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I don’t think I ever had a card cancelled under me. The worst I had recently was Barclaycard refusing to increase my £200 credit limit, despite a huge amount of evidence showing: give me more. They are idiots, sorry Mr HFP, I know they are among your favourites – but giving me £200 credit limit just meant I took the 50,000 Avios and closed the a/c.
For example, Amex Marriott Bonvoy just gave me £6K limit based on not very much – if I could be bothered I’m sure I could get the credit limit increased. People here regularly say they have £30K limits on their Amex cards. I don’t think I ever got that much – more like £15K typically.
So why does Barclaycard think I am worth £200? ???
They are complete idiots in terms of rating customers.
Oh – I live on IOM – I enjoy all the IOM advantages tax-wise & law-wise – now I’m really pissed off the banks don’t want to give me credit cards on the same basis as straightforward UK residents.
The banks know what they are doing and I agree with them.
Apart from income tax I would be really interested to know what the advantages are. Losing Amex is a serious issue for me. What is it that I’m missing out on? Please enlighten me as to what an average working class man and wife with 2 kids are missing out on. Not everyone on the island is a millionaire with weird domicile stuff going on. I don’t even qualify for HSBC premier and that’s the nearest alternative to Amex Platinum. Thanks in advance. Yours sincerely. Mr pissed off. I don’t even have a sea view from my home.
Oh – I live on IOM – I enjoy all the IOM advantages tax-wise & law-wise – now I’m really pissed off the banks don’t want to give me credit cards on the same basis as straightforward UK residents.
The banks know what they are doing and I agree with them.
Apart from income tax I would be really interested to know what the advantages are. Losing Amex is a serious issue for me. What is it that I’m missing out on? Please enlighten me as to what an average working class man and wife with 2 kids are missing out on. Not everyone on the island is a millionaire with weird domicile stuff going on. I don’t even qualify for HSBC premier and that’s the nearest alternative to Amex Platinum. Thanks in advance. Yours sincerely. Mr pissed off. I don’t even have a sea view from my home.
Well @Bill, in the words of the legendary Ken Dodd, at least you don’t have to worry about the Inland Revenue… because you live near the seaside !
I don’t think I ever had a card cancelled under me. The worst I had recently was Barclaycard refusing to increase my £200 credit limit, despite a huge amount of evidence showing: give me more. They are idiots, sorry Mr HFP, I know they are among your favourites – but giving me £200 credit limit just meant I took the 50,000 Avios and closed the a/c.
For example, Amex Marriott Bonvoy just gave me £6K limit based on not very much – if I could be bothered I’m sure I could get the credit limit increased. People here regularly say they have £30K limits on their Amex cards. I don’t think I ever got that much – more like £15K typically.
So why does Barclaycard think I am worth £200? ???
They are complete idiots in terms of rating customers.
Barclaycard has vastly more real life UK credit data than any other UK card provider or credit agency. It also has quite specific criteria for the type of customer it wants for particular products. It isn’t necessarily any reflection on your specific credit status but a whole variety of factors they take into account. I don’t think that makes them “idiots”. Amex has historically been remarkably gung-ho and relied principally on its own proprietary data and models, using external agencies mainly for validation/verification but has recently become rather more discriminating to reflect the new credit environment.
I thought all this £200 Barclaycard nonsense had gone away.
When you applied, a message came up on screen saying that you were getting a temporary £200 limit (to allow the card to be made up) and you’d get your full limit once you had sent Barclaycard specific ID / financial verification documents.
If you don’t do that, you’re stuck with £200 – but it’s your fault.
Barclaycard does you a favour with the £200 temporary limit because it minimises the delay in card delivery.
Oh – I live on IOM – I enjoy all the IOM advantages tax-wise & law-wise – now I’m really pissed off the banks don’t want to give me credit cards on the same basis as straightforward UK residents.
The banks know what they are doing and I agree with them.
Apart from income tax I would be really interested to know what the advantages are. Losing Amex is a serious issue for me. What is it that I’m missing out on? Please enlighten me as to what an average working class man and wife with 2 kids are missing out on. Not everyone on the island is a millionaire with weird domicile stuff going on. I don’t even qualify for HSBC premier and that’s the nearest alternative to Amex Platinum. Thanks in advance. Yours sincerely. Mr pissed off. I don’t even have a sea view from my home.
