I'm trying to book a hotel using my MR points from my Everyday card. I've always had cash back cards before, and never done this, so I may be doing something wrong I guess, but I can't get it to work. AMEX chat couldn't come up with an answer either, they say that they can't see anything wrong on their end. They recommended that I just book the hotel, and reimburse myself with the points sometime in the future.
Everytime I try to book the hotel, it says something like "We apologize, the Membership rewards system is currently unavailable." It was doing this yesterday, so I thought it might just be website maintenance or something, so I tried today and got the same message.
Has anyone else experienced this message, and how did you resolve it? The message comes up right after I hit "book" on a specific hotel rate. It's not a pop up message, it's just part of the next webpage it takes me to where it shows me the price, and doesn't give me an option to use MR points, only to use my credit card. And at the top of the page, with a pink background, it says the "We apologize, the Membership rewards system is currently unavailable."
I've gone through my account page and clicked "redeem points" and then navigated to the hotel search. And I've also just gone right to the Amex travel site and tried it through there.
I've had that happen when booking flights in the past. I believe I just did it in an incognito window and it worked, so try that or another browser. Likely an issue somewhere with cookies and their site. The suggestion to reimburse yourself with the points was a bad one, though, as you'd only get 0.6 cents per MR for statement credit!
@K-in-Boston wrote:I've had that happen when booking flights in the past. I believe I just did it in an incognito window and it worked, so try that or another browser. Likely an issue somewhere with cookies and their site. The suggestion to reimburse yourself with the points was a bad one, though, as you'd only get 0.6 cents per MR for statement credit!
I tried incognito mode, I deleted the cookies and tried again, I tried using Internet Explorer instead of Chrome.. then I tried Safari on my iPad instead of using my computer. I get the message no matter what I do.
They did give me the option of having them book the travel for me, but I just didn't want to have to go through customer service everytime I wanted to book something. I wanted them to fix whatever was wrong so that I could do it myself.. but they can't seem to figure out what is wrong.
The bulk of my points are from a 10k sign up bonus. Do I have to wait a certain amount of time before I can actually use them? They are showing in my point balance since a statement ago I think?
I tried again today and got the same message. This time, support offered to start a co-browser where they could see what I was seeing when I tried to book. The CSR said that they didn't understand why it wasn't working since my points were showing in the upper right hand corner. They then looked at my account (I guess up to this point, they hadn't?) and stated that there were "conditions" on my account that prevented me from using the points, and that I would need to call the MR points number.
I called them, and they said the only thing that they could see was that my sign up bonus went in on December 5th, and it typically takes a month before you can use them. Although it's been a month, they recommended that I wait another week and try again. Or they again offered to just have me make the charge and they'd reimburse with points later. I'm not traveling until June, so I can just wait another week and try again if that's all the problem was.
If the points are showing in your balance, they're read to use. I'm sorry you're having so much difficulty with the site. That's really frustrating.
Edit: Sorry, I got interrupted when I started to reply and didn't see your last post. That would certainly explain it then, but I hadn't heard of this being an issue before. Possibly a new thing since they've been clamping down on award abuse so much?