Reduced AMEX earn rates from April 2019

[MathNerd]

With the devaluation of points, do people have any suggestions on how to use 250,000 points or should I just continue to accumulate them?

If you keep the points in your account past the deval date (April 15), their value will literally halve overnight. They will then be worth 125,000 points only.
Best you transfer them over to your favourite airline's FF program (Velocity, Asia Miles, KrisFlyer, etc [Qantas may be possible depending on the card you have]). But whatever you do, don't leave the points sitting in the account.

 

[oobi doobi]

Living in Perth and travelling to Asia (Mainly Singapore) several times a year, I will be transferring my 430000 points to Krisflyer in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Draco]

Do Krisflyer points expire in 36 months as I'm not planning to travel this year?

 

[JohnK]

Do Krisflyer points expire in 36 months as I'm not planning to travel this year?

Yes the expire after 3 years. You can extend another 6 months at cost or if you have status you can extend for another 12 months.

 

[potm]

Yes the expire after 3 years. If you have status you can extend for another 6 months.

Base members can extend by 6 months at a cost. With status you can extend by 12 months. If you have PPS status Krisflyer points don’t expire.

 

[twiningb]

Unless I'm misreading the charts, the changes announced overnight for Thai Royal Orchid Plus are catastrophic for award redemptions from 1 October, so I wouldn't advise moving Amex points there unless you intend to redeem soon.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Do Krisflyer points expire in 36 months as I'm not planning to travel this year?

The key thing to plan for with Krisflyer is that points expire 3 years after they land in your account. So each point that lands has a time clock ticking on it.
Also as you can book almost a year out that gives you almost 4 years to actually fly. Some short extension for a fee is possible.


Unlike in QFF and Velocity where the life of the points gets extended by any points earning activity making them if you are prudent last indefinitely.

 

[gizzard]

I canned the Citi Signature, fee free for life is meaningless if you can't use the card for anything useful.

I like the Priority Pass and linked Diners for earning 2x points for free foreign spend. Also, they keep giving me bonus points, 3x for March. It's definitely a card I plan to keep even if I've never used the free wine offer.

 

[Pointy Bird]

Amex has so far refused to double my points even though I am one of their better customers. Have been using Explorer/Edge combo. If I do not get the doubling, am planning to transfer to KF but I will struggle to efficiently use my KF points prior to expiry within 4 years. The only way way to avoid point expiry is to get KF status - but that would require actually paying money for flying - something not may AFF readers are fond of...

In desperation, I decided to apply for a Centurion card, hoping that if this is granted, they may be kinder to me, even though I well and truly missed the cutoff date. About 2 weeks after asking Amex to consider giving me a Centurion - they formally offered me this Card.
I explained that I would only consider this if they doubled my points. 3 days later - a negative response! No point doubling, but instead, they will not charge me the $5k joining fee, "only" the usual $5k yearly fee (which I can make deductible).

I have read elsewhere that customers need to wait for an invitation for Centurion, but clearly, this is not accurate as I was only offered the card because I asked the question.

I have not decided whether to take up the Centurion offer. Although I am very disappointed that my current points will not be doubled (not much logic to this), Centurion will have the best earn rate although this is somewhat marginal versus the Platinum card. I have read mixed reports about the value of this card and many of the benefits they have listed for me, such as the access to a Relationship Manager ( ? largely a travel agent) are of little use to me - I have not had pay for an international flight for over 10 years.

 

[Saltywings]

Amex has so far refused to double my points even though I am one of their better customers. Have been using Explorer/Edge combo. If I do not get the doubling, am planning to transfer to KF but I will struggle to efficiently use my KF points prior to expiry within 4 years. The only way way to avoid point expiry is to get KF status - but that would require actually paying money for flying - something not may AFF readers are fond of...

In desperation, I decided to apply for a Centurion card, hoping that if this is granted, they may be kinder to me, even though I well and truly missed the cutoff date. About 2 weeks after asking Amex to consider giving me a Centurion - they formally offered me this Card.
I explained that I would only consider this if they doubled my points. 3 days later - a negative response! No point doubling, but instead, they will not charge me the $5k joining fee, "only" the usual $5k yearly fee (which I can make deductible).