Well @Bill, in the words of the legendary Ken Dodd, at least you don’t have to worry about the Inland Revenue… because you live near the seaside !
Very weirdly, I saw Ken Dodd live on IOM 45 years ago!!!
Oh – I live on IOM – I enjoy all the IOM advantages tax-wise & law-wise – now I’m really pissed off the banks don’t want to give me credit cards on the same basis as straightforward UK residents.
The banks know what they are doing and I agree with them.
Apart from income tax I would be really interested to know what the advantages are. Losing Amex is a serious issue for me. What is it that I’m missing out on? Please enlighten me as to what an average working class man and wife with 2 kids are missing out on. Not everyone on the island is a millionaire with weird domicile stuff going on. I don’t even qualify for HSBC premier and that’s the nearest alternative to Amex Platinum. Thanks in advance. Yours sincerely. Mr pissed off. I don’t even have a sea view from my home.
Well @Bill, in the words of the legendary Ken Dodd, at least you don’t have to worry about the Inland Revenue… because you live near the seaside !
Very weirdly, I saw Ken Dodd live on IOM 45 years ago!!!
But that’s the annoying bit – I sent them a huge amount of stuff, bank statements from 2 different current a/cs going back 6 months etc. I had about 6 gos and got 5 refusals, on my sixth attempt I included my pension holdings on top and they did actually make the temporary £200 into a permanent £200 credit limit, which is obviously completely useless for most people.
I did establish that it is quite straightforward to get to the £3000 spend requirement in the time deadline, with a temp £200 limit, just by paying off your £200 as soon as you can, which frees up a new £200 credit available, rinsing and repeating about 3-4 times a week. Council tax and Octopus Energy (both of whom are happy to repay you if your a/c is in credit).
So 50,000 Avios for not much effort in the end (and about £40 subscription). But so annoying that I think I’ll sign my son up for the Avios – he doesn’t deserve more than £200 credit limit 🙂 – and run the rinse & repeat thingy on his a/c as well.
I thought all this £200 Barclaycard nonsense had gone away.
When you applied, a message came up on screen saying that you were getting a temporary £200 limit (to allow the card to be made up) and you’d get your full limit once you had sent Barclaycard specific ID / financial verification documents.
If you don’t do that, you’re stuck with £200 – but it’s your fault.
Barclaycard does you a favour with the £200 temporary limit because it minimises the delay in card delivery.
That’s been like that since the beginning… The Mrs. applied right at the beginning, got a £200 which was increased 5 min later to £14k after I gave Barclays access to my current account.
I wonder if channel islanders were impacted as well.
Since the ringfencing rules were implemented in 2018, it was destined to happen at some point. Unfortunately, a hit of IOM residents, but I am sure AMEX has calculated the benefits/risks of this move.
I had much the same experience. I have been a cardholder for more than 20 years, never missed a payment and had accumulated a number of companion vouchers. I was given until 17th March to provide financial information (that no other CC provider has ever asked for) but had my account closed on 28th January. To be honest, this not only reflects badly on Amex but also on BA customer loyalty as one of the most important retention incentives has been lost.
I got a similar request last year for one of my cards. I find uploading documents a total faff so I called Amex and asked why they wanted this stuff as I’ve been a customer in good standing for several years. The agent just asked me to verify my address verbally, which I did, and that seemed to be it – I never heard anything about it again and my card stayed open!
Apologies for resurrecting an oldish thread; I’m in the process of moving back to the rock & haven’t found any up to date info on the Amex situation. I’ve got a Gold Preferred Rewards credit card & a Platinum charge card, and I’d like to keep at least one of them. I haven’t spoken to Amex yet for fear of flagging anything up on my file. Does anyone know if they have been closing charge cards as well as the credit cards? I’m half tempted just to have a permanent post office redirection from my current UK address…. I get the impression that I wouldn’t have much luck getting an IoM based card as I’ll be living from pension/savings income. Any input much appreciated!
Apologies for resurrecting an oldish thread; I’m in the process of moving back to the rock & haven’t found any up to date info on the Amex situation. I’ve got a Gold Preferred Rewards credit card & a Platinum charge card, and I’d like to keep at least one of them. I haven’t spoken to Amex yet for fear of flagging anything up on my file. Does anyone know if they have been closing charge cards as well as the credit cards? I’m half tempted just to have a permanent post office redirection from my current UK address…. I get the impression that I wouldn’t have much luck getting an IoM based card as I’ll be living from pension/savings income. Any input much appreciated!
