Reduced AMEX earn rates from April 2019

[N860CR]

Also getting an error when trying to transfer to SQ. Looks like they’ve added “new” partner links at the new rates and I’m getting the error at the point of transfer that “partner by that name cannot be found”.

 

[Doctore1003]

Also getting an error when trying to transfer to SQ. Looks like they’ve added “new” partner links at the new rates and I’m getting the error at the point of transfer that “partner by that name cannot be found”.

Yeah I just had the same problem. Used the online chat to do the transfer.

 

[samopp]

Same problem here. Called to transfer manually

 

[N860CR]

It’s a pain... makes it a bit more time consuming for last minute transfers.

 

[JinbaIttai]

Chrome gave a Page Not Found error for all airline programmes I tried to transfer out to -- screenshot attached.

The process works fine in Firefox and I was able to transfer out a final 500,000 to Krisflyer

Thanks for this - in Chrome I kept getting a message that Amex was "momentarily experiencing technical difficulties" when trying to access the Member Rewards site. Many hours later I thought Amex had a strange definition of "momentarily"

After seeing your post I tried Firefox and had no problems.

 

[Pointy Bird]

I have been trying desperately to get my points doubled and lodged a complaint with Amex. This is their response - a long way to say " No".

Dear "Pointy Bird"

We refer to your recent telephone conversation concerning the forthcoming changes with the Membership Rewards Program on your American Express Explorer Credit Card and American Express Platinum Edge Credit Card Account. Your matter has been forwarded to the Executive Customer Relations Team.

Firstly, we would like to thank you for the feedback regarding our services. All feedback is welcomed as we are continually seeking to identify areas of improvement within our Company and with Customer feedback as an integral means through which we can achieve this.

Regarding the forthcoming changes to the Membership Rewards Program which take effect on the 15 April 2019. We acknowledge and appreciate that you have been accumulating your Membership Rewards Points and you are not presently in a position to utilise the entire accumulated balance. However by using the card you have agreed to the American Express Credit Card Terms and Conditions specifically:

“Section 4b

– 90 days prior notice for changes to the Points earn rate or conversion rates”

In this instance, we have provided our Card Members with 5 months’ notice in order to ensure that enough time is provided for an informed decision to be made on the use of points. Upon review of your account we are unable to offer additional points to your Account. From time to time we may offer different bonus points to our Card Members. These are based on eligibility criteria including, but not limit to, a number of factors such as Card Type, Tenure, Spend and Repayment History and Spending Patterns etc.

We acknowledge and appreciate your membership with us over the past 2 years. The Annual Membership Fee of $395.00 is due to be applied to your American Express Explorer Credit Card Account on the 30 December 2019. The Annual Membership Fee of $195.00 is due to be applied to your American Express Platinum Edge Credit Card Account on the 21 October 2019. If you do not agree with the upcoming Membership Rewards Changes and decide to change your card type to a fee free card, or cancel your account prior to 21 October 2019 and the 30 December 2019 please contact us on the number on the back of your card.

... we trust the above clarifies our position on the matter. We thank you for your feedback and regret any unintended dissatisfaction caused. We want you to know that if you have any new information you would like us to consider, or you are unhappy with our position, we would be happy to keep working with you. However, in the event that that we can’t resolve this issue together, we need to tell you about the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) of which we are a member. AFCA offers an external dispute resolution service which is free to use. AFCA will ask if you have tried to resolve the issue with us first then they will review our actions to determine if we have fulfilled our obligations to you. If you need to contact AFCA, please contact them on 1800 931 678, through www.afca.org.au or at GPO Box 3, Melbourne, VIC, 3001.

Yours sincerely,

Amir T

Executive Customer Care

 

[SOPOOR]

I have been trying desperately to get my points doubled and lodged a complaint with Amex. This is their response - a long way to say " No".

Dear "Pointy Bird"

We refer to your recent telephone conversation concerning the forthcoming changes with the Membership Rewards Program on your American Express Explorer Credit Card and American Express Platinum Edge Credit Card Account. Your matter has been forwarded to the Executive Customer Relations Team.

