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IMPORTANT: American Express suspends the scrapping of pro-rata card fee refunds

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American Express informed us on Wednesday morning that it has suspended its plans to stop pro-rata fee refunds on its UK credit cards from 2nd October.

We don’t have any further information at this point. This is very much a last minute change of heart, given that the original announcement was made (in a HfP exclusive story) back in mid June.

This means that there is no longer a requirement to cancel any cards this week if you didn’t want to find yourself locked in for the rest of your membership year.

American Express suspends end of pro rata fee refunds

We believe that Amex does not intend to inform cardholders of this change, but the call centre agents have been told and can confirm this to you. You may want to call to get your own confirmation since there is no public statement that we can show you as verification.

We don’t know what the position is if you have cancelled a card this week and would now like it back.

The plan to stop pro-rata fee refunds is not dead, just resting, but we understand that there will be no changes until at least 2024.

I suggest keeping a regular eye on HfP over the next 2-3 weeks for more news ….

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Comments (324)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • G says:
    28 Sep28 September 03:43

    This whole debacle, constant issues with their app and poor customer service has left me with the view to just leave Amex and wait for 2 years for another sign up bonus.

    The offers in app (likely due to the overall state of the economy) have been dire these past 12 months.

    • Roy says:
      28 Sep28 September 03:52

      I find the Amex app one of the better apps amongst finance companies. Compare with the Virgin credit card app (which is the *only* way to manage a Virgin card), which was buggy as hell until very recently.

  • The Streets says:
    28 Sep28 September 06:09

    Now just for Curve to backtrack on their proposed changes

    • DaveP says:
      28 Sep28 September 07:15

      Remind me what the proposed changes are, please.

      • Al_Wiltshire says:
        28 Sep28 September 08:55

        For Curve Metal users, it’s a price increase to £180/year, and a reduction of free Fronted usage from £10k down to £3k per month.

    • mkcol says:
      28 Sep28 September 07:49

      What proposed changes?

      • Lloyd says:
        28 Sep28 September 08:23

        They’ve basically lowered the threshold where you have to pay fx fees on all their cards except metal, making them pretty much useless. They did backtrack to some degree, the fee-free amount on black was to be lowered to £1000, it’s now going to be £2000, but still, you’re likely to spend more than that of you’re paying for hotels on a foreign holiday.
        Surprised Rob hasn’t done an article on it.

        • Carls says:
          29 Sep29 September 14:11

          I’ve been trying to get my head around the Curve after a recent move to a borough who won’t allow credit card payment for council tax. From your comment am I to understand that if I got the free card I could use it for £2k of credit card payments monthly with no fee?

      • Crafty says:
        28 Sep28 September 08:31

        Fee increase and service degradations come in next month, majority on here will be cancelling Metal as the maths won’t stack up anymore.

        • JDB says:
          28 Sep28 September 09:03

          I highly doubt the majority will cancel. Clearly, there has been lots noise as people are unhappy about the ‘fronted’ reduction but noise shouldn’t be mistaken for cancellations.

          It really isn’t hard to get to £180 of value even just maxing the new lower £36k p.a. fronted allowance. The unlimited FX and improved weekend rate is a big plus.

          • TGLoyalty says:
            28 Sep28 September 16:20

            Have I missed something? What improved weekend rate? it still said 0.5% over Mastercard rate for GBP, USD and EUR and it’s now a flat 1.5% for all other currencies which is worse than before?

  • George says:
    28 Sep28 September 06:22

    I had called Amex to cancel my platinum in advance of the original news. They transferred me to to someone (probably specialising in ‘retentions’ or something) they offered me 50k points to stay, I had about six months to run on the card. I accepted the offer.

  • S says:
    28 Sep28 September 06:26

    Great heads up! I was just about to cancel my card. These articles are really useful.

  • James says:
    28 Sep28 September 06:42

    😂 😂 😂 Probably had much higher cancellations than expected… Who would’ve thought?!

  • LostAntipod says:
    28 Sep28 September 06:52

    well…i’m one who cancelled ang gave the fedback that i didnt like the changes. Hasnt stopped them stuffing my inbox with offers AND they havent given me my refund even though I closed the account 6 weeks ago. Do the IHG Creation execs run Amex UK now?

  • James says:
    28 Sep28 September 06:59

    Amex live chat just told me the policy has been postponed with the new date not disclosed yet. So it seems like it’s not completely gone?

  • Iain says:
    28 Sep28 September 08:16

    Where on the app can you see when your membership fee is due to be paid? AMEX Platinum.

    • Mark says:
      28 Sep28 September 09:30

      Its normally taken the first billing period, so if you look back in your statements to when you last paid the fee and fast forward 12 months it should be the same

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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