10,000 bonus points per 20 transactions

[kamchatsky]

It seems kind of amazing - they send you a letter, you agree, and then Amex AGAIN decide to delay, claiming they need to investigate the letter and need 30 more days!

This is bordering on the ridiculous. Right hand at Amex doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

Well good news is that all my points have been posted by Amex, with a letter from them apologising the problem with the points calculation. Whilst I think there is still about 15K missing it could be because I calculated the number of transactions incorrectly. So I would not chase them further.

Did you receive any correspondence from Amex earlier that you are indeed enrolled in MYREWARD program? Luckily we did and kept it, and scanned it. When they did not pay up then I actually sent that letter to Amex for them to fix up. I also called Membership Rewards to raise a case for investigation (and record the case number), the turn around is only 10 business days rather than 30 days.

I hope you will get all your points. Unfortunately big companies have problems where no one knows what other part of the company is doing.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Did you receive any correspondence from Amex earlier that you are indeed enrolled in MYREWARD program? Luckily we did and kept it, and scanned it. When they did not pay up then I actually sent that letter to Amex for them to fix up. I also called Membership Rewards to raise a case for investigation (and record the case number), the turn around is only 10 business days rather than 30 days.

I hope you will get all your points. Unfortunately big companies have problems where no one knows what other part of the company is doing.

I am not sure if the question is to me or to Beardoc?
But in my case.

• I was sent a postcard.
• I received a letter on October confirming my enrolment.
• I received a Dec letter querying my tx and requesting that I justify my spend. I the interim the letter also suspended me.
• I received a letter in Feb confirming that all my tx were valid and that I would be paid all bonus points that I had earnt...and that all points would be paid within 2-3 weeks (this has since passed).

So things would seem resolved except that the points have not posted.

 

[nlagalle]

well surprise surprise.. i spoke to the Plat services team and there is no record of my letter being received. even though it did arrive (thanks expres post tracking).

I was able to email it off and a manager is taking care of it. He said if i don't hear back next week to go to the BFSO....

 

[medhead]

well surprise surprise.. i spoke to the Plat services team and there is no record of my letter being received. even though it did arrive (thanks expres post tracking).

I was able to email it off and a manager is taking care of it. He said if i don't hear back next week to go to the BFSO....

Remembering back to my days of serving legal notices on people, we would only use registered post as proof of service. This required a signature by the addressee. Express post tracking wasn't good enough evidence of service.

But at least they acknowledged the letter and are acting on it, hopefully.

 

[beardoc]

FOS has now responded - they've asked Amex for a final response with "high level" customer service within 4 weeks. As Executive Relations customer service would not discuss the matter further (saying "it's out of our hands"), it will be interesting to see how they respond. I suspect that this might be going to arbitration by the FOS.

 

[nlagalle]

Remembering back to my days of serving legal notices on people, we would only use registered post as proof of service. This required a signature by the addressee. Express post tracking wasn't good enough evidence of service.

But at least they acknowledged the letter and are acting on it, hopefully.

Yes I contemplated sending it registered post, but couldn't get to the post office in time...

Ask me again in a week and see how/if they acted on it!

 

[beardoc]

Remembering back to my days of serving legal notices on people, we would only use registered post as proof of service. This required a signature by the addressee. Express post tracking wasn't good enough evidence of service.

But at least they acknowledged the letter and are acting on it, hopefully.

I think there are evidence of others that used registered post in this thread, and Amex still claim they didn't get the letter. Either their mail handling is atrocious, or they're trying to stall.

 

[NM]

I think there are evidence of others that used registered post in this thread, and Amex still claim they didn't get the letter. Either their mail handling is atrocious, or they're trying to stall.

I sent correspondence to Amex via registered Post with receipt confirmation returned to me. 4 weeks later I called and the agent had no record of Amex receiving my letter and asked me to fax it to her. Absolutely useless.

 

[oz_mark]

I sent correspondence to Amex via registered Post with receipt confirmation returned to me. 4 weeks later I called and the agent had no record of Amex receiving my letter and asked me to fax it to her. Absolutely useless.

I think there is enough evidence in this thread to suggest that Amex has a systemic issue in its handling of mail, given the number of registered letters they have lost.

 

[codash1099]

I think there is enough evidence in this thread to suggest that Amex has a systemic issue in its handling of mail, given the number of registered letters they have lost.

You're being too kind to them. I would prefer to be guided by their various antics and suggest it is just another delaying tactic.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Well Amex came good today...so persistence pays off

I just had my first batch of points post since Sept 24.

After losing some a bit later when the "Days of Poccing" were upon us.

Today another 2.4 million points appeared.

This now gives me roughly what I am owed though I have not checked exactly. So my "Points run" would apear to have paid off.

I will wait and see what happens over the next little bit before adding up my final total.

 

[futaris]

Congrats on getting all the points for your 2.5k+ transactions. I assume you were on the 5/5k or 10/10k. What was your average transaction value, and when/how often did you complain to Amex and/or FOS?

Incidentally, did you have any transactions that weren't valid according to Amex?

 

[Junji]

2.4?

