ok so i just came off an interesting call with American Express. i've been in the process of linking my explorer from ascent to gateway. follwed up on this yesterday and they said they would process it no problem. Today i sign in to my online account and i can see that my explorer card is now linked to gateway. However my platinum edge card is now not linked to anything. it's like the point section is gone and there is no point history at all with that card. so i call amex again to see what happens.
I speak to a guy who sound a bit confused, and puts me on hold to investigate. When he comes back he says something about a system upgrade a few days ago that now is causing issues with de-linking and linking, and this could mean that i would have to have both cards in the ascent program. i insisted that i wanted the explorer card in the gateway program as that's the only way to earn the 100,000 signup bonus.
Then he tells me that unfortunately i'm not entitled to the signup bonus, and that amex just a few days ago fixed the loophole that allowed existing card members to 'game the system' and 'point hack' their way to the sign up bonus, despise already begin an existing card holder. He said my PE card would definitely be restored to Ascent and that i would not lose my points, but that the signup bonus was off the table.
He said i'll get a call back later today or tomorrow to confirm the outcome with my edge card. He also recommended that move the explorer card to gateway for a higher earn rate, which is a bit of a consolation, but i'm still quite frustrated about missing out on the 100K pbonuts oints
hopefully you'll guys have better luck