I have read elsewhere that customers need to wait for an invitation for Centurion, but clearly, this is not accurate as I was only offered the card because I asked the question.

I have not decided whether to take up the Centurion offer. Although I am very disappointed that my current points will not be doubled (not much logic to this), Centurion will have the best earn rate although this is somewhat marginal versus the Platinum card. I have read mixed reports about the value of this card and many of the benefits they have listed for me, such as the access to a Relationship Manager ( ? largely a travel agent) are of little use to me - I have not had pay for an international flight for over 10 years.

We've seen on this forum that other people who have probably (to the best of my deductions) spent far less than you who have received points doublings. Plat Charge seems to increase the chances greatly. Extraneous factors such as years of loyalty, spend categories etc., don't seem to factor much. If I had to be coy about it, I think your chances are better the fewer points you have - it's far less expensive to Amex to double 100k vs 10m and is a relatively cheaper way to milk continued loyalty.

The Centurion can be requested - this AFR article specifically points this out. I tested this out and was granted the opportunity to apply for one, so it's 100% legit. I've also posted up a comprehensive list of AU Cent benefits over in the Centurion thread if you want to have a look. Personally, not even close to being worth it and thus I did not apply then.

I have applied for a PC to try a last ditch attempt at requesting a doubling. Fingers crossed.

 

[Steve Lim]

Amex has so far refused to double my points even though I am one of their better customers. Have been using Explorer/Edge combo. If I do not get the doubling, am planning to transfer to KF but I will struggle to efficiently use my KF points prior to expiry within 4 years. The only way way to avoid point expiry is to get KF status - but that would require actually paying money for flying - something not may AFF readers are fond of...

In desperation, I decided to apply for a Centurion card, hoping that if this is granted, they may be kinder to me, even though I well and truly missed the cutoff date. About 2 weeks after asking Amex to consider giving me a Centurion - they formally offered me this Card.
I explained that I would only consider this if they doubled my points. 3 days later - a negative response! No point doubling, but instead, they will not charge me the $5k joining fee, "only" the usual $5k yearly fee (which I can make deductible).

I have read elsewhere that customers need to wait for an invitation for Centurion, but clearly, this is not accurate as I was only offered the card because I asked the question.

I have not decided whether to take up the Centurion offer. Although I am very disappointed that my current points will not be doubled (not much logic to this), Centurion will have the best earn rate although this is somewhat marginal versus the Platinum card. I have read mixed reports about the value of this card and many of the benefits they have listed for me, such as the access to a Relationship Manager ( ? largely a travel agent) are of little use to me - I have not had pay for an international flight for over 10 years.

That’s strange - just opened the platinum charge in Jan in order to get the double points. They agreed after my request. I wouldn’t have known what to do with the ~2.5m points without the offer

 

[potm]

I’m in a similar position to both of you. Put through a large amount with the explorer and edge combo. Applied for the platinum charge in November when changes were announced and also unsuccessful it getting points doubling.
They probably have a look at what type of spending you are doing and how profitable a customer you are to them.

 

[Happy Dude]

Pointy Bird, if you take up the Centurion, could this 'relationship manager' not sort out a doubling of points for you? I dunno what the RM does exactly (those who claim to make extensive use of a RM tend to hold their cards close to their chest) but you could let on that the continuity of the relationship, and the retention of the $5k fee, was contingent on the points being doubled. Do so in no uncertain terms.

 

[MathNerd]

Amex has so far refused to double my points even though I am one of their better customers. Have been using Explorer/Edge combo. If I do not get the doubling, am planning to transfer to KF but I will struggle to efficiently use my KF points prior to expiry within 4 years. The only way way to avoid point expiry is to get KF status - but that would require actually paying money for flying - something not may AFF readers are fond of...

