In 2007, American Express launched a new small business card, the American Express Plum card. At the initial launch, 10,000 cards were issued in an effort to market the new Plum card as an exclusive American Express card, very similar to how the Centurion Card is treated. PlumInformation.com is dedicated to providing the most accurate information on the Plum card, its requirements, and news surrounding the plum card.
Pluminformation.com is not an official American Express site, nor does it represent itself as such. The terms American Express and AMEX are registered marks of American Express, and are used in this web site in the same way as they would be used in a newspaper article.
I’m Plum member #1727 out of 10,000. I was actually kind of shocked that I even got the card considering that I really didn’t fit the demographic. It isn’t as useful to me as I thought it would be, so I am canceling the card shortly and going back to my Blue for Business. Not everybody needs a fancy colored card to be successful in business, but I definitely agree that the Plum card is doing something special that no other card I ever saw could do. You just have to be using it a specific way for it to be worth it, and I ended up not needing to. My suppliers turned out to be more willing to negotiate trade terms than I suspected, so the need for a special card wasn’t there.
I disagree that the Plum is at all similar to the Centurion card. It offers none of the travel benefits of the Centurion and doesn’t even offer a concierge service like the Platinum. The Plum is slightly a step above the Green Business card from American Express, but not as prestigious as the Gold. I defintely agree that they have marketed the hell out of this card though. When it was released at the Inc 500 event American Express force approved all 500 applications regardless of credit status or standing with AMEX. They want people to have this card and tell other people about it, and I don’t blame them. It is truely a unique card with awesome benefits. However, like the Centurion or Platinum card, if you don’t need or use the benefits, then it is just a card with an annual fee that does nothing special for you. I’ve got unlimited spending power with my One from American Express and I don’t pay an annual fee with that one. I may not get the business discounts with it, but it has the savings benefit tied to it that works out better for me than Plum ever will.