Million?

Points?

Your forum salutes you!

 

[medhead]

I sent correspondence to Amex via registered Post with receipt confirmation returned to me. 4 weeks later I called and the agent had no record of Amex receiving my letter and asked me to fax it to her. Absolutely useless.

At least, if it comes to it, you have proof of the letter being recieved that will stand up from a legal POV.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Congrats on getting all the points for your 2.5k+ transactions.

Thank you.

I assume you were on the 5/5k or 10/10k.

I was postcarded with the 5k/5.

What was your average transaction value,

I have not worked it out yet. Some tx were about a grand though. I had quite a number of tx in the hundreds etc....However the majority were lowish simply because I had so many tx..

I took a very strategic approach to this and treated it as a Points Run....and it soon became obvious that I would run out of money unless I incorporated small tx as well as large.

I had various committed spend such as loan repayments etc....and did not want to waste money.
The point of a points run to me is gain points economically for redeeming on flights. This after-all is the only reason I have an Amex Maximiser Card in the first place...and why it is my preferred card for spending.

and when/how often did you complain to Amex and/or FOS?

1/ FOS..not at all as I never reached the stage of being in complete dispute..though technically Amex exceeded deadlines.

However as per FOS guidelines I contacted Amex first and sought a reply/determination.

2/ I rang Amex several times early on. But this was only seeking clarification and I was not complaining.
After I received the suspension letter I wrote a reply.
When Amex did not reply within their specified time period I re-faxed it and also re-mailed it.
Following this and no reply I then rang them to be advised that I would get a letter within a week.
This was good news informing me that I was unsuspended and that ALL points earn would be paid within 2-3 weeks.
When points not paid a few days after that period I rang again and was told that I would receive a letter within 5 days...which is about now.

Incidentally, did you have any transactions that weren't valid according to Amex?

Amex sent to me a form letter, that many received, suspending me while asking me to justify what (to them) may have looked like suspicious spend.

I justified all my multiple tx.

As the letter was just after Movember I think it may have been that of the "flag".

I sent them copies of the individual receipts showing that they were to individual Movember members rather than all to the one person.
Amex accepted my justification and reinstated them.

In my letter I also asked Amex to specifically nominate any suspicious (to them) tx so that I could exactly justify the. They did not do this and so I can only assume that they were satisfied with my explanations.

 

[kamchatsky]

I sent correspondence to Amex via registered Post with receipt confirmation returned to me. 4 weeks later I called and the agent had no record of Amex receiving my letter and asked me to fax it to her. Absolutely useless.

I agree with you, they are pretty useless. I think you are better off calling them and raise a case number that way, then send all supporting documents with reference with the case number. And call them every week (they have 10 day turn around time) to hassle them. Unfortunately this is the ONLY way to get Amex to pay up ......

 

[kamchatsky]

Well Amex came good today...so persistence pays off

I just had my first batch of points post since Sept 24.

After losing some a bit later when the "Days of Poccing" were upon us.

Today another 2.4 million points appeared.

This now gives me roughly what I am owed though I have not checked exactly. So my "Points run" would apear to have paid off.

I will wait and see what happens over the next little bit before adding up my final total.

Congratulations! 2.4 million! Maybe you can pay off your house with it!!!!!!! .... Probably not, but I think you can aim at getting AAdvantage lifetime Gold/Platinum with it (can someone please confirm this?) ....

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Congratulations! 2.4 million! Maybe you can pay off your house with it!!!!!!! .... Probably not, but I think you can aim at getting AAdvantage lifetime Gold/Platinum with it (can someone please confirm this?) ....

I am leaning towards SQ at present...but yes I will have to look into it.

My main interest though is flight awards...business class...rather than status.

 

[futaris]

I think you can aim at getting AAdvantage lifetime Gold/Platinum with it (can someone please confirm this?) ....

Yes, you can almost get Lifetime Gold or Platinum.

2,425,000 Amex MR = 800,250 SPG = 1,000,250 AA = Lifetime Gold

If you had gotten in at the 1000:600 rate which expired in Sept, then it would be almost 2MM, and Lifetime Platinum.

Note that you can only transfer a max 75k of SPG per 24 hrs into AA.

 

[beardoc]

Congratulations! 2.4 million! Maybe you can pay off your house with it!!!!!!! .... Probably not, but I think you can aim at getting AAdvantage lifetime Gold/Platinum with it (can someone please confirm this?) ....

2.4 million MR points would convert to 792,000 SPG Rewards points, which could be converted to AA at 987,000 miles, which would put you just shy of the "million miles" required for Lifetime Gold.

However, Lifetime Gold is pretty ordinary in AA - it's like Silver in QFF.

I tend to gauge these rewards in terms of Business Class RTW flights of 35,000 miles - if you dumped these points into AA, you would only get 5 RTW J flight with AA. If you took those 2.4 million points and put them into SQ Krisflyer, you would have enough for exactly 10 RTW J flights on *A - which is a much better deal.

So unless you have a big investment in AA, I'd say it might not be a valuable dumping the points into AA as a "burn" strategy. Much better value with other airlines.