Platinum AMEX Renewal during covid-19

[Doctore1003]

I thought credit providers were banned from offering retention bonuses when new credit laws came into effect last year? Not sure of all the details though.

Correct. This is a charge, not credit card so it doesn't apply.

Are you sure? Doesn’t really make sense to me as they are both credit products. Perhaps the cardholder who did receive a retention bonus spoke to someone at Amex who didn’t know better.
Anyway, AFF published an article on retention bonuses last year for those curious:

Credit Card Retention Offers Are Dead

When calling up to cancel your credit card, it was previously common practice for the bank to offer an annual fee waiver, bonus points or other inducements to keep the card.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[GoldCanyon340]

I am staying with Amex and I think they have done well with customers. To say Amex is "garbage" is quite frankly pathetic. Amyone who says Amex is bad really needs to take a look at themselves,.

 

[digpomi]

I did not get offered anything for renewal. I think I am flagged in their system after getting several retention bonuses 5-6 years ago. I am going to keep the card and pay the $1200 fee . I managed to get about $12000 in cash back during points promo and I used $850 worth travel credits as well as Accor plus benefits. Additionally, I have received at least $5000 in other Amex credits over last 2 years on my Charge/Reserve/Edge/Essential combo.

 

[daft009]

I'm not cancelling my charge. They've had excellent promos for us charge customers.

With the $400 free groceries, extra points for delivery services, extra points on groceries and the double double promo I've made just over $20k in returns

 

[Atom]

I won’t be cancelling my card either FWIW. I’ve held this card for a decade now. Whilst the benefits may not be there in the next 12 months, the benefits over the last few months have offset a lot of the lost benefits so I’ll take a chance that Amex will come up with similar promotions to offset the unusable travel benefits in the next 12 months.

I think people have to realise that personal circumstances are different so I can understand that for a lot of people the card won’t be worth keeping in the next year.

 

[albyd]

FWIW I'll be keeping my Amex Charge too. I did get some retention bonuses the first two years but assuming I've been flagged not to receive anymore but never hurts to ask ... if you don't ask you don't get. Guess we don't really have a leg to stand on (but doesn't hurt to ask) from an AF discount perspective if we've taken up their initiatives in kind. Yeah it is an expensive AF but I haven't seen any other cards offering anything extra during COVID (here's looking at you Citi Prestige).

I think Amex have done a good job in giving us value particularly with the double points promo, shopping bonus, other credits and shop small. I don't think they'll be cutting the annual fee and have tried their best top help us make up value from features we can't currently use due to movement restrictions.

 

[glasszon]

FWIW I'll be keeping my Amex Charge too. I did get some retention bonuses the first two years but assuming I've been flagged not to receive anymore but never hurts to ask ... if you don't ask you don't get. Guess we don't really have a leg to stand on (but doesn't hurt to ask) from an AF discount perspective if we've taken up their initiatives in kind. Yeah it is an expensive AF but I haven't seen any other cards offering anything extra during COVID (here's looking at you Citi Prestige).

I think Amex have done a good job in giving us value particularly with the double points promo, shopping bonus, other credits and shop small. I don't think they'll be cutting the annual fee and have tried their best top help us make up value from features we can't currently use due to movement restrictions.

I agree, while Amex isn't perfect, providing perks during the covid-19 period isn't something that I can fault Amex on.

Ultimately whether to hold the card or not during this period will be based on your individual circumstances. In my case, the PA that I belong no longer has an agreement with Amex, so if I cancel my charge card now I would have to pay $1450 AF when I rejoin instead of the $1200 AF that I am paying now, so for now I am keen to hang in there to see whether I can weather the covid-19 storm.

 

[PSS]

Another data point here - had my AMEX Platinum Charge annual fee renew mid-month. Called a few days before asking for any retention offers.

Was offered 150k points to keep my card membership, which I gladly took on!

 

[equus]

If you have not managed to extract the value of the Annual Fee out of the card in the last few months via the $400 cash back for groceries or other items, plus the effective 4.5% cashback on everything (double points, double redemption value), then you have not been trying, and are probably not the target for this sort of card.

As per some of the posts above (but not to the same extent), the double-double promotion easily extracted more than the Annual Fee in value. Whilst normally, burning points on cash back is not the most effective approach, you have to figure relative values. 4.5% cash back is a very generous offer (Amex would be losing on this, as there would be few merchants paying this much, most much less). Plenty of time to warehouse points again for later,when other uses may come up again.

 

[notblondeman]

I rang today (annual fee due at end of month), spent a little a bit higher (~about 6000$ a month) than numbers mentioned on recent pages. No offer, just tried to persuade me to go get a Green/Gold charge card.
I declined and will be cancelling card at end of month (too hard to justify it with no travel in the horizon or in the past 6 months - maybe more justifiable if they actually planned to continue quarantine usable offers ). Loyalty has no reward it seems

 

[Bell21]

Such an interesting topic - @equus, I think you, as well as others, make excellent points why the card value has effectively paid for itself in recent months (and I did drive the card fairly hard relative to my normal use) - however, equally, YMMV, I can see why many would cancel given the lack of ability to use perks for next 6 to 12 months.