Firstly, we would like to thank you for the feedback regarding our services. All feedback is welcomed as we are continually seeking to identify areas of improvement within our Company and with Customer feedback as an integral means through which we can achieve this.

Regarding the forthcoming changes to the Membership Rewards Program which take effect on the 15 April 2019. We acknowledge and appreciate that you have been accumulating your Membership Rewards Points and you are not presently in a position to utilise the entire accumulated balance. However by using the card you have agreed to the American Express Credit Card Terms and Conditions specifically:

“Section 4b

– 90 days prior notice for changes to the Points earn rate or conversion rates”

In this instance, we have provided our Card Members with 5 months’ notice in order to ensure that enough time is provided for an informed decision to be made on the use of points. Upon review of your account we are unable to offer additional points to your Account. From time to time we may offer different bonus points to our Card Members. These are based on eligibility criteria including, but not limit to, a number of factors such as Card Type, Tenure, Spend and Repayment History and Spending Patterns etc.

We acknowledge and appreciate your membership with us over the past 2 years. The Annual Membership Fee of $395.00 is due to be applied to your American Express Explorer Credit Card Account on the 30 December 2019. The Annual Membership Fee of $195.00 is due to be applied to your American Express Platinum Edge Credit Card Account on the 21 October 2019. If you do not agree with the upcoming Membership Rewards Changes and decide to change your card type to a fee free card, or cancel your account prior to 21 October 2019 and the 30 December 2019 please contact us on the number on the back of your card.

... we trust the above clarifies our position on the matter. We thank you for your feedback and regret any unintended dissatisfaction caused. We want you to know that if you have any new information you would like us to consider, or you are unhappy with our position, we would be happy to keep working with you. However, in the event that that we can’t resolve this issue together, we need to tell you about the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) of which we are a member. AFCA offers an external dispute resolution service which is free to use. AFCA will ask if you have tried to resolve the issue with us first then they will review our actions to determine if we have fulfilled our obligations to you. If you need to contact AFCA, please contact them on 1800 931 678, through www.afca.org.au or at GPO Box 3, Melbourne, VIC, 3001.

Yours sincerely,

Amir T

Executive Customer Care

At least you got a super long reply.

I got a 5 second NO

Followed by, How about one of our other super credit cards?

 

[daft009]

Your centurion RM couldn't pull any strings either?

 

[Chicken]

I have been trying desperately to get my points doubled and lodged a complaint with Amex.

I have to say that you have done well with the fact that you got a complain opened in the first place.

I called this afternoon. My called was answer, then I said I was calling regarding this weekend, then the operator just said "what would you like me to do?". I explained that my points would be cut in half this weekend, then she went back to 'yeah, that's why we gave you notice, so what do you want me to do?" I eventually asked if there is anything she could do, like give me some extra points to buffer the pain. She didn't even ID check me, just said "no, we have you plenty of notice, my advice to you is you should transfer your points out now".

I also brought up a side issue, about new positive credit reporting, and some customers may want a charge card instead of credit card, in order to avoid having a credit limit in their credit file, and there is only 1 charge card available for sale which is the platinum charge. My gold charge earn less than Reserve. She just went 'meah, that's the products we have'. I said maybe this could be logged as a product feedback, she went "OK", but said it in a way to get rid of me.

Feels like they were prepared to field the incoming calls, and just to 'get thru the call queue'.

 

[Pointy Bird]

Your centurion RM couldn't pull any strings either?

The main reason I got the Centurion was that I thought it would improve my chances of point doubling. No good - the RM went to "the top" and still a (polite) no.
One advantage is that I can now also transfer to Qantas and these points can last forever. I think I will end up with 8m Krisflyer points and 4m Qantas points later tonight. Qantas are less valuable to me, but useful for Japan and USA flights which I use less frequently.

Although my Centurion experiment has failed, I knew this may occur and decided to try the card for a year given the slightly higher point earning rate and supposedly better service - we will see... It costs me $2600 pa after the tax deduction and the extra points it will deliver will pay for this.

