American Express offers a program that is not very well promoted: Fine Hotels & Resorts (or “Fine Hotels & Resorts Program” in French). It is available only to holders of the Platinum Card^® from American Express and the Business Platinum Card^® from American Express.

The American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts Program

The American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts program offers benefits at high-end hotels around the world.

Benefits of the Fine Hotels & Resorts program

When you book with your Platinum Card^® from American Express through American Express Travel and Fine Hotels & Resorts, you are assured of benefits such as:

• Arrival from noon, depending on availability;
• Late departure at 4:00 p.m;
• Obtaining a superior category room, according to availability;
• Daily breakfast for two people;
• Wi-Fi access in the room, subject to certain exclusions;
• An additional special benefit, a credit for meals, drinks or care in a wellness center.

In addition, for some hotels, additional promotions may take place, such as free accommodation for the third or fourth night.

How to book a Fine Hotels & Resorts hotel

Reservations for hotels in the Fine Hotels & Resorts program can only be made with:

• American Express Platinum Card^® Travel Services
• Centurion Travel Services,
• of American Express Travel
• from americanexpress.ca/travel

The easiest way to do your research is to visit the American Express Travel website.

Note that American Express has also launched a website dedicated to Fine Hotels & Resorts that you will find here (but at this time, only the hotels Fine Hotels & Resorts will be displayed, whereas on the American Express Travel website (option “Book a trip” in the screen below), they will be displayed first, before other hotels:

Once you have selected your hotel, you will proceed to checkout with the Platinum Card^® from American Express or the Business Platinum Card^® from American Express.

Some notes:

• The cardholder must be part of the trip
• Regardless of the number of nights: only one “package” of benefits will be issued per stay (this applies in particular to the credit that will be offered in the hotel)
• Possibility to book up to 3 rooms per stay
• Consecutive stays at the same institution participating in the program Fine Hotels & Resorts during a 24 hour period are considered as one stay (so don’t think about checking out/checking in to get the credit offered in the establishment again… unless you have the 2 platinum cards as you will see below 😉 )

An example of a Fine Hotels & Resorts reservation

When I’m not using points to book hotels and I’m not staying at a hotel where I have status (e.g. Marriott / Hilton), I look at what Fine Hotels & Resorts offers.

We are obviously talking about high-end hotels where the nightly rate will rarely go below 200 CA$. In the past, I have used the program to get a stay at the Four Seasons Whistler for example.

So I recently repeated the experience in Las Vegas. I was looking for a hotel that could suit my family trip (with 2 young children) and one hotel particularly caught my attention: the Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas.

Las Vegas is a particularly well-served destination for Fine Hotels & Resort, with 9 hotels in the program. And since it is often expensive to have breakfast or get a nice room in this casino town, it can be interesting to go through this program.

During the Easter weekend, this hotel was offered through the Fine Hotels & Resorts program at less than $300 CAD per night including taxes.

The hotel website offered the same room… at a slightly higher rate (excluding taxes!).

Not to mention the whole range of benefits that Fine Hotels & Resorts had to offer:

• Upgrade (room with view on the Strip)
• Arrival at noon
• Departure at 4pm
• Daily breakfast for 2 people (80 US$)
• US$100 credit for hotel spa services

We were able to take advantage of all these benefits:

• our flight from Montreal arrived in Las Vegas at 11am (perfect for check-in at 12pm)
• we were leaving Las Vegas at 5pm (perfect for the 4pm guaranteed fare departure).
• we were upgraded 2 categories (room with view on the strip)
• the credit of 80 US$ / day was – just – enough to cover the breakfasts for the 2 of us (the children having their breakfast offered!)
• the 100 US$ credit was also sufficient for a basic spa treatment (Manicure / Pedicure)

• Bad surprise: as for almost all the hotels in Las Vegas, I was charged a resort fee (40 US$ / night). Find out on the Facebook group how I intend to contest it😉

Tip for Multiple Platinum Cardholders

The Fine Hotels & Resorts program is available to holders of one of the two Platinum cards:

• Platinum Card^®
• Business Platinum Card^® from American Express

If you have a multi-night stay, and you have both cards (or your spouse also has a Platinum card), you can bypass the rule described above:

Consecutive stays at the same Fine Hotels & Resorts participating property within a 24-hour period are considered one stay

Being each a holder of each version of the card (yes… we like Platinum cards…!), this is what we did in Las Vegas. We divided our stay into 2 nights + 1 night and were able to take advantage of the 100 US$ credit in the Spa twice (1 hour manicure + 1 hour pedicure). We could have done 1 night + 1 night + 1 night…!

Note that this can be advantageous in hotels offering US$100 for meals and drinks in the hotel in addition to free breakfast!

You will just have to be careful to see if the hotel doesn’t offer a promotion like “third/fourth night free” which will then be much more interesting!

The list of Fine Hotels & Resorts

You can find a complete directory of American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts on this site.

In Canada, Fine Hotels & Resorts has about 20 properties. In Montreal, for example, 3 hotels are part of the Fine Hotels & Resorts program: Hotel Le St-James, Loews Hotel Vogue, Ritz-Carlton Montreal.

Bottom Line

Of course, it is an expensive and high-end hotel. But it’s worth keeping this option in the back of your mind or for special occasions!