Re: Platinum Charge Card (Fees/Travel Insurance)

[plop11]

Hi Everyone,

Great website. Very informative!

I've just got a quick question re: the annual fees on the Platinum Charge Card.

I just recently paid the annual fees on my Gold Charge card last month, and last week, i submitted into the bait of upgrading it into Platinum after the 3rd offer.

Will i be double dipped for Annual Fees? And have to pay the $900 annual fee on my first statement? Or will it be due on my anniversary date, October 2008? (I feel however, AMEX will be more inclinded to be leeching more fees out of me)

Also, does anyone have any feedback on the Platinum Travel Insurance the card covers? I'm spending 3 months in Nottingham, UK on exchange. Has anyone had any experiences with 'claiming' back payments for travel /medical insurance from amex?

All feedback will be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!

 

[poppet]

Re the travel insurance, we had a Platinum AMEX card for the last 2 years and have recently cancelled it. After our trip in May we had to claim a handbag, wallet, mobile phone & camera earlier this year when my handbag fell into a water fountain on our holiday. The policy is underwritten by AXA and it took around 3 months and a lot of postage and phone calls for them to pay out. They initially told us just to send in receipts for the goods ... so we did. Then they cam back and said to post the damaged goods ... so we did. Then they posted us back the phone and camera with a note saying they could see no evidence of water damage and for us to get them assessed by nokia and canon ... so we sent the phone & camera off. We got the advice from canon & nokia and sent it in ... then it took about 3 weeks for them to send us a cheque. Since then we have cancelled our platinum cards and will just purchase travel insurance the normal way in the future. BTW we let AMEX know the main reason for cancelling the platinum cards was the poor experience we had with our travel insurance claim.

Just my experience ... I'm sure there's other more positive stories out there

 

[plop11]

thanks poppet for the information.

seems like there is quite a stringent and longwinded claims process in force that inherently deters claims.

i was hoping that the travel/medical insurance would be quite reliable on the platinum card, as i had a separate quote from the travel agent which came to nearly $500 for the 3 months. darn.

 

[straitman]

thanks poppet for the information.

seems like there is quite a stringent and longwinded claims process in force that inherently deters claims.

i was hoping that the travel/medical insurance would be quite reliable on the platinum card, as i had a separate quote from the travel agent which came to nearly $500 for the 3 months. darn.

There has been considerable discussion on this forum about Travel Insurance and I believe you can probably do a LOT better than $500 for 3 months. I pay $311 for a 12 month policy for a couple.

Sorry I don't have time now to search it out for you.

 

[Dave Noble]

There has been considerable discussion on this forum about Travel Insurance and I believe you can probably do a LOT better than $500 for 3 months. I pay $311 for a 12 month policy for a couple.

Sorry I don't have time now to search it out for you.

An annual policy is unlikely to cover a single trip of 3 months since they have ime trip limits of approx 31 or 60 days

To the OP, I would suggest checking whether the AMEX insurance will cover a 3 month trip

Dave

 

[Dave Noble]

\
Will i be double dipped for Annual Fees? And have to pay the $900 annual fee on my first statement? Or will it be due on my anniversary date, October 2008? (I feel however, AMEX will be more inclinded to be leeching more fees out of me)

I suspect that you will be given a pro-rata refund of the gold fees and then charged the platinum gouging ( unless you have been offered the 1st year free or something ).

You won't be double charged the fees

Dave

 

[plop11]

thanks for all the information and tips

i gave amex a call yesterday to ask about the fees
i asked them to directly give me a pro rata refund directly from the gold card to the platinum card account. I'm glad that they even refunded all the fees paid for 4 supplementary cards too that i had on the account.

As a bonus they even kindly offered the halve the fees for my first year.

In total, comes to an additional $55 fork out for the upgrade. Not too bad.

 

[PaulZ]

As a bonus they even kindly offered the halve the fees for my first year.

Plop11

What, they halved the Platinum Charge Card Fee for your first year... to $450????

They used to have a policy NEVER to reduce the Platinum Charge Card Annual Fee...

"Mr Z, We have cardholders spending over 3 million dollars p.a. and they still pay the $900 fee. It is never reduced... We offer so many benefits, travel and travel insurance etc."

Was there a particular reason they waived half of your fee?

PZ

 

[plop11]

Hi PZ

It wasn't even me who bought it up the fee discount. I was just discussing my situation to him, and said he could give me an extra bonus of paying only half fee for my first year.

I definitely had a very friendly customer service rep (not the usual calls to Bombay with my previous accnt). He was very helpful and efficient with everything i asked him to do (the refund on fees paid, activating card, sending out travel info to me etc...) He even took the time to ask me about how i went on the races (since i called on Tuesday, Melb Cup Day) and the latter half of our phone call was general chat on our wins/losses on the races.

I'm guessing its just a first year incentive?

Plop

 

[wiz]

Plop11 are you sure you're not talking about the Platinum Credit Card annual fee? I am quite certain that the most they ever reduce the Platinum Charge Card fee is by $250 (and that is actually processed as a partial refund to one's account). Are you aware the Charge Card is $900 per year?