topic Re: Amex Point System in Credit Cards

Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 21:34:54 GMT

I see a lot of negative talk. What's wrong with it?

Re: Amex Point System

jacetx — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 21:56:56 GMT

There is a delay on the posting of the points but unless you are in a rush to get them, nothing wrong with it.

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:03:14 GMT

Days, weeks, or months?

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:11:04 GMT

Interesting. Just hit my spend on Hilton and within 2 business days, I saw 50k points on my account. I am loving Amex here. Call me crazy.

Re: Amex Point System

Ghoshida — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:21:11 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Interesting. Just hit my spend on Hilton and within 2 business days, I saw 50k points on my account. I am loving Amex here. Call me crazy.

Won't call you crazy.

AMEX is known to credit the initial bonus (sign up bonuses, sometimes the AMEX offer bonuses) pretty quickly.

It's their regular rewards system that's broken.

OP, if you spend $100 in June, and your statement is generated on July 5th, you'll not see the rewards for that $100 until the August 5th statement.

That is if you're holding a premium card like the PRG or the Plat.

If you're holding the Blue Cash Everyday, or some other "free" cashback / points cards, and are one of the many unfortunate souls like me (and others in this forum), you'll be lucky to get it by August 5th.

My rewards haven't updated since January 10th of this year on the BCE. PRG seems to do okay.

Chatting with AMEX reps online won't get you anywhere.

Writing to AMEX reps on social media, e.g. Twitter, will get you canned responses like "We are aware of the problem, but we are unaware of anyone actually working on it. Your bad !"

Apart from that, their merchant recognization system is also broken. Watch out for grocery stores being coded as general stores. Even if on your online account, you click on a transaction and it says grocery / supermarkets (or restaurants), after 2 months you will find that it didn't get the reward. Plus, the customer service rep will point blank lie to your face saying that store could never be a grocery store.

Oh and this is assuming you are careful enough to track rewards that happened on transactions that are at least one statement old.

Good luck!

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:28:02 GMT

@Ghoshida wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Interesting. Just hit my spend on Hilton and within 2 business days, I saw 50k points on my account. I am loving Amex here. Call me crazy.
Won't call you crazy.

AMEX is known to credit the initial bonus (sign up bonuses, sometimes the AMEX offer bonuses) pretty quickly.

It's their regular rewards system that's broken.

OP, if you spend $100 in June, and your statement is generated on July 5th, you'll not see the rewards for that $100 until the August 5th statement.

That is if you're holding a premium card like the PRG or the Plat.

If you're holding the Blue Cash Everyday, or some other "free" cashback / points cards, and are one of the many unfortunate souls like me (and others in this forum), you'll be lucky to get it by August 5th.

My rewards haven't updated since January 10th of this year on the BCE. PRG seems to do okay.

Chatting with AMEX reps online won't get you anywhere.

Writing to AMEX reps on social media, e.g. Twitter, will get you canned responses like "We are aware of the problem, but we are unaware of anyone actually working on it. Your bad !"

Apart from that, their merchant recognization system is also broken. Watch out for grocery stores being coded as general stores. Even if on your online account, you click on a transaction and it says grocery / supermarkets (or restaurants), after 2 months you will find that it didn't get the reward. Plus, the customer service rep will point blank lie to your face saying that store could never be a grocery store.

Oh and this is assuming you are careful enough to track rewards that happened on transactions that are at least one statement old.

Good luck!

Most, if not all of the issues seem to occur with the cash back cards not the MR producing cards. I have had zero problems with receiving MR points each and every month (or SPG points for that matter) from my EDP, PRG or Platinum cards. That's pathetic that your cashback hasnt updated since January.

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:32:53 GMT

I am not aware of any delays yet. I met my target bonus on my Platinum card last week ( only one statement cut) and all my points are posted)

142,981
Available Points

Re: Amex Point System

Ghoshida — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:37:43 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Ghoshida wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Interesting. Just hit my spend on Hilton and within 2 business days, I saw 50k points on my account. I am loving Amex here. Call me crazy.
Won't call you crazy.

AMEX is known to credit the initial bonus (sign up bonuses, sometimes the AMEX offer bonuses) pretty quickly.

It's their regular rewards system that's broken.

OP, if you spend $100 in June, and your statement is generated on July 5th, you'll not see the rewards for that $100 until the August 5th statement.

That is if you're holding a premium card like the PRG or the Plat.

If you're holding the Blue Cash Everyday, or some other "free" cashback / points cards, and are one of the many unfortunate souls like me (and others in this forum), you'll be lucky to get it by August 5th.

My rewards haven't updated since January 10th of this year on the BCE. PRG seems to do okay.

Chatting with AMEX reps online won't get you anywhere.

Writing to AMEX reps on social media, e.g. Twitter, will get you canned responses like "We are aware of the problem, but we are unaware of anyone actually working on it. Your bad !"

Apart from that, their merchant recognization system is also broken. Watch out for grocery stores being coded as general stores. Even if on your online account, you click on a transaction and it says grocery / supermarkets (or restaurants), after 2 months you will find that it didn't get the reward. Plus, the customer service rep will point blank lie to your face saying that store could never be a grocery store.

Oh and this is assuming you are careful enough to track rewards that happened on transactions that are at least one statement old.

