Would you apply for a credit card that costs hundreds of dollars if the issuer wouldn’t tell you what the welcome offer was? 

American Express recently changed the language for the terms on The Platinum Card® from American Express without specifying the exact number of points you’d be eligible to earn with its welcome offer. 

A credit card’s welcome bonus — a lump sum of rewards you can earn typically for reaching a certain spending threshold in a specified number of months — is one of the main reasons why people apply for luxury travel credit cards.

The annual fee on an expensive credit card can usually be offset by the welcome offer you can earn. So, a card with a $600 annual fee and a welcome bonus of 100,000 points (depending on how much those points are worth), you know that fee is covered for at least a year.

American Express did not respond to questions in time for publication.

So what changed with The Platinum Card? I’ll explain.

What changed with The Platinum Card’s welcome offer?

Here’s how Amex changed its language:

• Old offer: 80,000 points for spending $8,000 in the first six months.
• New offer: You may be eligible for as high as 175,000 Membership Rewards® Points after you spend $8,000 in eligible purchases on your new Card in your first six months of Card Membership. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer. Find out your exact welcome offer when you apply.

It’s a mouthful, I know. As someone who’s covered credit cards for nearly a decade, it’s a good reminder to read all of the terms carefully. Here’s what you should pay attention to.

Why you should read the offer carefully

A few things to call out with this new language.

1. As high as. Yes, 175,000 is a big number. However, they don’t disclose the range. That leaves me to wonder what’s the least amount you might earn on a card with a $695 annual fee.  (See rates and fees; terms apply.)
2. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for this offer. This could mean that you may not qualify for the highest payout or, in the worst case, that you may not qualify at all. Either way, the wording is ambiguous.
3. Find out your exact welcome offer when you apply. You’re no longer told how much you’re eligible to earn before applying. Let’s say you’re approved, expecting a 175,000 bonus, but instead only qualify for 60,000. At that point, you’d have to decide if the card is valuable enough to you to accept. On the plus side, Amex says your credit score is only impacted if you accept the card — not when you apply. 

Should you apply for the Amex Platinum?

If you had plans to apply for the card, it might be worth holding off until the company clarifies the bonus — perhaps that will come with its planned update to the card later this year. Otherwise, the welcome offer you receive may not match your expectations.

It could be that the credit card issuer is putting this out now, ahead of the planned update in preparation for a rewards revamp. Amex might offer tiers of Platinum cards, each with a different welcome offer and rewards, but that’s just speculation.

Either way, the change in language and the lack of disclosure about the welcome offer give me pause. 

Similar to how the new Coinbase One Card won’t disclose how many assets you need to qualify for the highest rewards rate, the new language strikes me as purposefully ambiguous to get people to apply, only to find out the benefits are much less than what they expected.