In desperation, I decided to apply for a Centurion card, hoping that if this is granted, they may be kinder to me, even though I well and truly missed the cutoff date. About 2 weeks after asking Amex to consider giving me a Centurion - they formally offered me this Card.
I explained that I would only consider this if they doubled my points. 3 days later - a negative response! No point doubling, but instead, they will not charge me the $5k joining fee, "only" the usual $5k yearly fee (which I can make deductible).

I have read elsewhere that customers need to wait for an invitation for Centurion, but clearly, this is not accurate as I was only offered the card because I asked the question.

I have not decided whether to take up the Centurion offer. Although I am very disappointed that my current points will not be doubled (not much logic to this), Centurion will have the best earn rate although this is somewhat marginal versus the Platinum card. I have read mixed reports about the value of this card and many of the benefits they have listed for me, such as the access to a Relationship Manager ( ? largely a travel agent) are of little use to me - I have not had pay for an international flight for over 10 years.

How many points are we talking about here? It must be significant enough that a doubling would really be required?

 

[daft009]

Amex has so far refused to double my points even though I am one of their better customers. Have been using Explorer/Edge combo. If I do not get the doubling, am planning to transfer to KF but I will struggle to efficiently use my KF points prior to expiry within 4 years. The only way way to avoid point expiry is to get KF status - but that would require actually paying money for flying - something not may AFF readers are fond of...

In desperation, I decided to apply for a Centurion card, hoping that if this is granted, they may be kinder to me, even though I well and truly missed the cutoff date. About 2 weeks after asking Amex to consider giving me a Centurion - they formally offered me this Card.
I explained that I would only consider this if they doubled my points. 3 days later - a negative response! No point doubling, but instead, they will not charge me the $5k joining fee, "only" the usual $5k yearly fee (which I can make deductible).

I have read elsewhere that customers need to wait for an invitation for Centurion, but clearly, this is not accurate as I was only offered the card because I asked the question.

I have not decided whether to take up the Centurion offer. Although I am very disappointed that my current points will not be doubled (not much logic to this), Centurion will have the best earn rate although this is somewhat marginal versus the Platinum card. I have read mixed reports about the value of this card and many of the benefits they have listed for me, such as the access to a Relationship Manager ( ? largely a travel agent) are of little use to me - I have not had pay for an international flight for over 10 years.

oh wow! really disappointing to hear
your points mostly earnt on the explorer via RP yeah?
did you get someone in SYD call centre?

 

[Saltywings]

How many points are we talking about here? It must be significant enough that a doubling would really be required?

Even with my balance (and Pointy Bird's got way more than me), I'd pay $5k to get them doubled if it also meant getting a Cent as icing. However, since they proved a Cent doesn't automatically = doubling, I won't be risking it.

 

[MathNerd]

Even with my balance (and Pointy Bird's got way more than me), I'd pay $5k to get them doubled if it also meant getting a Cent as icing. However, since they proved a Cent doesn't automatically = doubling, I won't be risking it.

Wow, these must be large enough balances that the non-expiry of them must be sacrosanct even with a $5k '''penalty" to keep them from expiring.
Well done on obtaining such a large balance, that's impressive!

 

[Saltywings]

Wow, these must be large enough balances that the non-expiry of them must be sacrosanct even with a $5k '''penalty" to keep them from expiring.
Well done on obtaining such a large balance, that's impressive!

It's mainly a matter of annual leave for me unfortunately. If I were retired I could definitely burn 4m KF in 3 years . Alas, that isn't always how life works!

 

[Happy Dude]

It's mainly a matter of annual leave for me unfortunately. If I were retired I could definitely burn 4m KF in 3 years . Alas, that isn't always how life works!

Unpaid leave? I need the travel experience more than I need a few weeks pay.

With that many points, you would be travelling largely for free so you could argue that you're breaking even.

 

[daft009]

How many points are we talking about here? It must be significant enough that a doubling would really be required?

he's in the 8 digits :O

Unpaid leave? I need the travel experience more than I need a few weeks pay.

With that many points, you would be travelling largely for free so you could argue that you're breaking even.

i think most of the guys here with large balances are self employed... so taking any leave is hard unpaid...forget about it