AMEX Forced account closure

S

SteveLL

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Sep 1, 2016
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Hi guys, i recently opened an Amex Qantas card and spent $18k in the first few days. The account was closed immediately by the credit team. At the time of closure, I was told the Qantas points (~100k) would be transferred once I get my next statement. But today when I called to enquire why this hadn’t happened, I was told once the account is closed, all the points are forfeited. Anyone got any experience on this?
 
That's very unusual. They are right that under the T&C, all points are forfeited at time of closure, but this is the first time I heard a card being closed by Amex Australia with zero discussion.

Did they at any point ask for documents to confirm your financials or did you do transactions that Amex is not happy about?
 
They did ask for my financials which I provided. I am on a good income and had a number of Amex credit cards previously. The purpose of this card was to get the sign up bonus. Despite all the documentation, they decided to close my account as I may have been flagged as a risky customer due to the large spend upon account opening.

I was told at the time of the account closure that my points would be transferred upon receiving the 1st statement
 
Steve Lim said:
They did ask for my financials which I provided. I am on a good income and had a number of Amex credit cards previously. The purpose of this card was to get the sign up bonus. Despite all the documentation, they decided to close my account as I may have been flagged as a risky customer due to the large spend upon account opening.

I was told at the time of the account closure that my points would be transferred upon receiving the 1st statement
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What was the credit limit? Did you spend to the limit, cleared balance and repeat multiple times? Good to know for newly opened accounts...
 
Steve Lim said:
Hi guys, i recently opened an Amex Qantas card and spent $18k in the first few days. The account was closed immediately by the credit team. At the time of closure, I was told the Qantas points (~100k) would be transferred once I get my next statement. But today when I called to enquire why this hadn’t happened, I was told once the account is closed, all the points are forfeited. Anyone got any experience on this?
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Did you transfer money to your card and put it in credit and spent all $18k in a few days while your credit limit is much lower? I heard that Amex may close your account if the card is in credit and this may also trigger the financial review.
 
levelnine said:
Happens all the time in the US. Called closure for bust-out risk.

Always smart to start with small to medium purchases with a new card.
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It's quite rare in Australia though. This data point suggests that closing all Amex cards so you can qualify for a new SUB every 18 months has its risks.

Amex value a lot about ongoing relationship. This probably happened because OP didn't kept any of the previous Amex cards so Amex has no recent data point to go with.

For OP: Amex is legally in the right here to withhold the sign up bonus unfortunately. Given you have nothing to lose you can contact the escalation channel with Amex and see whether they will give the points to you as a goodwill.
 
glasszon said:
It's quite rare in Australia though.
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Definitely, though I wonder if that's simply a product of Australians having less incentive to aggressively spend on new cards (ie Amex and other banks have the same rules, but we rarely see instances of customers triggering the risk in Australia).

In Australia, there's little point in meeting the minimum spend requirement in the first week of card opening because you're locked out of the same card for 12-18 months and there are only so many product issuers. In the US, the incentive is to meet the minimum spend as fast as possible to move onto the next card.
 
levelnine said:
Definitely, though I wonder if that's simply a product of Australians having less incentive to aggressively spend on new cards (ie Amex and other banks have the same rules, but we rarely see instances of customers triggering the risk in Australia).

In Australia, there's little point in meeting the minimum spend requirement in the first week of card opening because you're locked out of the same card for 12-18 months and there are only so many product issuers. In the US, the incentive is to meet the minimum spend as fast as possible to move onto the next card.
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Or maybe Australia just has a bit higher risk tolerance. People dread a financial review from Amex US, but barring a few exceptional cases like this one, I haven't really seen a financial review from Amex Australia or any other banks for that matter.

I heard that for Amex US, you can trigger a financial review just by playing around with the "check spend limit" feature on the website.
 
glasszon said:
Or maybe Australia just has a bit higher risk tolerance.
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Two sides of the same coin, in my opinion.

Australian banks have a higher risk tolerance because there are fewer people gaming the system here to maximum advantage. There are fewer people probing for exploits (eg the pro rata refund hack), so they can afford to be a bit more lenient with customers.
 
Something similar happened to a friend in January. They were approved for the Business Platinum in October 2022. Hit the $12k sign-up bonus by December. In January bought a $15k used car for his business (from a dealer who accepted AMEX and did not charge a surcharge for it). Next day went to use the card and it was declined.

Logged in and got a message his account was suspended.

Called up and AMEX had closed the account and said all points were forfeited.

As he hadn't breached any terms and conditions I encouraged him to call back and get the points transferred to an airline as well as the annual fee refunded. In the end AMEX agreed to transfer the Membership Rewards points to an airline partner, however would not refund the annual fee.

I suggested he make a complaint to AFCA asking for at least a pro-rata refund of the $1750 annual fee, however I don't think he's had the time to do it.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that as soon as the account was closed the outstanding balance was passed over to debt collectors who started hounding him even though his statement period hadn't ended yet!
 
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I almost had my amex cards closed as I started spending 15-20k a month from Nov/Dec/Jan. I had been buying gift cards at coles/woolworths when they ran promotions. AmEx does not like that.
Towards end of Jan my card was suspended pending a financial review. I had to submit payslips and bank transactions. Took about 2 weeks to get it re-instated.
 
aus_flyer said:
I’m not sure why Amex would have a problem with this
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If they are open loop gift cards (eg VGC/MGCs), Amex has a huge problem with them, at least in the US and now, it appears, in Australia too. They'll claw back sign-up bonuses achieved through purchase of them as it breaches their T&Cs.
 
levelnine said:
If they are open loop gift cards (eg VGC/MGCs), Amex has a huge problem with them, at least in the US and now, it appears, in Australia too. They'll claw back sign-up bonuses achieved through purchase of them as it breaches their T&Cs.
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How does it breach T&Cs?
 

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