Revolut Ultra vs Amex Platinum: The Honest Comparison (2026)

Amex Platinum and Revolut Ultra come up in the same conversation constantly — "best premium card," "best travel card," "is it worth it." But they're not actually the same kind of product, and comparing them head-to-head without acknowledging that tends to lead people to the wrong answer.

This guide breaks down the real differences across every category that matters: cost, travel insurance, lounges, overseas spending, hotel and car hire benefits, and credits. By the end, you'll know exactly which one suits which kind of person — and why the right answer for most people isn't necessarily the more famous name.

The basics

Before the comparison, one important framing point. Amex Platinum is a credit card built around travel infrastructure. Revolut Ultra is a debit-based banking subscription built around everyday money management, with travel benefits bolted on. They overlap on lounges, travel insurance, and a points programme — but those are a sliver of what each product actually does.

Cost

Paid annually, Revolut Ultra is cheaper — £540 vs £650, a £110 gap in Ultra's favour. But pay Ultra monthly and it flips: £55 × 12 = £660, which is more expensive than Amex. The billing choice matters.

Edge: Revolut Ultra — but only on annual billing.

Overseas spending

This is the biggest practical gap between the two cards, and it's lopsided.

Amex Platinum charges 2.99% on every non-sterling transaction. On a £3,000 trip abroad that's roughly £90 in pure fees — remarkable for a card marketed as a premium travel product.

Revolut Ultra charges 0% FX on weekdays, with no cap on the amount. There's a small Revolut margin applied to the exchange rate (slightly worse than the mid-market rate), but no weekend surcharge on Ultra — unlike lower Revolut tiers. You also get £2,000/month fee-free ATM withdrawals globally. Amex cash withdrawals come with a cash advance fee and should be avoided entirely.

Bottom line: if you're spending abroad, Amex Platinum is the wrong card to use. Revolut Ultra is the right one.

Edge: Revolut Ultra, decisively.

Airport lounges

Both offer unlimited lounge access — but structured very differently.

Amex Platinum runs on Priority Pass (1,400+ lounges), plus access to Centurion Lounges (Heathrow T3), Eurostar lounges, and currently the Lufthansa Group lounges (though this benefit is ending for UK cardholders in October 2026). Crucially, you get one free guest per visit, and a free supplementary card — effectively a family-of-four solution at no extra cost. You can also pre-book lounge visits (8 per year for UK lounges), which matters — walk-up queues at major UK airports have become a genuine problem.

Revolut Ultra uses LoungeKey (1,000+ lounges). Unlimited visits for the account holder, but every guest pays separately — currently around £20 per person per visit. No pre-booking option: it's walk-in only. For a solo traveller, Ultra's lounge access is excellent. The moment you add a partner or family, the maths shifts quickly toward Amex.

Edge: Amex Platinum — especially for anyone who travels with others.

Travel insurance

Both cards include travel insurance underwritten by Chubb. The headline numbers, limits and structure differ in ways that matter.

Amex Platinum

• Emergency medical: £2,000,000 per person. Covers the main cardmember, their partner, children under 25, and grandchildren travelling with them. Importantly, medical cover is automatic — it doesn't require you to have paid for the trip on the card.

• Cancellation / cutting short: Up to £7,500 per person, £50 excess. Covers both cancelling before you travel and cutting a trip short mid-way — same policy, same limits.

• Car hire: Full CDW replacement up to £50,000 vehicle value, plus £500,000 third-party liability. You can decline the rental company's own insurance at the counter and rely on Amex instead.

• Trip length: Up to 90 consecutive days, 240 days per year. Gap year extension to 365 days available for children.

Amex watch-outs: Medical cover disappears entirely for anyone aged 70 or over. Pre-existing conditions are excluded if treated or medicated in the last two years; cardiovascular conditions are excluded for life (though an Accepted Conditions screening list exists, giving some people a route back into cover). All medical costs must be pre-approved. The policy is secondary — it pays the gap after other insurance or state benefits.

Revolut Ultra

• Emergency medical: £10,000,000 per person abroad — five times the Amex limit on paper. No medical-specific age restriction, but a hard 76-year-old cutoff applies to the entire policy.

• Cancellation / cutting short: Up to £5,000 per person for cutting a trip short (Chubb policy), 10% excess capped at £50. A separate "Cancel for Any Reason" product (administered by Qover, not Chubb) pays 100% back for insured reasons or 70% back for literally any reason — no questions asked — capped at £2,500 per claim and £5,000 per year. This is genuinely rare in the market.