 

[cove]

Kris Miles are way more useful than Qantas points but if you are ok with Qantas partners you can get flights most of the time. The 3 years plus one expiry on Kris Miles needs to be considered. Apparently if you start buying tickets PPS status with Singapore Airlines May prevent miles expiring.

 

[Saltywings]

The main reason I got the Centurion was that I thought it would improve my chances of point doubling. No good - the RM went to "the top" and still a (polite) no.
One advantage is that I can now also transfer to Qantas and these points can last forever. I think I will end up with 8m Krisflyer points and 4m Qantas points later tonight. Qantas are less valuable to me, but useful for Japan and USA flights which I use less frequently.

Although my Centurion experiment has failed, I knew this may occur and decided to try the card for a year given the slightly higher point earning rate and supposedly better service - we will see... It costs me $2600 pa after the tax deduction and the extra points it will deliver will pay for this.

Damn, that sucks! To go through all that just to get such a reply. Hope you get some value out of the cent at least.

 

[Happy Dude]

KF has near unlimited availability.
Like I said - it's currently the #1 program for redemption in the world by leaps and bounds.

We all so want this to be true but, like I said, there's a lot piranhas about to enter the water. That has to affect availability. Even then, it'll still be better than CX and most others. Probably.

 

[potm]

Kris Miles are way more useful than Qantas points but if you are ok with Qantas partners you can get flights most of the time. The 3 years plus one expiry on Kris Miles needs to be considered. Apparently if you start buying tickets PPS status with Singapore Airlines May prevent miles expiring.

It’s official policy that a PPS member’s krisflyer miles do not expire.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Planning to do my transfer tomorrow or Friday. Goodbye American Express...(once I find a use for my travel credit, that is...).

Will be interesting to see the effect on redemptions on KF in terms of availability. I think the concern noted above is probably with reason.

 

[SOPOOR]

managed to put another 8K through today as a last hurrah

hopefully it will clear in time and I can transfer out making my balance zero

I'm going to be a bit sad

 

[woomp001]

Hi all,

After 15 years with AMEX, all of my working life, tomorrow I am cancelling my cards.

I have an Edge and Reserve, and I put thro well over 500k a year, in legit purchases, and up to today, had over 3M points.

I know that some do a lot more than that, but the reality is that if we considered AMEX Australia's 3-4 odd million cardholders, I would be right up at the very pointy end of the distribution...

In fact I think I read somewhere that the biggest account in QFF had 36M points..

Either way, clearly I'm not a raging beast, but I absolutely MUST be a valuable customer to them, and certainly the sort of customer that I would want to keep if I owned the business!

Despite all of the above, having called 4 times over the last month, and despite the above stats, they insisted every time that it was out of their hands, and that points protection was unavailable.

So even tho I spend over 25 times annually what the average AMEX card holder does, and would easily qualify for a Centurion, based on everything I've read, they couldn't do a thing for me, except retrospective half the value of my existing points balance.

No offers, except for the offer "that i still had until the 14th to transfer": yes, they actually said that.

I think an AMEX point was worth 2.0 cents all day.

So thanks AMEX for forcing me to transfer today, or they effectively would have flogged $30,000!!!

And 100% guaranteed some of those points will get stranded, or expire... Is it realistic to take 12 business class return fares AU to Europe over the next 3 years? Not really..

And I think it's easy to forget that those 3M points were not free... I incurred significant merchant surcharges acquiring those points.


It's a sad day.. AMEX have been a good company to work with for such a long time, and now they are stabbing good customers in the heart.


Good luck AMEX, I am taking my large and rapidly growing annual spend elsewhere, and you can jam it.

Mark

 

[LA10]

I only have about 25k membership rewards points with my AMEX explorer. I think the best thing is for me to transfer this to AM, rather than KF. AM, as this low amount seems to have more value with AM. Open to any suggestions.

 

[twiningb]

I also am seeing the issue of absent/dead links to airline transfers that others have reported. Is webchat the remedy?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I also am seeing the issue of absent/dead links to airline transfers that others have reported. Is webchat the remedy?

I have moved points over daily this week without issue. So seems random.