What I'm most interested in, however, is how some of us get no retention offer and some get 150,000 points - I can only surmise that the use of perks, use of bonus promotions (eg, double points), and other card behaviour (eg, charge backs) might feed into some kind of algorithm at their end that tells the rep whether they can offer a retention bonus - I find that sort of thing quite interesting...,

 

[Quattro]

Such an interesting topic - @equus, I think you, as well as others, make excellent points why the card value has effectively paid for itself in recent months (and I did drive the card fairly hard relative to my normal use) - however, equally, YMMV, I can see why many would cancel given the lack of ability to use perks for next 6 to 12 months.

What I'm most interested in, however, is how some of us get no retention offer and some get 150,000 points - I can only surmise that the use of perks, use of bonus promotions (eg, double points), and other card behaviour (eg, charge backs) might feed into some kind of algorithm at their end that tells the rep whether they can offer a retention bonus - I find that sort of thing quite interesting...,

I have a feeling we will die wondering

 

[Bell21]

As a separate data point, for AFFers thinking of cancelling their Plat card, it may be worthwhile considering whether you hold on to your Plat Reserve card as a stand-alone card, as a) it means you don't need to forcibly transfer out your AMEX points (if you don't have another AMEX card) and b) at least for now, according the rep I spoke with, the $400 travel credit attached to the Plat Reserve card remains as a perk of that card even without the Plat card

 

[Daver6]

As a separate data point, for AFFers thinking of cancelling their Plat card, it may be worthwhile considering whether you hold on to your Plat Reserve card as a stand-alone card, as a) it means you don't need to forcibly transfer out your AMEX points (if you don't have another AMEX card) and b) at least for now, according the rep I spoke with, the $400 travel credit attached to the Plat Reserve card remains as a perk of that card even without the Plat card

What's the annual fee on it if you don't hold the charge card?

 

[Bell21]

What's the annual fee on it if you don't hold the charge card?

$395

 

[notblondeman]

My Amex had some credit review, so they reduced my limit. I rang up to ask whats up with that (they wanted documents on employment) and they fixed it, but no amex offers for 6 months (and they said they can't fix it) kind of makes it real hard to justify keeping it (especially if there's future offers that I can't take advantage of).

They refused to offer any discounted annual fee or points. The retention team tried to offer me a chance to downgrade to Green or Gold charge card, but that's a laughably bad offer (1.5 MR PPD), but I asked them in a polite way to atleast fix the amex offers, or I will cancel.

 

[albyd]

Thanks for sharing your experience @notblondeman.

Was there any change in your card activity or anything else which might have triggered the credit review?

 

[notblondeman]

Thanks for sharing your experience @notblondeman.

Was there any change in your card activity or anything else which might have triggered the credit review?

They wouldn't give me a concrete answer for decreasing the charge limit from 20000$ to 4400$ - I had no other cards at the time, but I think it was because Westpac listed a 50k credit limit on a card that I had applied for, when the real amount was ~15k (I got a Westpac card to churn).

I proved that the card wasn't active and explained some of the details (Westpac took 2 months to fix it) and they fixed it in a just few minutes - they said it was just automated system - it's incredibly frustrating, but I'm mostly frustrated that they took away offers for 6 months (I didn't hear that from them initially, only checked the Amex offers thread by chance).

Demographic: man in 20's - stable job in tech for 4 years, 80k spend on mixture of work purchases, and technology and previously flights largely plus groceries since August 2019. Never had any debt (I always pay statement balance on the day it's issued or even before)

Annual fee was due on September 1st, but they can reverse the fee (and cancel the card) within 30 days on request so I'm seeing if they can fix my amex offers before I cut them free

 

[glasszon]

My Amex had some credit review, so they reduced my limit. I rang up to ask whats up with that (they wanted documents on employment) and they fixed it, but no amex offers for 6 months (and they said they can't fix it) kind of makes it real hard to justify keeping it (especially if there's future offers that I can't take advantage of).

They refused to offer any discounted annual fee or points. The retention team tried to offer me a chance to downgrade to Green or Gold charge card, but that's a laughably bad offer (1.5 MR PPD), but I asked them in a polite way to atleast fix the amex offers, or I will cancel.

I wonder whether Amex has started aggressively doing financial reviews in light of Covid-19, in the past it rarely happens but now there's quite a few posts about it this year.

May I ask what documents did they request from you? I heard AMEX financial reviews in US are very nasty and you can end up having your account closed even if everything checks out, thankfully no one seems to have their accounts closed in Australia yet.

 

[notblondeman]

I wonder whether Amex has started aggressively doing financial reviews in light of Covid-19, in the past it rarely happens but now there's quite a few posts about it this year.

May I ask what documents did they request from you? I heard AMEX financial reviews in US are very nasty and you can end up having your account closed even if everything checks out, thankfully no one seems to have their accounts closed in Australia yet.

They didn't firmly request any docs, just asked me to clarify on a few transactions that I'd made (I'd accidentally overpaid one account once, so I got them to transfer the negative balance to the other card- which they hadn't recorded on their backend system) - nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. They didn't ask for payslips, but I offered them up to help speed up the process - the lady did seem to mention a lot of people got Financial Reviews in May/June time - I wasn't informed it was a financial review to be clear