Dining credit – Amex refusal to honour

Did the restaurant give you a receipt? If so, you could provide Amex with a copy. It seems to be a situation where you won’t get it automatically as they’ve processed it via a different system to normal, but I would push for Amex to process a manual credit.

If they won’t budge, you could try making a complaint via the FOS. But it will take a very long time to resolve.

Had this with a hotel on a Spend £250 get £100 back offer.
Card processor was at a different address so didn’t trigger.
I messaged the chat. They told me to upload the invoice to the document centre – a week or so later the offer credit applied.

This is a merchant issue that you need to ask Amex to resolve as a matter of goodwill; the FOS (as suggested above) couldn’t help. You potentially haven’t complied with the terms, but that’s through no fault of your own. Not too long ago, Amex fixed these offer issues immediately, but enough people tried to pull a fast one, that they have made it much more difficult, so the scammers can be thanked for that. The upside is that if your credit is added manually, you will probably still have the original credit to use.

Gavin454 wrote:

Why couldn’t the FOS help? The deal is that if you eat at the restaurant and pay with the Amex, you’ll get the credit. The customer did that. It’s not up to the customer to question the exact method that the restaurant chooses to process payment through.

If the FOS somehow disagrees, then surely the small claims court would find in their favour. They tend to go with the most customer friendly interpretation of the rules, and it’s clear that a typical restaurant diner cannot be expected to enquire in detail about exactly what payment method is being used. It’s standard practice to simply pay and leave.

It isn’t an FOS issue because the offer has perfectly fair terms re payment, but the restaurant’s machine supposedly wasn’t working so they used some other method to take payment which didn’t trigger the credit. Amex was not at fault and doesn’t owe anyone anything, so would not be the party to take to FOS or MCOL, but will probably give the credit as a matter of goodwill after checking it out.

Interesting
I’m thinking of visiting Hawksmoor in Liverpool soon to take advantage of the £150

We used the dining credit at SushiSamba, who take a £20/head deposit online when you book and then the remainder as normal at the end of the meal. The offer credited for both payments within a few days for us.

The normal advice for Amex is to phone up during UK working hours and ask to speak to the Brighton call centre if you don’t get through to that call centre initially

On balance I’d support the suggestion of going to the FOS if necessary, after exhausting the internal complaint process. You’ve eaten in the restaurant and can presumably prove that, it’s not reasonable for Amex to refuse to honour the deal – it’s between them and their contractors (payment processor) to sort out taking and recognising payments properly, that can’t possibly be your problem. I would be surprised if they didn’t find in your favour, but more surprised (and disappointed) if Amex don’t sort it out first.