topic AMEX Pay Over Time Offer? in Credit Cards

AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

Gunnerboy — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 22:53:50 GMT

I have no use for the Pay Over Time feature, thus I never activated it. After reading threads discussing points offers for merely activating POT, I'm feeling regret for ignoring my offer to do so in 2018 when my Gold Card was new. I think I remember seeing my POT offer on my first two statements, then it went away. No offer since.

When do you suppose AMEX will get around to making me another POT offer (if ever)?

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

K-in-Boston — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 23:07:42 GMT

My understanding is that they have discontinued offers of incentives for enrolling in POT going forward. I was always jealous of those since they just added the feature to my cards about 16 or 17 years ago and I didn't get my free points. 😂

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

Gunnerboy — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 23:21:16 GMT

Thank K!!

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

NRB525 — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 19:46:09 GMT

Well, I am pleasantly shocked today. I transitioned my Green card to the Plan It feature when it was made available last year, and wrote off any Pay Over Time functionality. Got an offer today on my Green card to activate Pay Over Time ( formerly Pay Over Time Direct ) on the card, for 20,000 MR points.

Easiest 20k MR I've ever gotten. I'll use the card a bit going forward, just to see how things work out, and look for my 20k boost in the next few weeks.

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

MrDisco99 — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 19:55:00 GMT

Yeah I activated POT Direct on my Gold when they sent me an offer for 10K points a couple years ago. I only did it for the points, and I've never used it.

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

K-in-Boston — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 20:27:12 GMT

20,000 MRs?!? That's $400 minimum in airfare for me. I did confirm it was 16 years ago that I was automatically enrolled in POT from my screenshot a few years ago showing January 2005 (the other two dates are when those types of POT were introduced). IIRC when it was originally added it was called "Select and Pay Later" (and later renamed to Pay Over Time Select).

Since I don't use POT anymore (used the heck out of it before finding these forums, though), I wonder if it might be worth unenrolling myself on Platinum (personal) and Gold to see if they make me an offer to enroll? I was hoping for an offer on Business Platinum, but they automatically enrolled me (and I believe anyone else who was not already enrolled) last year.

There was an announcement (rumor perhaps?) last year that they were discontinuing incentives for enrolling in POT, presumably due to some widespread abuse that was taking place with repeated enroll/unenroll cycles. It's good to see that they are back (or never really went away).

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

MrDisco99 — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 20:29:15 GMT

That just reminded me... they automatically enrolled me into POT Select a few months after I got the card without asking and with no bonus. It was a couple years after that I got the 10K offer to enroll in POT Direct.

Also, my POT Select limit was $10K and when they offered me POT Direct it went up to $30K.

So yeah it seems like they are (or were) separate programs with different possibilities for enrollment bonus.

Is POT Select even a thing anymore? Didn't they just get rid of it?

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

K-in-Boston — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 20:45:02 GMT

I recall when Pay Over Time Travel was introduced in 2017 that some members were reporting that their POT limit either decreased or increased once doing so. Mine was set to $35k on both cards in 2005 and never changed even when new versions were introduced. As you can see from my above screenshot, from 2017 until fairly recently there were three different types of POT being offered concurrently. Select was when you manually added charges of $100 or more to the POT balance, Direct automatically did that (and in effect made Select completely pointless), and then Travel automatically put all travel charges regardless of amount in the POT balance.

They do have these statements in the FAQ:

Can I still use Pay Over Time Select?

If you have questions on Pay Over Time Select, please call the number on the back of your Card for assistance.

Can I still use Pay Over Time Direct?

Pay Over Time is the new name for Pay Over Time Direct. When set to Active, just make purchases like you normally do and eligible charges will be automatically added to your Pay Over Time balance.

No idea on Pay Over Time Travel.

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

NRB525 — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 21:17:11 GMT

In the revamp last year, the Pay Over Time Select went away, replaced by Plan It on Charge cards. I made sure my cards were set to Pay Over Time Select, so that they defaulted over to Plan It as that became available on each of the cards. So as of recently, all my Platinum, Gold and Green cards were in Plan It.

Pay Over Time Direct switched in the same time frame, to plain Pay Over Time. So if one is in Pay Over Time now, the functionality puts all eligible charges in Pay Over Time, and then it is up to the cardholder to either pay the full balance, or leave some of the items in Pay Over Time. If you pay the entire balance by the due date, then even though an item was placed in Pay Over Time, it would not incur any interest cost.

The Plan It function I haven't tried on any of my Chargers yet, but that requires some selection of the charges to go on Plan It, and a different fee structure, similar to Plan It on revolvers.

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

UncleB — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 03:12:11 GMT

I also missed out on the points for adding POT.

It was never offered to me in my original tenure with Amex back in the 90s. When it was offered in 2016 when I activated my Gold (now Green) I was so excited I accepted it without thinking about holding out for points.

I've never used it, and ironically just today I got the following promo offer:

I doubt I'll bother to activate it, but it's nice knowing I'm on the radar for an offer.

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

Gunnerboy — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 17:58:45 GMT

As soon as I logged into my account, this offer popped up. Don't recall seeing a pop-up like this. Problem is, as I was snipping this image, my session timed-out. Now, I'm waiting/hoping this offer appears again...

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

Gunnerboy — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 16:56:40 GMT

Just activated it. The link showed up on the homepage. Yes!

Re: AMEX Pay Over Time Offer?

red259 — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 05:36:32 GMT

I have gotten points for signing up for POT in the past. There has been some talk that if someone activates POT on the green card or something that then amex counts that card towards the overall amex revolver limit instead of considering it a charge card like they should. Not sure that is the case , but something to look into if you are near the revolver limit with Amex. Also, on a new amex gold card I got recently I noticed that their default is that POT is activated. I went into my account and turned it off, since I do not use it . Whether or not they will make me an offer to turn it back on in the future remains to be seen.