Amex Platinum vs Ritz-Carlton Card: which lounge card fits?

These two cards sit $445 apart in annual fee, and the lounge access they buy is not close. The Platinum Card from American Express opens five lounge programs. The Ritz-Carlton Credit Card from Chase opens one. Whether that gap is worth paying for depends almost entirely on which airports you actually fly through.

Where the access comes from

Both cards include Priority Pass, so the overlap is real. If your home airport only has a Priority Pass lounge, the two cards get you into the same room.

The Platinum Card then adds four more networks. The Centurion Lounge network is the headline, since no other issuer's card gets you in. On top of that come Plaza Premium and Escape Lounges, which matter more at mid-size airports and overseas. Finally, the Platinum unlocks Delta Sky Club, but only when you are flying Delta that same day.

The Ritz-Carlton card stops at Priority Pass. There is no hotel-brand lounge network to fall back on, so its lounge story is the Priority Pass story.

The situations each card wins

Pick the Platinum when you fly through a hub with a Centurion Lounge, when you travel internationally through Plaza Premium territory, or when you are a regular Delta flyer. In those cases the extra $445 buys lounges the Ritz-Carlton card cannot touch.

Pick the Ritz-Carlton card when Priority Pass covers your usual airports and you would rather pay $450 than $895. It is a Chase product, which also matters if you are already deep in a Chase card lineup and want to keep points in one place. The honest version is that you are not buying lounge breadth here. You are buying a cheaper card that happens to include the most widely available lounge network.

Guests, business spend and the fine print

Guest policies, visit caps and enrollment steps are set by each program and by the issuer, not by this site. Confirm them on the issuer's terms before you apply. Same-day flight rules apply to Delta Sky Club access on the Platinum, so a Delta lounge is useless on a United ticket.

How to decide from your next three trips

Write down the next three airports you will depart from. Check each one's page here and count how many usable lounges each card unlocks. If the Platinum's count is only ever one higher, and that one is a Priority Pass lounge anyway, the Ritz-Carlton card is the rational pick. If a Centurion Lounge shows up twice, the Platinum earns its fee. Our ratings follow the approach described in the methodology, and the lounge lists on each card page are the fastest way to run this check.