I received a call this morning from a customer relations manger from the travel and lifestyles services. She was generous with her time and explained the situation to me.
The short version is Amex did not have access to the "Spirit of Australia" sale fares. She explained that they only have access to the fares an airline loads into their system. Why QF didn't load it into their system is something they are looking into internally but is a confidential matter.
She agreed that Amex would refund the difference between the $450 credit and the fair paid, which I thought was rather generous as it was slightly more than the fare difference when it comes to booking direct with QF verse Amex.
She told me that if I'm ever aware of a fare discrepancy again to contact her directly. I did mention that others have seen similar, but without specific examples it isn't something she can investigate. Therefore I would encourage others to post to this thread with screen shots and I'd be happy to share it with her. Alternately I could ask her if she is ok with my sharing her direct contact details via private messages.
We then had a general chat about various Amex benefits for both the QF Ultimate and the Platinum card. She was genuinely interested in both my positive and negative feedback. Some of the discussion points which I think will be of interest to people here
I said I had heard that some people with the QF Ultimate card were having it switched to a credit for direct spend with QF. I asked if this was something new. She told me this was targeted at people who have had an extension of their $450 credit to the end of March 2021. This was a once off and not going to be a permanent change.
I gave feedback bout the Mr Porter/Net a Porter statement credit for the Platinum card. Essentially that it seemed poor value with the high shipping charges and FX fees for Mr Porter. That I thought most people would buy a pair or two of socks that gets shipped from overseas just to use the credit and that doesn't seem very environmentally friendly either.
If you have both a Reserve and Platinum card with individual travel credits, they should be able to be combined. Call and ask.
They are looking at allowing you to use the travel credits with FHR hotels. Apparently they've had lots of requests for this and they are working towards it. Possibly something towards the end of the year. This would be a fantastic enhancement in the real sense.
I expressed disappointment at losing status with Shangri La hotels. She said this was a benefit that wasn't widely used at all. Makes sense with the lack of footprint in Australia.
I expressed disappointment at the loss of PP restaurant credits. She said the thought people would be more interested in eating in lounges. Explained how lounge food is generally pretty average and the ability to have a decent meal was a great benefit. I put it to her that perhaps it was being abused and suggested putting a limit on use per day and bringing it back would be a good idea.
She asked about the Accor Plus benefit. I said the free night is great, but it would be better if status given was higher than silver.
Regarding the limited use of travel last year, I said the $400 Woolworths/Coles benefit was a good way to justify the cost. I did say that Amex missed a trick by being a little slow with that as I suspect many people landed up ditching their cards prior to that being announced.
All in all, I feel positive after the phone conversation. It went for almost 35 minutes. I feel I now have a contact at Amex I can go to for future concerns and feedback.
So all in all, I'm satisfied with the outcome. The whole airlines loading inventory into agents systems seems a little murky to me, but if that's the way it works, so be it. I did notice QF has a sale to LEA from PER. I checked some random dates and the sale fares were available via Amex Travel.
