Re: AMEX Velocity Platinum Card - 110,000 Points / $349pa / $1000 Spend
Hi Burmans, What did they say in the letter? I referred heaps of people in the Facebook referral but haven't received any points at all yet, this was about 3-4 weeks ago...
Nothing really, they essentially paraphrased this bit of the T&C's, in particular #3
American Express discourages spamming. You should only send referral messages to friends and family who genuinely want to receive them. By participating in ‘Refer a Friend’, you agree to these ‘Refer a Friend’ terms and conditions:
1.
Only Friends & Family: You must only send referral messages to close friends and family.
2.
Ask Their Permission First: You must ask the person for their permission to if you choose to send them an email about your Card product. Sending emails to people without consent is considered spam.
3.
Cap Referrals: You may only send referral messages to a maximum of 20 friends and the amount of Velocity Points you may receive under the Refer a Friend program is capped at 200,000 Points.
The main issue I have with this whole thing is they clearly haven't kept the T&C's up to date with their actual promotions, i.e.
1. The only options Amex provide to publish are via Facebook and LinkedIn. I have about 700 LinkedIn connections and 100 Facebook friends. So they have essentially made it impossible to comply with 1, 2, and the first half of #3 above. This would be clear to anyone with a basic understanding of social media, and clearly their legal and marketing teams don't talk together!
2. Having posted to Facebook/LinkedIn (or in my case AFF), I have no control over who shares it or points other to my link, e.g.
cove has pointed a number of people to my link, greatly appreciated but I had no control over it! Once again, no understanding of Social media!
3. And finally there is no way I can cap at 200K points, that's their job. Their failure to do so is their own problem, i.e. they are the one breaching the T&C's not me!
Do I care that much, well the T&C's also state the below.
Why should I comply?
If you fail to comply with these ‘Refer a Friend’ Terms & Conditions, your participation in the programme may be
cancelled and you will no longer be eligible for any Velocity Points from the ‘Refer a Friend’ programme.
But they don't actually state any ability to reclaim, so you can claim they are in breach of the T&C's here too. Generally a slack performance by Amex but I'm not really that upset, they did let me keep the points that had already been sent through to Velocity.