Amex Business Platinum Adds Free ZO Coworking on Oct. 22

American Express will give Business Platinum cardholders free access to ZO by Tishman Speyer workspaces on Oct. 22, with no change to the card’s annual fee.

If you run a Shopify store on this card and spend time in New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco or Los Angeles, you just picked up a free office, four guest passes a week and up to $500 a year in event credits. If you live anywhere else, the perk does nothing for you. This post from Ecommerce Paradise sorts out which camp you are in.

Below: the exact terms, where the numbers in the coverage disagree, what the perk is worth to a high-ticket store owner, and what to do before it goes live. I covered a different Amex change last night in my post on Amex ending point pooling on new cards.

Affiliate disclosure: some links in this article are affiliate links and I may earn a commission at no cost to you. It does not change which tools I recommend or what the reporting found.

Run your store from a clubhouse, but form the LLC behind it properly with Northwest, the best LLC formation service for ecommerce owners. Northwest does not sell your address and puts its own address on your public filings, so the name on your workspace pass is not the only thing you control. Form your LLC with Northwest →

Amex Business Platinum Adds Free ZO Clubhouse Access on Oct. 22

According to Doctor of Credit, which cited an American Express press release, Amex is adding a complimentary ZO by Tishman Speyer membership to the Business Platinum card starting Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. Doctor of Credit published the terms on Oct. 19.

Per Upgraded Points, the benefit covers U.S. Business Platinum and Corporate Platinum cardholders and comes with “no increase to their annual fee.” Upgraded Points, updated Oct. 19, lists four pieces:

Unlimited access to ZO Clubhouses, plus four guest day passes per week at Clubhouses. Four complimentary day passes per month at ZO’s U.S. Studio locations. Up to $500 per calendar year, per eligible card account, in statement credits. A cardmember-only section of the ZO site and app listing participating spaces.

The $500 is narrower than it sounds. According to Doctor of Credit, the credits apply to event space bookings at ZO or Studio locations and to Dining Club membership purchases, when you pay with an eligible Amex card. Nothing in the reporting says the credit covers day passes, which are already free.

Mechanics are light. Doctor of Credit and Upgraded Points both say you do not need to enroll with Amex. You activate your ZO membership online or in the ZO app before your first visit. InsideFlyer, edited by Randy Petersen, flags that activation is required and that Studio visits need advance reservations. Clubhouse access does not.

The footprint is six U.S. cities: New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The outlets disagree on how many spaces that means. Doctor of Credit and InsideFlyer say 20 or more. Upgraded Points and Yahoo Finance, which republished a CRE Daily piece at 1:19 p.m. EDT on Oct. 19, say more than 25. Until ZO publishes a list, treat the count as unsettled and check the cardmember page for your city.

Amex’s own Business Platinum page is the place to confirm eligibility on your specific card account.

ZO Is a First for Tishman Speyer, and Amex’s Second Workspace Perk

Per Upgraded Points, this is the first time Tishman Speyer has opened ZO spaces to people beyond its own tenants. The Yahoo Finance version of the CRE Daily story describes ZO as the amenities and lifestyle service Tishman Speyer built for office occupants. That makes the card the front door to a product that used to be gated by a lease.

Amex has done a workspace deal before. According to MilesTalk, the earlier WeWork perk on this card lasted about six months, and WeWork has since cut back its member credits. MilesTalk puts the standalone price of a ZO Studio day pass at $50, calls the new benefit great, and then asks the obvious question: how long can an unlimited-visit perk survive? Its guess is that ZO wants brand awareness.

That is the counterpoint, and it is a fair one. Unlimited access with four weekly guest passes is generous, and generous perks get trimmed. Nobody has announced an end date, and I would not invent one. I would also not build a work routine on it.

The annual fee is the other piece of context. According to AwardWallet’s card page, last updated July 10, 2026, the Business Platinum carries an $895 annual fee. Its listed credits include up to $1,150 at Dell, $360 a year at Indeed, $250 at Adobe after $600 of spend, and $200 in airline incidentals with one chosen airline. Several of those require enrollment. ZO joins that stack at no extra cost.

Amex has been in the news for less pleasant reasons too. I broke down the $350 million Amex AML penalty for store owners earlier this month.

What the ZO Perk Is Worth to a Store Owner on a $895 Card

This section is my analysis, not reporting. My read: ZO is a real benefit for a narrow slice of Business Platinum holders and a non-event for everyone else. It is not a reason to open the card.

Start with who wins. If you run a high-ticket store from one of the six cities, a free place to work, meet a supplier rep and bring a VA or contractor is worth real money. Say you would otherwise pay $300 a month for a coworking desk. That is a hypothetical figure, not a ZO price. Unlimited Clubhouse access would cover that cost entirely, and four guest passes a week would let you bring a teammate every Monday through Thursday.

The Studio passes are easier to price. Using MilesTalk’s $50 day pass figure, four passes a month is $200 a month, or $2,400 a year, if you use every one. Almost nobody uses every one. Run it at half and you are still around $1,200 a year of value against a fee you were already paying. Those are hypothetical numbers built on one outlet’s price, so treat them as a ceiling.

Now who loses. If you are a nomad in Chiang Mai, Bali, Lisbon or Mexico City, this card perk does nothing, and InsideFlyer says as much: travelers outside the launch cities may get little practical use. I wrote about the rules nomads face in Malaysia’s nomad pass extension, and that is where your energy should go, not into a clubhouse you will visit twice a year.

