AMEX Platinum Charge fee reduction

[cove]

At our office we are moving to have all 5 directors with Citi Select as their product works better for our business.
We will keep Amex Ultimate for the just in case situations where we pay Qantas and vendors who take Amex without surcharging.

 

[moa999]

Just called to cancel
- No attempt whatsover to keep me - no points, no fee reduction
- Didn't even ask why I was leaving!! big one for me was the travel insurance, also the points changes, DJ access means nothing as am DJ Plat
Anyhow all done...

Keeping my Amex Reserve (affinity card so only $295 fee)

 

[mini2]

Did you move all your points out before the call?

 

[Trusty]

Hi All,

My card was coming up for renewal, so I rang the 1800673760 number and got a nice enough lady in Phoenix, Arizona who did not react in any way, once I explained I wanted to cancel. She didn't ask why I wanted to cancel, in fact wasn't really interested in knowing of my disappointment with the Platinum card and my reasons for discontinuing.... I mistakenly thought they may have valued my custom and optimistically hoped an offer of a reduction on the annual fee. Maybe my annual spend ($50K) may have not been enough to register, but anyway I did think (hoped...) my call may have sparked some response.

Cheers
TRUSTY

 

[greenfrog86]

They're outsourcing to the US now? Haven't had that happen before...

 

[Jane-Doe]

They're outsourcing to the US now? Haven't had that happen before...

Apparently Amex is cutting staff

[h=1]AmEx Announces 5,400 Layoffs, Big Q4 Charge [/h]

 

[Images]

Just before Christmas I cut up my Amex Platinum Charge card, despite 5 phone calls to the Amex call centre to ask for a better deal the answer was always NO. My final call was to a pleasant supervisor who understood my displeasure at their reduction in rewards points and devaluation of other services, insurance etc. I could not justify paying $900 per year for a card that had prior to Oct.2012 been my card of choice while my Citi Business Visa filled in the gaps when Amex was not accepted or had a surcharge imposed. Since Oct. my Citi Visa card has now accounted for ¾ of my card spending, I therefore could no longer justify the high membership cost of my Amex card.

I have used an Amex card since 1974, nearly 40 years and I am incredibly disappointed with the present situation at Amex, who are obviously changing their client base, using Facebook for specials and are quite likely chasing mass market customers who will be more cost affective. My original intention was to walk away from Amex but I was persuaded to apply for a QANTAS Premium card that I intend to hold for a year and see how things go. My new card duly arrived showing ‘a member since 2011’ rather than 1974 and with a credit limit of $2800, many thanks Amex for my 39 years of loyalty!!

I like to hold at least 2 or 3 credit cards at any one time in the event that an ATM chews up a card or there are technical problems so I intend to take up Macquarie Banks current offer for existing clients of a Platinum Visa with one year free of membership fees and 5 QF points per $1 for the first $5000.

 

[Chicken]

My new card duly arrived showing ‘a member since 2011’ rather than 1974 and with a credit limit of $2800, many thanks Amex for my 39 years of loyalty!

You can call them, and transfer your credit limit from your old card to your new card.

 

[Clarkes]

Cancelled mine two weeks ago. They didn't even ask why.

 

[Images]

Thanks Chicken, according to AMEX you can only transfer your credit limit from a charge card to another charge card not to a credit card!

 

[GCC]

Just went through the process of calling Amex to cancel the platinum charge card. Last year I was put through to cancellations, where I was very quickly offered an annual fee reduction to $450, with words to the effect of "you didn't think I'd let you just cancel without offering something" from the CSA. Result was a happy camper and another year of amex platinum.

Called yesterday and asked CSA to transfer me to cancellations. Was on hold for a few minutes then she came back and apologised for not being able to transfer me but assured me she could process the cancellation. When I pressed her a bit she confirmed that "the cancellations area will not take your call and will not allow us to transfer your call to them."

From there, much as others have reported. Was asked why I was cancelling and responded that travel insurance changes and and reduction in points earn meant the card was not of worth the fee. No attempt to discuss this, no attempt to offer another product. Pretty straight up explanation of the process involved to cancel and that was it.

I took out the Qantas SCU Platinum Visa and we are quite happily using that, and enjoying merchant acceptance and no surcharges and their lovely old fashioned customer service. I'll also apply for the CBA plat card which comes for free with my mortgage wealth package and hope for an upgrade to diamond.

So for zero fee this year I have:
Plat AMEX with either 3 CBA reward points per $ or 1.5 QFF PER $
Plat Visa with 1 QFF point per $1 (or 2 QFF ppd if the spend is on Qantas) Has to be reassessed when the first year is up and $190 fee is a payable.

The only real loss I can see is that the Amex MR program let us accrue points that could be be redeemed for either QFF or other programs, and now we'll have to credit direct to QFF. It was nice to have the option and a few times we did redeem to velocity. Generally though we fly Qantas so will be fine.