10,000 bonus points per 20 transactions

[lovetravellingoz]

I have been POCED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lost all my earned bonus points

I have 1 x Platinum charge cards with 4 supplimentary cards along with 3 x business cards and 4 x Platinum Credit Cards (used when I can't pay off the whole blance of the charge card)

I am not sure if you just had one card signed up, or all.

However a few possibilities why points may have been deducted:

*Multiple bonus program enrolement.

*That no where in the original or "current" T&C does it state whether "supplementary" cards will have points accrue to a primary card for the purpose of this bonus (yes normal MR points would...). Indeed it refers to a card...rather than a MR account earning the bonus. So Amex could quite legitimately restrict it just the one card and not award bonus points to any linked cards.

The postcard offer was to reward spending on your card. It does not say cards... it does not say account...it says card. ..indeed it states "your card". Again I am no lawyer, but those threatening legal action whith mulitiple cards registered might find that this will be the cause of some of their being throttled back.

Now post Sep 20 this also appeared.

Can I enrol in the promotion more than once?
No, only one registration is permitted per eligible Cardmember.

however Amex has not defined what an enrolement is... Is it a Card...or an MR Account? Are Supllementary cards included or not? Some are assuing that they are...but they may not be.

*Original T&C clearly stated that Corporate Cards were not eligible. Therefore if any of your crads are corporate then Amex may delist them from the bonus. Another possibilty is defining corporate as Amex might argue that cards used for corporate purposes are not eligible (though I do not know if they would...or could).

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I'd like to speculate, so stop reading if you are only looking for facts.

"We will be reviewing all Cardmembers who registered multiple times and limiting their enrolment to the original offer, or the offer they would have been eligible for had they been invited to participate." This was from Luisa.

.

The "new" T&C state:

Can I enrol in the promotion more than once?
No, only one registration is permitted per eligible Cardmember.

American Express will be tracking instances of multiple enrolments and for those cases identified your Membership Rewards account will be amended to reflect one enrolment.

 

[nlagalle]

Well, consider how many cardholders are probably in this promo and think of how few Amex staff there probably are - and I'll bet that some, if not alot, of their work to check this is manually based. so it will take them a while to check and contact those affected.

So you're Platinum - so am I (not that it matters) and I'll bet so are quite a few here and we all spend a lot through Amex...so WHAT??? Give them a chance to explain what they have done. People need to get off their self-appointed status-induced high horses round here ... and that comment is not specially targeted at you, nlagalle. You have some kudos from prior efforts...

Lindsay, I understand that there may be 1,000's of people affected by this, but..

No one who has been promised a call back so far. I'll find out in 6 hours if there 24 hour call back is real or not. There Customer service has been appalling.

If this "POC'ing" is done manually, why not call after it is done? If you were someone who was not on a forum such as this, how would you know what was going on? (mind you we don't know either). why not send a letter out sometime in the last 2 weeks? Heck it took them 2 weeks to post something online!

I'm not on a high horse about having a plat card and "i'm special", but, they offer it as a premium service and you pay for it too, and thus far have not received it.

Also after my conversation with the MR team leader, who said he was at the meeting regarding points removal and caps etc, said the marketing department didn't give a cough about customer backlash as they (the Marketing department) didn't have to deal with the customer. The marketing department asre basically trying to save their collective butts.

I think you have to agree AMEX's handling of this has been a PR disaster.

 

[oz_mark]

Strategicaly her message while good for us....was very poor from actually protecting Amexe's interests. I would imagine that she would have had her but kicked severely over it's content.

At the time of her posting it she obviously had no undertstanding of what the real flaw in the promo was...and instead thought it was just that extra non-targetted people were getting in.

I am not so sure it was a bad thing, and certainly they appear to have done the things that were mentioned in that post (restricting people to one promo - which seems to be what the POC is about, and flagging that they will be looking for abuse). in here position she would have been putting forward the American Express position at that point in time, and I don't see that they have acted otherwise.

I am also a little disappointed that we have not had any thing new from Amex, I am not surprised that they are wary of dipping their toes in these waters here. Even some sort of lurker like Starwood has on FT would be good, where they can take up issues and respond but I dare say such a person would have had to be treading very carefully through this thread.!

On the plus side they did update their FAQ's to clarify a few of the things that had been brought up and questioned on the board. Good thing, cause they have obviously been swamped with callers. As has beenn mentioned before, the lessons learned document will make interesting reading after this is over!

Anyhoo, its the weekend and I have got transactions to accumulate

 

[Masonic Phantom]

We appear to be in the same situation.


OK. This is same for me but Amex only removed 5,000 MR points of the 10,000 MR points I had earned to that stage.

To me this would suggest that we are indeed signed up for the 5t/5,000 MR points promotion. Capped/uncapped I have no idea. I am tempted not to call and just wait to see what will happen.