The $500 credit is the part I would plan around. Event space at a ZO location can host a small team offsite, a supplier dinner or a product photo shoot. If your store sells furniture, outdoor gear or anything that looks better in a nice room, a staged shoot space is a legitimate use. Whether the spend is deductible is a question for your CPA. I am not a tax or legal advisor, and the reporting does not address it.

One thing ZO is not: a business address. Nothing in the coverage says ZO offers mail handling or a registered agent address. If you need a clean address for your LLC, your Google Merchant Center account and your payment processor, my guide on getting a business address without renting an office still applies. A mail service like iPostal1 costs a fraction of a desk and does a different job.

If you move between countries, Traveling Mailbox is the other one I would price out.

There is a second-order effect worth thinking about. A free office removes the biggest excuse for staying home and running the store from a kitchen table. It does not remove the pile of daily work: order tracking, supplier follow-ups, chargeback replies, ad checks. If you are going to spend your clubhouse hours on that, you are paying $895 a year to do the same low-value tasks in a nicer chair.

That is the real decision. Either the perk gets you out of the house to do higher-value work, or it is a status symbol. If your store needs a team doing fulfillment and customer service so you can use the space for sales calls and supplier negotiations, that is exactly what my turnkey done-for-you service is built to take off your plate. High-ticket stores run on supplier relationships, and relationships get built in rooms. My overview of what high-ticket dropshipping actually is covers why.

On cash flow, the perk changes nothing, but the card still matters. If you pay suppliers on the Business Platinum, my comparison of the best credit cards for paying suppliers and wholesale inventory shows how it stacks against the alternatives. And if you are weighing a different premium card, the Venture X Business $500 offer I covered on Oct. 14 is the obvious comparison.

A free clubhouse is a nice perk, but the right business card should earn its fee on your supplier and ad spend first. See my credit card picks →

Activate ZO and Rework Your Amex Credits Before Oct. 22

Here are five moves, in order. The first two take ten minutes and decide whether the rest matter.

Confirm you hold a U.S. Business Platinum or Corporate Platinum and that the card account is in good standing. Check the card’s terms on Amex’s Business Platinum page, then watch for the cardmember ZO page to appear on Oct. 22.
Open your calendar for the next 90 days and count the days you will physically be in New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco or Los Angeles. Under about ten days, skip the perk and do not change any plans around it.
If you qualify, activate your ZO membership in the ZO app or online before your first visit, and reserve any Studio day in advance. Clubhouse visits need no reservation, per InsideFlyer. Schedule a supplier meeting or a working session with a VA for your first visit so you test the space on real work.
Decide what the $500 event credit is for before the year ends, since it resets by calendar year. A team meetup, a product shoot or a supplier dinner are the obvious uses. Pay with the eligible Amex card, keep the receipt, and ask your CPA how to book it. Track it in your books with a tool like Finaloop so it does not get lost.
Keep your address and mail separate from the workspace. Use a dedicated mailbox, and if you travel between countries, move cross-border money with Wise or Airwallex instead of letting card FX fees eat the savings; my Airwallex setup guide for cross-border stores walks through it.

If you would rather have someone else build and run the store while you take the meetings, book a free discovery call and tell me which city you work from.

For the banking side of a mobile business, my walkthrough on opening a Mercury account covers the account that should sit behind the card.

Before you commit to it, read what Mercury actually costs a store.

One more consideration for anyone building from abroad: if the LLC is not formed and the banking is not clean, no clubhouse perk will fix it. My checklist for starting a US Shopify business from abroad is the place to start.

My business formation resources cover the entity side. The Shopify store you build on top of that is the easy part.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the ZO benefit start?
Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, according to Doctor of Credit and Upgraded Points. Both say enrollment with Amex is not required, but you activate through ZO.

Which cards get it?
U.S. Business Platinum and Corporate Platinum cardholders, per Upgraded Points and InsideFlyer. Personal Platinum is not mentioned in the reporting.

What does Business Platinum cost?
AwardWallet lists an $895 annual fee as of its July 10, 2026 update. Per Upgraded Points, the ZO perk comes with no fee increase. My ranking of the best business credit cards for ecommerce compares the alternatives.

Does the $500 credit cover day passes?
No. Per Doctor of Credit, it covers event space bookings at ZO or Studio locations and Dining Club membership purchases made with an eligible Amex card, up to $500 per calendar year per card account.

Is ZO available outside the United States?
The reporting lists six U.S. cities only. If you work from abroad, see my guide on Thailand’s proposed exit tax for what is actually changing for nomads there.

Should I apply for this card just for ZO?
No. The perk is free on a card that already costs $895, and MilesTalk is already questioning how long unlimited visits will last. Apply if the Dell, Indeed and Adobe credits match your spend, and read my step-by-step guide to applying for a business credit card first.

I have not chosen a product to sell yet. Where do I start?
Grab my free niches list at ecommerceparadise.com/niches. Then pair it with the 150-plus high-ticket niches list.

Want to talk through card strategy, suppliers and scaling with other store owners and me in one place? Join the Skool community →

That is the Amex ZO story as it stands on Oct. 20. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for daily breakdowns. More breaking news coming through the day.

If this was useful, these go deeper:

Trevor Fenner

Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.