• Car hire: £2,000 — but this is excess reimbursement only, not a vehicle-value payout like Amex. It assumes the rental company's CDW is already in place. Don't decline cover at the counter assuming Ultra covers the car itself — the policy doesn't make that promise.

• Trip length: First 90 consecutive days only. No annual cap stated, but no gap year extension.

Revolut watch-outs: The biggest one — the entire policy is void unless you've paid at least 75% of transport and accommodation on the Ultra account. Miss that threshold and there's no cover at all, including medical. The 76 age cutoff applies across every section (unlike Amex, where only medical has an age cliff). Pre-existing conditions are excluded if treated or medicated in the last 12 months, with heart conditions and cancer excluded for life and no equivalent screening list.

Edge: Amex for families and breadth; Ultra for the any-reason cancellation flexibility. The card-spend gating on Revolut is the critical watch-out.

Hotels and car hire

This is Amex's home turf, and there's no competition.

Amex Platinum:

• Hilton Gold status — instant, no stays required. Includes free breakfast for two, worth roughly £50+ per morning

• Marriott Bonvoy Gold — room upgrades, late checkout

• Radisson Premium and Meliá Gold status

• Fine Hotels & Resorts — book through Amex Travel and get a ~£100 property credit, free breakfast for two, guaranteed 4pm checkout and upgrades. One stay at a qualifying property can recover £200+ in real value (though these properties typically start around £400/night)

• Hertz Gold Plus and Avis President's Club car hire status — skip-the-counter, upgrades, free additional driver

Revolut Ultra: Nothing equivalent. No hotel status, no luxury hotel programme, no car hire status.

Edge: Amex Platinum — not even close.

Credits, subscriptions and rewards

The two products take completely different approaches here, and it's the clearest illustration of their different philosophies.

Amex Platinum pays you back in travel-shaped currency:

• £400 dining credit (two £100 vouchers per half-year, usable at 2,000+ restaurants globally — though coverage varies by country)

• £312 Times / Sunday Times digital subscription

• Membership Rewards points: 1 MR per £1 spent (2× on Amex Travel). Deep transfer partners including Avios, Flying Blue, Marriott Bonvoy and more

• Welcome bonus: typically 75,000–90,000 MR points for new applicants (A/B tested, check the current offer). In year one, this can swing the value calculation decisively

Revolut Ultra pays you back in digital lifestyle subscriptions:

• Financial Times Premium Digital

• WeWork (3 passes/month)

• NordVPN Complete

• ClassPass (20 credits/month)

• Headspace

• Tinder Gold

• Perplexity Pro

• Sleep Cycle, Freeletics, Picsart, Chess.com, MasterClass, The Athletic, Uber One, Headway, Turo rewards — and more (the list rotates; check the app for the current lineup)

Revolut markets the bundle at ~£4,290/year and "over £9,000" in total annual benefits — but that top-line number folds in fee savings, insurance value, lounge value, and savings interest, and assumes heavy usage of almost everything. The more useful number: you only need to use roughly 13% of the subscription bundle to cover the £540 annual fee. If you'd already pay for the FT and a coworking pass, Ultra is effectively free.

RevPoints and Amex Membership Rewards both transfer 1:1 to Avios — so if Avios is your goal, either card works. Amex's ecosystem is deeper and more established; Revolut's is newer and still growing.

Edge: Depends entirely on who you are. Amex for points and travel credits; Ultra for subscriptions and everyday digital value. The welcome bonus tilts year one to Amex.

So which one should you choose?

Choose Amex Platinum if:

• You travel with a partner or family — the lounge guesting and family insurance cover are significantly better

• You stay in hotels regularly — Hilton Gold and Fine Hotels & Resorts can pay back the fee in a single stay

• You hire cars often — elite status and full CDW are hard to match

• You want a welcome bonus and to build credit history

• You'll genuinely use the dining credit and Times subscription

Choose Revolut Ultra if:

• You travel solo most of the time

• You spend regularly in foreign currencies — 0% FX is the standout practical benefit

• You'd actually use the subscriptions (FT, WeWork, NordVPN, etc.)

• You can't or don't want a credit card

• You want high-yield savings and international money transfers built into the same account

• You want the cheaper annual price and a monthly exit option

The honest answer for power users: the strongest setup is often to carry both — Ultra as the everyday spending and FX card, and a points or Amex credit card for benefits. Ultra has quietly become the better card to actually spend on; Amex remains the better benefits platform. But if it genuinely has to be one or the other, the deciding question is simple: do you travel as a family that uses hotels and lounges? Take the Amex. Do you travel solo with a subscription-heavy lifestyle? Take the Ultra.

All figures verified June 2026. Key benefits subject to change — always check current terms at americanexpress.com and revolut.com before applying.