Good luck!
Most, if not all of the issues seem to occur with the cash back cards not the MR producing cards. I have had zero problems with receiving MR points each and every month (or SPG points for that matter) from my EDP, PRG or Platinum cards. That's pathetic that your cashback hasnt updated since January.

Even more pathetic is that the CSRs won't acknowledge that there's a problem, and Twitter reps will simply not give a timeframe for resolving this.

Glad your MR points are working well (though I'd note that all of them are AF-paying, not free cards like mine).

And that's another gripe of mine with AMEX. Their steadfast refusal to let me convert the BCE to the Everyday card.

How difficult can it be? For a multi-billion dollar company to write a few tweaks in their coding system. They're not even co-branded cards!

TBH, I think I'm beyond getting bothered by this on a day to day basis. This quarter, Freedom is serving me well; otherwise I have the Sallie Mae. I think my rant-antenna gets turned on the moment I step in here

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:43:24 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I see a lot of negative talk. What's wrong with it?

Apart from delays in posting (for some), some of the negativity you see here comes from people who have applied for MR cards (the charge cards, ED/EDP) and haven't fully understood the award system. The main point of them is to transfer to travel partners, and if you don't do this, they appear pretty worthless.

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 22:55:30 GMT

I have the AMEX Hilton and my points post monthly when my statement cuts. It is annoying because other lenders the points post as the transactions post to the account. But as the OP mentioned, as long as there isn't an urgent need for the points... it's no big deal

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 23:11:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I am not aware of any delays yet. I met my target bonus on my Platinum card last week ( only one statement cut) and all my points are posted)

142,981
Available Points

It can vary. I hit my spending on my new Platinum 6 weeks ago. Second statement closed today and my balance is paid in full and points are still pending. Chatted with a rep today and they say anyday now... Might have to due with this being my first MR card and not having an existing MR account.
Points on my co-branded AmEx cards post when statement closes, no issues there.

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 23:37:19 GMT

Very interesting. Bonuses showing up fast is important. For regular rewards I could live with a month delay since knowing about it beforehand as long as their was an actual schedule involved. But many months going by with things unresolved is out of hand and suggests poor organization.

So, many of you guys say the point system is ok, but the cash back system is what's broken? I will take the Blue Cash Preferred off my list if that is the case.

Re: Amex Point System

RonM21 — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 04:20:05 GMT

Unfortunately, there seems to have been a lot of recent complaints about this issue and the timeliness off them awarding the cash back, etc. I've seen some say that it gets figured out sometimes at end of cycles, but apparently this isn't always the case.

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 05:36:33 GMT

Same here, no problems with getting my points. They have offered my DH some business card with a bunch of points with an initial 3 month spend of 10k. He doesn't want another hp since I asked him to get the Plat Amex last month for the 100k points.

Re: Amex Point System

takeshi74 — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:19:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I see a lot of negative talk. What's wrong with it?

You can find all sorts of talk on any topic. Do your research and determine if it suits you. Many complaining didn't do their due diligence before applying like they should have. Always consider the source(s).

@Anonymous wrote:
So, many of you guys say the point system is ok, but the cash back system is what's broken? I will take the Blue Cash Preferred off my list if that is the case.

My wife & I haven't had problems with our BCP's but we haven't used it in a while since all our spend has been going to bonus chasing. So if there have been issues in the past few months I probably haven't noticed them.

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:35:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

So, many of you guys say the point system is ok, but the cash back system is what's broken? I will take the Blue Cash Preferred off my list if that is the case.

I saw the same things, and had to research it. What seemed to be the largest complaint is that unlike a lot of programs that will award points with the next statement, Amex posts the points the second statement after you've "earned" them.

So, in May, you spend $1,000 in groceries. With a lot of cards you get the 60 points on the next statement. As far as I can figure, on the BCP the points awarded are contingent upon that statement being paid on time, so they hold the points until the NEXT statement, and award them based on confirmation of the payment for the charges in May.

From the cardmember agreement:

"You will not earn reward dollars for eligible purchases posted to your Card Account during a billing period if the Minimum Payment Due shown on the statement for that billing period is not paid by the Closing Date of the next billing period"

I think this is a large part of where the dissatisfaction comes in. I should have my card soon, so I will be able to check this in a few months.

Re: Amex Point System

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:44:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

So, many of you guys say the point system is ok, but the cash back system is what's broken? I will take the Blue Cash Preferred off my list if that is the case.

I saw the same things, and had to research it. What seemed to be the largest complaint is that unlike a lot of programs that will award points with the next statement, Amex posts the points the second statement after you've "earned" them.

So, in May, you spend $1,000 in groceries. With a lot of cards you get the 60 points on the next statement. As far as I can figure, on the BCP the points awarded are contingent upon that statement being paid on time, so they hold the points until the NEXT statement, and award them based on confirmation of the payment for the charges in May.

From the cardmember agreement:
"You will not earn reward dollars for eligible purchases posted to your Card Account during a billing period if the Minimum Payment Due shown on the statement for that billing period is not paid by the Closing Date of the next billing period"

I think this is a large part of where the dissatisfaction comes in. I should have my card soon, so I will be able to check this in a few months.

The delay has always been an issue for new card holders ("Where are my points!") and as you post, that is part of the agreement, but much of the recent dissatisfaction comes from much longer delays, and rewards never posting until you call several times (and sometimes not then). Seems more of an issue on cashback, but if there are systemic issues, it could occur elsewhere as well