What’s the $300 Digital Entertainment Credit on the Platinum Card® from American Express?

The $300 Digital Entertainment Credit is a nice upgrade from the $240 credit that was previously offered on the Platinum Card® from American Express. This makes for a $5 increase monthly from $20 to $25. It also now includes YouTube TV which is a super popular new streaming/TV service. It's one of my favorites. Frankly if I was paying for my TV services at my household, YouTube TV would be my #1 option.

What can you use the Digital Entertainment Credit on?

With the newly updated $895 Platinum Card® from American Express, you can use the Digital Entertainment Credit on:

• Disney+
• The Disney Bundle
• ESPN+
• Hulu
• Peacock
• The Wall Street Journal
• The New York Times
• YouTube TV
• YouTube Premium

In order to receive the up to $25 monthly credit for these entertainment services, you must first enroll in the Digital Entertainment Credit on your American Express app or on your American Express account online.

The neat thing about the Digital Entertainment Credit is that you can have multiple subscriptions count toward the $25 monthly credit. For instance, let’s say you want to get the Disney+ basic subscription for $9.99 a month and a New York Times subscription for $4.00 a month. You can pay for both on your Platinum Card® from American Express and get $14.99 reimbursed. I find that this would be the best approach if you don’t already have one of these entertainment services that totals $25 or more every month.

You might also have a different streaming or TV service like Spectrum TV like myself so you wouldn’t need a YouTube TV subscription. If I were to get the Platinum Card® from American Express, I would use the Digital Entertainment Credit towards Hulu at $9.99 a month, The Wall Street Journal at $8 a month and The New York Times at $4 a month. This would total for $22.99 a month—just $2.01 from receiving the maximum value for the Digital Entertainment Credit every month. The reason for choosing these three options is that I live with other people and we have a Spectrum TV subscription (no need for YouTube TV).

What’s the best entertainment service to spend the Digital Entertainment Credit on?

I’d say the new YouTube TV option for the Digital Entertainment Credit is the way to go to get the most value. If you watch any kind of TV regularly this is by far the best option. YouTube TV costs $82.99 for their base plan which includes most major channels that folks would like to watch like ESPN, ABC, FOX, Fox News and CNN.

In comparison to one competitor like Spectrum TV, you would be paying $100 a month for a similar package. So while you are already starting off with a streaming service that is about $17 a month cheaper, you can save $25 a month more. So you would be paying $57.99 a month for a solid streaming service (and getting the full value of the $300 Digital Entertainment Credit).

What do I wish was on the Digital Entertainment Credit options?

I know I might sound like a bit of a boomer but I wish there was an option to use the Digital Entertainment Credit for more traditional TV services.

My household uses Charter Spectrum for internet and TV services. And the savings on the traditional TV and internet bundles would be awesome with the Digital Entertainment Credit. It would allow you to save on both streaming/TV as well as internet services. All while appealing to an older customer. Dare I say this would be more appealing to American Express because older folks tend to spend more and would ideally (for AMEX) spend more on the Platinum Card® from American Express.

Does the $300 Digital Entertainment Credit help justify the annual fee on the revamped Platinum Card® from American Express?

Most folks are using one of the Digital Entertainment services listed or could put them to use with the Platinum Card® from American Express credit. It all depends how you want to go about it. If you are willing to switch to YouTube TV from your current TV/streaming provider, you can 100% get the maximum amount of value out of the Digital Entertainment Credit all while getting yourself a ⅓ of the way to the $895 annual fee on the Platinum Card® from American Express. If that’s something you aren’t comfortable doing, it gets a little more complicated to get good value.

Apple Music and Spotify are popular for most people today so you could use part of the credit for music and podcast streaming on Apple Music at $10.99 a month. Then you could use $9.99 of credit for the basic Hulu subscription. Then you could use the remaining credit for a news subscription like New York Times for $4 a month. That would get you to $24.98 per month of the $25 a month the Digital Entertainment credit offers.

There’s a perfectly good argument to make that this credit might not be worth it for some people. Maybe you use Spotify Premium and you don’t want to have to restart all your music history on Apple Music. And you already have a streaming show for TV shows and documentaries with a platform like Netflix—so no need for Hulu, Disney+, The Disney Bundle or Peacock. Traditional TV services are where you want to be as you can bundle TV and internet while not having to change anything since you already have a service like Xfinity or Spectrum. Lastly, you are not a fan of the New York Times or Wall Street Journal so you have no need for those subscriptions.

This might be a good argument but I’ll say that its a very unique argument. You can save a good amount of money by taking advantage of this Digital Entertainment Credit along with the variety of other credits on the Platinum Card® from American Express.

Let’s say you use the $200 in Uber Cash, $400 in restaurant Resy credit, the $300 in Digital Entertainment credit, $200 Oura credit, $300 Lululemon credit and the $300 Digital Entertainment Credit. That’s already $1,700 in value. And that’s not including all of the Platinum Card® from American Express credits along with the intriguing welcome offer.

Final Remarks

Saving money on staple purchases is always a great way to use a credit card like the Platinum Card® from American Express. The $300 Digital Entertainment Credit on the Platinum Card® from American Express is $60 more than what was previously offered and now includes YouTube TV and YouTube Premium—awesome add-ons!

Whether you watch a lot of TV shows and movies or listen to music in the car, there are a number of ways you can put the Digital Entertainment Credit to use.

From my point of view, the most efficient way to use the credit is to use it on one service that costs exactly $25 or more. You could use it on something like YouTube TV which would save you $25 on the $82.99 a month base plan. Or you could use it on a Disney+ bundle where you get Disney+, Hulu and ESPN for just $29.99 a month for the year. That would mean that you would just be paying $4.99 a month for the bundle!

Using the Digital Entertainment Credit on one service makes it so that you only have to worry about putting one service on the credit. You wouldn’t have to keep track of a bunch of service payments. And it makes it easier to get full value. Combining a bunch of different subscriptions might mean you are missing out on a few bucks every month.

With a little bit of flexibility and thinking, you can be on your way to saving hundreds of dollars a year by using this credit along with the plethora of other cool, unique benefits on the Platinum Card® from American Express.