Emirates
Inches: 22 x 15 x 8
Centimeters: 55 x 38 x 20
Weight: 15 lbs / 7 kg
Finnair
Centimeters: 56gx 45 x 25
Inches: 22 x 18 x 10
Weight: 17.5 lbs / 8 kg
Hawaiian Airlines
Inches: 45
Weight: 25 lbs
Icelandair
Inches: 45
Centimeters: 115
Weight: 13 lbs / 6 kg
Japan Airlines
Inches: 45
Centimeters: 115
Weight: 22 lbs / 10 kg
Jet Airways
Inches: 45
Centimeters: 115
Weight: 15 lbs / 7 kg
Jet Blue
Airbus A320 Inches: 26 x 18 x 12
EMBRAER 190 Inches: 24 x 16 x 10
KLM
Centimeters: 55 x 25 x 35
Inch: 21.5 x 10 x 13.5
Weight: 12 kg
LAN
Centimeters: 55 x 35 x 25
Weight: 8 kg
Mexicana
Inches: 45
Centimeters: 115
Weight: 22 lbs / 10 kg
Lufthansa
Centimeters: 55 x 40 x 23
Weight: 8 kg
Northwest
Inches: 45
Qantas
Inches: 45
Centimeters: 115
Weight: 15 lbs / 7 kg
RyanAir
Centimeters: 55 x 40 x 20
Weight: 10 kg
SAS
Centimeters: 115
Weight: 8 kg
Singapore Airlines
Centimeters: 115 , Inches:45
Weight: 15 lbs / 7 kg
Southwest Airlines
Inches: 24 x 16 x 10
Turkish Airlines
Inches: 9 x 15.75 x 21.8
Centimeters: 23 x 40 x 55
Weight: 8 kg
United Airlines
14 inches x 9 inches x 22 inches (23 x 35 x 56 cm)  or combined Inches: 45  Centimeters: 114
US Airways
14 inches x 9 inches x 22 inches (23 x 35 x 56 cm)  or combined Inches: 45 Centimeters: 115
Weight: 40 lbs / 18 kg
Virgin America
Inches: 50
Weight: 16 lbs
Virgin Atlantic
Centimeters: 115
Weight: 13 lbs / 6 kg

Airport lounges - important ?

Those of you who have read my posts know that I choose my flights based on the lowest fare and always economy. This has consequences (mainly positive but a couple of negative ones).
One negative consequence is that I don't have access to airline airport lounges (I do, but not through the airline frequent flyer programs or a business class ticket).

So here comes the question: are lounges a perk or are they important?
My answer is: both.

Let me give you an example:
In my last trip to NY - I had a flight back home at 20:00 - however my last meeting got cancelled in the last moment so I found myself in NYC at 15:00 tired after a week of running between meeting just dreaming of sleeping in my own bed and spending some time with my family.

So my options were pretty limited- I could go into a starbucks and work from there (slow internet, many times limited space, not very comfortable) or go to the airport.

I chose to go to JFK and got there at 16:00. At 16:30 I was done with security and immigration.
I headed to the Wingtips lounge (terminal 4) and:

• took a shower (they have a spa like shower with all necessities included... i.e. towel, shampoo, various kits etc.)
• had a (free) dinner 
• had some nice drinks 
• connected all my devices to the internet
• worked on my laptop for a couple of hours while relaxing on a very comfortable seat

This is from my perspective not a luxury item - it's actually a cost saver, a sanity saver and a great tool for achieving higher work productivity.

Just the food and drinks I had there would easily cost $35-$45 outside and the shower and internet would cost more.

I have had many more cases of the airport lounge being an absolute sanity saver, cost saver and a refresher.

I see lounge access as a must for the serious traveler - it's simply too expensive not to have lounge access. I also feel lounge access makes economy travel much nicer.

So how do you get the lounge access ? I'll cover this in another post.