Is anyone else a little dissapointed that Luisa has not liaised with us further in this thread via admin?

Yes JohnK,
I am very disapointed and confused about this whole AMEX Promo:shock:, first I have 15000 points, then I dont!!!. perhaps Luisa you
could "PLEASE EXPLAIN" on this thread to all of US.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

If this "POC'ing" is done manually, why not call after it is done? .

Maybe they will.

But maybe they want to gather facts and review everyone prior to such contact.

After all they initially made many many mistakes...so maybe now they want to act in a more considered manner.

I think you have to agree AMEX's handling of this has been a PR disaster.

Indeed.

Firstly they made a mistake in their offer. It was clearly too generous. How this every got through is stunning...and their must be some hugely embarressed people at Amex for the lack of review and justification.

Secondly they exectured so poorly it is amazing (ack of tight T&C, allowing multiple enrolements, allowing no targetted enrolements etc). Certainly their other promotions were normally done with far more extensive T&C and better execution.

Thirdly on discovering they had a problem they acted slowly. At first they did not even realise the problem was not so much the extra enrolements, but rather that the size of the bonus was actually too large. I guess this is in some ways not surprisng as the problem probably went make to the people who executed the promotion who had no idea of their mistakes.

I can imagine the ashen faces when someone at Amex suddenly realised that the 1000 (or 500) points per transaction bonus probably was really meant to have only been 100 or 10!!!!!!!!!!!!

This however seemed to just initial panicked reaction at Amex!!!

Fourthly..they continue to be fragmented and haphazard in their responses. Not giving their CSR's a standrd script to use now is quite amazing.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I am not so sure it was a bad thing, and certainly they appear to have done the things that were mentioned in that post (restricting people to one promo - which seems to be what the POC is about, and flagging that they will be looking for abuse). in here position she would have been putting forward the American Express position at that point in time, and I don't see that they have acted otherwise.

I agree that some message was good..and the bits you mentioned were fine.

However the tactical mistake Luisa made was rubber stamping the original no limit promotion and in saying that it was legitimate. I think this is why their is now pre Sep 20 group. This was her mistake as she obviously did not appreciate that this is in fact where Amex had really stuffed up.

From an Amex perspective she at that time should not have categorically stated that non-targeted people would still be accepted if they had registered already. This was clearly unwise. Much better for her to have just stated that their enrollment validity would be reviewed (ie not a no or a yes!!!). In short she blundered badly in this.

 

[oz_mark]

I agree that some message was good..and the bits you mentioned were fine.

However the tactical mistake Luisa made was rubber stamping the original no limit promotion and in saying that it was legitmate. I think this is why their is now pre Sep 20 group. This was her mistake as she obviously did not appreaciate that this is in fct where Amex had really stuffed up.

From an Amex perspective she at that time should not have categorically stated that non-targetted people would still be accepted if they had registered already. This was clearly unwise. Much better for her to have just stated that their enrolement validity would be reviewed (ie not a no or a yes!!!). In short she blundered bady in this.

Fair point, but what we don't know is whether she was acting alone, or was more relaying the outcome of 'crisis meetings' within Amex. I suspect the latter.

 

[snufl]

However the tactical mistake Luisa made was rubber stamping the original no limit promotion and in saying that it was legitmate. I think this is why their is now pre Sep 20 group. This was her mistake as she obviously did not appreaciate that this is in fct where Amex had really stuffed up.
...In short she blundered bady in this.

Surely Luisa was only acting as a spokesperson for Amex. I sincerely doubt she was doing anything more than relaying the Amex position at that time and this would have been approved and given to her by the "powers that be". My opinion is any mistakes made, were made by Amex, not Luisa.

 

[Platcard]

Hi,

Refering to a post made by someone stating that they make about 100 transactions per week, I am wandering how many transactions other ppl are doing? Im on the 5T/5K promo and I recieved a card in the mail.

I'll start:evil:: I have done 62 transactions since 16th September when I signed online (All Legitimate every day transactions) I have no reason to believe AMEX will dishonour any of them as they have told me on the phone they wont.

Thanks!!

 

[Hubbins]

It would OK if the Lawyer accepted AMEX

 

[aussiejohn]

Just out of curiosity and apologies for being off topic, but is this the biggest thread that the forum has had? 230 pages is quite staggering!

Admire the people who can rack up 100 transactions a week, I will struggle to do my 20 for the month, though I have planned out some shopping that should get me there in the end. At least Christmas is coming! I will spread the extra shopping out over the 3 months. Will help the household budget planning as well

 

[PaulZ]

I signed up for all three offers... the 20t/10k on 16/9, and 10t/5k on 17/9 and 5t/5k on 17/9... (also confirmed the other two had been removed and the 5/5 remained via phone on the 17th)

Have been told by 2 AMEX CSR's in the specialized MR department handling this promotion that:

As I was never targeted, and having signed up for multiple promotions... all people in this boat will be placed on the 10 transactions / 5000 bonus points tier... uncapped... (Provided they are pre20th)

Not very happy... but neither CSR seemed to want to budge... and both mentioned the fact that because I was never targeted they did have the option of removing all points and un-enrolling in the promotion, but decided that the mid-tier would be most fair!!