From what we are seeing above, they will probably close your card and to be honest, I would recommend not committing fraud by lying that you are in the UK still and not IoM.
I haven’t heard of Amex doing mass closures of IOM accounts. I have only heard of a handful of forced closures in the last 8 months. I currently hold an Amex as do a few people in IOM that I know. I don’t know what the current situation is for new applications.
If you are considering getting any additional cards (eg Barclayscard Avios) I would recommend applying before you move. Once your address is IOM the Barclaycard website will say the IOM postcode is outside the UK.
Once you have got an IOM address, the only credit card that I know of that you can apply for is HSBC (non rewards) credit card via their branch.
I had my BA Premium Plus account closed yesterday by AMEX. Contacted them but they wouldn’t give me a reason. Not sure if it is because I might have used PayPal for FF transfers last year, or the fact that I did two balance transfers from my Amex CC to my HSBC CC because of better offers instead of paying 111% interest rate on AMEX. I still paid my entire balance due each month, but have accumulated several vouchers over the last few years and points from regular purchases. Anyone have experience of resubmitting a CC application and getting it approved after a cooling off period with them? Super frustrating.
Also don’t know if this was triggered because I had one of my tickets/vouchers refunded to me last week. I now have 2 companion vouchers on my account that Amex might be considering as a bigger expense and thus having me is not profitable? Anyone else gone through a similar situation?
Not quite the same, but I got a notice of variation to T&Cs as of 2/10 for my UK Amex cards – one of the changes was “your residential address for your account must be an address in the United Kingdom”.
My Amex UK account has had an Australian address on it for many years now, but seems they’ve decided they won’t be allowing that any more. So I either move it back or close it.
Makes me wonder what is going to happen to the ICC card – I’ve kept the Platinum, for insurance purposes mainly, but also to hold MR points I don’t want to transfer yet. I know that’s a different situation, since they were always available to non-UK residents, but now it’s not available to new applicants, they’re presumably trying to eventually get rid of it?
Not quite the same, but I got a notice of variation to T&Cs as of 2/10 for my UK Amex cards – one of the changes was “your residential address for your account must be an address in the United Kingdom”.
My Amex UK account has had an Australian address on it for many years now, but seems they’ve decided they won’t be allowing that any more. So I either move it back or close it.
Makes me wonder what is going to happen to the ICC card – I’ve kept the Platinum, for insurance purposes mainly, but also to hold MR points I don’t want to transfer yet. I know that’s a different situation, since they were always available to non-UK residents, but now it’s not available to new applicants, they’re presumably trying to eventually get rid of it?
Unlikely we see it coming back. Regulators are getting strict and with more scrutiny, any cross border products that fall in the grey area between jurisdictions will be the first to go.
Unless you have regular income or expenses in that currency, you get same benefits on domestic plat.
Thursday, 3 August 2023 07:13
American Express says letters sent in error
Isle of Man holders of American Express credit cards are being reassured they can continue using their cards.
It follows a letter which was sent by the company to all customers in the Crown Dependencies stating that their cards would be cancelled from October this year.
American Express has since clarified that the letters were sent in error and services to existing card holders will be maintained.
A similar mistake was made earlier this year when Barclaycard customers in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey were given a month’s notice their cards would be cancelled. The lender later apologised for the error.
Not quite the same, but I got a notice of variation to T&Cs as of 2/10 for my UK Amex cards – one of the changes was “your residential address for your account must be an address in the United Kingdom”.
My Amex UK account has had an Australian address on it for many years now, but seems they’ve decided they won’t be allowing that any more. So I either move it back or close it.
Makes me wonder what is going to happen to the ICC card – I’ve kept the Platinum, for insurance purposes mainly, but also to hold MR points I don’t want to transfer yet. I know that’s a different situation, since they were always available to non-UK residents, but now it’s not available to new applicants, they’re presumably trying to eventually get rid of it?
Unlikely we see it coming back. Regulators are getting strict and with more scrutiny, any cross border products that fall in the grey area between jurisdictions will be the first to go.
Unless you have regular income or expenses in that currency, you get same benefits on domestic plat.