Temporary tip (hurry up!) : Le Club Accorhotels Platinum Sign Up (get instant platinum status)

John from Loyalty Lobby gives away private links for signing up for the Le Club Accor hotels.
This is a great one and you should hurry up since there is no guarantee this will continue.
Click on the image below to go to loyalty lobby and follow John's instructions. I tried it and it works as of today.

Flying with the same airline or alliance (or in other words accumulating frequent flyer points and retaining or gaining FF status level):

A couple of months ago, I had to fly to Italy and a friend of mine had to fly to the same city (Milan) the same day. He works for a nice and wealthy company which actually prohibits flying business class however the company allows any economy flight with all airlines, and any economy fare class.
So I took an easy-jet flight for €151 and he took KLM (economy class) for €512.
Both flights are direct, both take precisely 1 hour and 40 minutes each way, both are economy, both are from Amsterdam - Schiphol.
So... why would he do that ?  Does it make sense ?
Yes it does. For him.
You see - to keep his gold status on KLM my friend needs to have 30 flights per year or 40000 level miles - see below from the KLM website:

So the fact is he paid 3.3 times more than what I paid.
What did he get? 2 qualifying flights for keeping his Gold status and a few more miles for his miles account.

My choice is clear: I always fly with the least expensive airline unless the difference is marginal.

This of course has consequences (positive and negative):

• Enormous cost saving (positive)
• I am not biased to fly with any airline (positive) 
• I have more flexibility (positive)
• I don't get 'free' flights from a frequent flyer program (actually I do - I'll explain in a bit)
• I don't get elite frequent flyer status (negative)
• I fly cheap airlines such as easyjet and ryanair which are in general less pleasant to fly then other airlines (negative)

All the above said should of course NOT discourage you from taking part in various frequent flyer programs. For example since my home airport is Amsterdam Schiphol which is a KLM base - I sometimes fly KLM or Delta or Air-France (in some cases they are the cheapest) and therefore I actually do accumulate miles for bonus flights. However since I am not biased to fly KLM - I may have extended period during which I would not fly KLM which means that I will risk losing my miles (here comes a tip). TIP: So, to avoid losing my miles, I have taken an American Express Flying Blue credit card which adds frequent flyer points to my account for every purchase I make using this card and extends the validity on my points by another year.

Low budget business travel:

click above to see what you don't get 

I guess there are many of us out there: (frequent) travellers (for many reasons) who simply don't want to spend a lot of money on travel. This could of course be related to a personal or company choice or a budget restriction or any other reason.
Sure, flying business or first class is great and I have done that many times in the past - however when you think about it - something doesn't always totally add up...
Let's take a recent example:
I had to fly from Amsterdam to New York and ended up booking the return trip for 560 Euros (yup, coach...).
2470 Euros was the lowest price for a business class flight for those dates (I checked expedia, skyscanner and others).
Let's do a quick calculation:
The difference between these options was 2470-560 = 1910 Euros (!)
And this is for a 7.5 hour (each way) flight.

Now don't get me wrong: flying business class is nicer - there is not doubt here and the advantages are there:

• More miles for your frequent flyer program = more 'free' tickets for you
• More status level miles = retain or build your frequent flyer status 
• Much more comfortable = arrive more fresh
• Nicer food
• Access to business class lounge
• Quick check-in

And ... I am not saying there is anything wrong with people flying premium classes, some companies have a policy of having their employees (or senior employees) fly in premium classes. That could be a great perk.

However is the difference in price of for example €1910 worth it ? in my case - and I guess in the cae of many other travelers who might be reading this blog - the answer would be: no.

As a quick check at the time I am writing this blog post - I ran a skyscanner (one of the best flight fare comparison site) search for a direct flight from Amsterdam to NYC and here are the results:

The price difference between economy and business is mind boggling: €530 vs €3063 
There is an indirect flight with Icelandair for €1579 however there is also an indirect economy for €478 - also take into account that flying Icelandair in this case would not let you accumulate points or level miles assuming you are not an Icelander.

My choice is clear: I fly economy.