Currently, the Amex Business Platinum offers 10 Gogo wifi passes per year. Each is valid for a flight on a Gogo-equipped plane, and for many people, this is a great alternative to outright buying a Gogo membership. amex platinum gogo inflight

Unfortunately, the Amex Business Platinum will no longer offer any Gogo wifi passes as of January 1, 2020. This is being communicated in the latest statements to card members.

Card members can continue to register through then, though note that Gogo will remove all passes from accounts as of the beginning of next year.

American Express and Gogo launched this benefit back in 2014. we would imagine that for many of these Amex partnerships, they’re in fact paying a fraction of face value. The intent is for these partnerships to be mutually beneficial, though as is the case with any business, goals change over time.

While we have no inside info here, our guess is that Gogo just wasn’t seeing the upside to this — they were probably selling the passes to Amex at a huge discount and decided that they were cannibalizing their own business by doing so.

How Does This Change Affect The Value Proposition Of The Amex Business Platinum? amex platinum gogo inflight

The Amex Business Platinum has a $595 annual fee (Rates & Fees), and that’s higher than the annual fee on the personal version of the card. As a point of comparison, The Platinum Card® from American Express has a $550 annual fee (Rates & Fees).

With the Gogo wifi passes being dropped, this changes both the absolute value proposition of the Amex Business Platinum, as well as the value proposition in comparison to the personal version of the card. At this point, we’d say:

• The personal version is almost undoubtedly the all-around better card, thanks to the lower annual fee, $200 annual Uber credit, $100 annual Saks credit, and more
• The business version will be harder to justify for many