True, I’d assume it’ll get the chop eventually then. Unless ringfencing it exclusively to those outside the UK saves it (speculating I suppose – they offer a different ICC for the Central/Latin America region too, I believe).
Re benefits, I agree it has little (well, almost no) benefits over domestic. However, I use it to hold MR points while resetting the clock on domestic cards, the SQ transfer rate is better, and it’s the cheapest way for me to have comprehensive travel insurance for OH & I. For that purpose, paying US$575 is also much cheaper than the A$1,450 cost of the domestic Australia Platinum card (or the US Platinum card, at $695, though that may be a go to in future).
In fact, I don’t do any spending on it at all, in fact my primary Amex spending is on US domiciled cards (Green and Hilton Aspire).
Not quite the same, but I got a notice of variation to T&Cs as of 2/10 for my UK Amex cards – one of the changes was “your residential address for your account must be an address in the United Kingdom”.
My Amex UK account has had an Australian address on it for many years now, but seems they’ve decided they won’t be allowing that any more. So I either move it back or close it.
Was there any reason you changed it to an Australian address? Asking as I am moving to Australia next year but I intend to keep all my UK banking stuff at a UK address
Not quite the same, but I got a notice of variation to T&Cs as of 2/10 for my UK Amex cards – one of the changes was “your residential address for your account must be an address in the United Kingdom”.
My Amex UK account has had an Australian address on it for many years now, but seems they’ve decided they won’t be allowing that any more. So I either move it back or close it.
Was there any reason you changed it to an Australian address? Asking as I am moving to Australia next year but I intend to keep all my UK banking stuff at a UK address
Just for east of getting some cards delivered. Doesn’t really matter all that much, as I’m between the countries. Several banks and Amex have an Australian address for transaction accounts and credit cards, none of them have had any issues with it for many years now. Amex I actually didn’t bother with until I needed a new card, they then proactively offered to do it (this was probably 6+ years ago now), although they can also just send the card to an overseas address without updating the address, which is what I would choose to do now.
Equally I’ve several which are still domiciled in the UK. There doesn’t seem to be any benefit or disbenefit to either approach (although for CRA reporting purposes the ones I moved straight to Australia without first moving to my new UK address still report my old address, but this has never raised a question as the address always shows up as a link for all the other accounts anyway).
So as long as you can either get the cards/correspondence sent to you, or are there regularly enough to pick it up, then may as well leave it where it is (it’s also more difficult to update the foreign address, as naturally the online services will only accept a UK address, so entering an overseas address requires a human). The only time this has been an issue was during the pandemic when we were locked in. This hopefully won’t become a regular thing!
Going further OT now, and I presume you are doing this anyway, but my advice would be to definitely keep as much of your UK accounts/history intact as possible, since opening new accounts once you leave becomes more difficult (but by no means impossible) and if you let it lie dormant for too long it’ll disappear, and starting from scratch would be harder, if you ever plan to move back. Also keep your UK driving licence up to date if you can/if you have one.
I don’t think I ever had a card cancelled under me. The worst I had recently was Barclaycard refusing to increase my £200 credit limit, despite a huge amount of evidence showing: give me more. They are idiots, sorry Mr HFP, I know they are among your favourites – but giving me £200 credit limit just meant I took the 50,000 Avios and closed the a/c.
For example, Amex Marriott Bonvoy just gave me £6K limit based on not very much – if I could be bothered I’m sure I could get the credit limit increased. People here regularly say they have £30K limits on their Amex cards. I don’t think I ever got that much – more like £15K typically.
So why does Barclaycard think I am worth £200? ???
They are complete idiots in terms of rating customers.
I think it would be pretty rare for Amex to give you a £30k limit from the start. I have reached such limits over 20 years of impeccable account management, starting as a graduate on probably £500 limit (cannot remember exactly) and increasing automatically this over the years as I put virtually all my spend (when retailer allowed) on the Card, which was still only following the increases BarclayCard used to give me (my back up card). For a period I also had a NatWest AirMiles duo account, but they never increased my limit (of £1500 from the start, I had a graduate account with NatWest) so I ended up closing it.
In addition to my high credit limit on BAPP, my Platinum Chargecard have approved “spending power” check transactions up to £50k recently (that is how much I have checked really).
You probably can’t get £30k right away, but it certainly doesn’t need 20 years of ” account management” (whatever that might be lol)
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