Perhaps it is best to speak to a team leader? Maybe once the bonus points recommence posting?

 

[wiz]

If this "POC'ing" is done manually, why not call after it is done? If you were someone who was not on a forum such as this, how would you know what was going on? (mind you we don't know either). why not send a letter out sometime in the last 2 weeks? Heck it took them 2 weeks to post something online!

If you were not on this forum, you would probably not be aware of the multiple promotions running, and therefore would not have been POC'ed in the first place.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Surely Luisa was only acting as a spokesperson for Amex. I sincerely doubt she was doing anything more than relaying the Amex position at that time and this would have been approved and given to her by the "powers that be". My opinion is any mistakes made, were made by Amex, not Luisa.

Why surely??

Personally I like many others knew on first reading the offer that it was "too good to be true".

Indeed I read and re-read the offer looking for the catch. There was none!!!

This offer was so obviously too generous that I continued to be stunned that Amex released it.

Luisa may not have been part of the offers development.....but she obviously did not have the "common sense" to realise that the offer was flawed.

The Nuremberg defence of saying she was only doing what she was told does not hold water.

She has it would seem a senior position...and with common sense alone should have realised that the offer did not add up.

Equally with a bit of common sense she could have issued a release to cut the "rorting" out....while seeking clarification on the bonus size.
IMO she did not comprehend that the bonus offer was actually "too good to be true"....and so hence endorsed it.

And if you doubt that the offer was in fact not too good to be true...then ask yourself why Amex no longer will allow people it sent postcards to to register for the no limit promotion.

It is not IMO as the Amex spin says because others got in so much, but is rather because the bonus was too generous to keep offering once it was realised that it was too generous.

If anyone actually takes Amex to Court then the discovery of internal communications at Amex pre- and post- promotion would make fascinating reading IMO.

 

[thegurio]

I signed up for all three offers... the 20t/10k on 16/9, and 10t/5k on 17/9 and 5t/5k on 17/9... (also confirmed the other two had been removed and the 5/5 remained via phone on the 17th)

I did exactly the same almost with the exception that i rung up on the 19th to make sure that im on the 5/5k.

Have been told by 2 AMEX CSR's in the specialized MR department handling this promotion that:

As I was never targeted, and having signed up for multiple promotions... all people in this boat will be placed on the 10 transactions / 5000 bonus points tier... uncapped... (Provided they are pre20th)

Not very happy... but neither CSR seemed to want to budge... and both mentioned the fact that because I was never targeted they did have the option of removing all points and un-enrolling in the promotion, but decided that the mid-tier would be most fair!!

Perhaps it is best to speak to a team leader? Maybe once the bonus points recommence posting?

That is about what i expect has happened to my account, and they have subtracted the extra points. A phone call would be nice :evil:. If i ran my business the way these guys do no one would use me...

I had 29 transactions from the 17th (when i enrolled) till the 30th. I got given 20k bonus points and they took away 15k. Which leaves me with 5k bonus when it should be 10k (20 transactions X 10t/5k) - what gives there?

What about those that werent impatient and only signed up for th 5/5k? Was there anyone that wasnt targetted that did this? What waas the outcome there?

 

[lovetravellingoz]

... uncapped... (Provided they are pre20th)

Irrespective what offer one ends up on...if Amex do in fact honour the "uncapped" part then everyone will end up with a goodly earn...

 

[gibspmuh]

I had 29 transactions from the 17th (when i enrolled) till the 30th. I got given 20k bonus points and they took away 15k. Which leaves me with 5k bonus when it should be 10k (20 transactions X 10t/5k) - what gives there?

They only gave bonus points out until the 24th of September or so. From the sounds of it, if you got 20k, then it would have been 5k x 3 for the 5T/5k promo and 5k x 1 for the 10T/5k promo - making sense that it would have been 15k they took away. Not that it's exactly fair or well communicated, but at least there's a logic to the maths. Did you receive a POC comment in your transactions at all?

 

[wiz]

What about those that werent impatient and only signed up for th 5/5k? Was there anyone that wasnt targetted that did this? What waas the outcome there?

I can confirm that I signed up to the MYREWARD (5t/5k) promo only (i.e. no multiple registrations). I have not been POC'ed and have not had any bonus points removed.

 

[straitman]

It would OK if the Lawyer accepted AMEX

Not even remotely funny :!: :evil: