After 15 years using Amex as my primary card product, today I closed my Plat Charge and Plat Credit Cards, generally as a result of the recent changes, but also due to a general degradation of card performance over that period.
The key reasons were:
- Changes to insurance and the changes to points earnings - I had found the insurance very useful in past years
- My spend used to be approx 80% Amex / 20% Visa - over the past year this has been gradually morphing to 50/50, although I still was using Amex wherever possible. I won't compromise product quality just to use Amex, and many retailers I prefer have eliminated or surcharged their Amex acceptance.
- The time available to pay the AMEX card used to be up until the next bill was made up (until 2011), when the Charge Card Ts&Cs changed to impose liquidated damages after 14 days - making cheaper AMEX credit cards and other credit card products more attractive in terms of payment days than this premium product. A small but annoying change.
- Customer service is sporadic with Amex - the business directory online is often inacccurate, and when I have suggested new merchants via this facility, responses in some cases have been received 2-1/2 years after the submission was made. A recent call to Amex resulted in me being told to perform the account change online rather than using the call centre, which I thought was hardly "Platinum service".
I have kept an Amex QF Discovery card open to keep the relationship open with Amex, however don't forsee it getting a lot of use. The staff when I closed the account were very friendly and helpful, suggesting the green charge card as a replacement, however, given the acceptance issue above, I didn't value it at $80/year.
My spend is now with Citibusiness Gold, have been with Citi for a few months and have been very satisfied so far.
Matt