Crazy new offer on personal Platinum Card!

[SteveCroydon]

I’ve just received an email from American Express. If I refer someone for the Platinum Card, I get 18,000 MRs and they get 100,000 MRs!! They need to spend £10,000 in six months. The offer runs until 14th January 2025, as with the other Gold/Plat offers.
Are these extended SUBs a sign that AX are loosing the plot and/or loosing lots of members?

[JDB]

SteveCroydon wrote:

I’ve just received an email from American Express. If I refer someone for the Platinum Card, I get 18,000 MRs and they get 100,000 MRs!! They need to spend £10,000 in six months. The offer runs until 14th January 2025, as with the other Gold/Plat offers.
Are these extended SUBs a sign that AX are loosing the plot and/or loosing lots of members?

I think it’s a bit of both. They are very desperate and the higher fee credit card market has got a whole lot more competitive. One thing I don’t understand is why they don’t offer the SUB to existing Gold cardholders. Last autumn when they had the Plat 75k/25k offer, they offered it to Gold cardholders as an upgrade, but that meant giving up my Gold card something I definitely don’t want to do. Much though I think the Plat product is poor, for 100k MR I’m enough of a tart that I would apply and keep the card longer term especially when ones palm is greased with a generous retention.

[FFoxSake]

JDB wrote:

for 100k MR I’m enough of a tart that I would apply and keep the card longer term especially when ones palm is greased with a generous retention.

Gamekeeper turning poacher? 😉

[JDB]

FFoxSake wrote:

JDB wrote:

for 100k MR I’m enough of a tart that I would apply and keep the card longer term especially when ones palm is greased with a generous retention.

Gamekeeper turning poacher? 😉

Why? I think the massive SUBs and retentions are ridiculous, to the detriment of the average cardholder and more importantly splashing all this cash clearly indicates that they have a poor product that’s just not appealing to enough people. They should spend the money designing a product fit for the UK market in 2024/25, not one designed for the US market decades ago. Amex has lost the cachet it once had, so it needs to focus on the product but seems unable to do so.

If they pay me £1000 plus some dining credits and HN in exchange for £650, I’m OK with that; more fool them. I’m offering to hold a portfolio of their three top cards, but they don’t want to play!

I might agree with your gamekeeper/poacher thinking if I were planning to do any MS or churn which I’m not.

[captainkirk]

SteveCroydon wrote:

I’ve just received an email from American Express. If I refer someone for the Platinum Card, I get 18,000 MRs and they get 100,000 MRs!! They need to spend £10,000 in six months. The offer runs until 14th January 2025, as with the other Gold/Plat offers.
Are these extended SUBs a sign that AX are loosing the plot and/or loosing lots of members?

I’d love a referral if you would like to send me one? Both of us can benefit!

[strickers]

Referrals normally get blocked, I just tried for the sake of it. Rob might be able to offer one?

[Rob]

I’ll get Rhys to sort one out.

[SteveCroydon]

Why can’t I send @captainkirk a referral link? After all, I flagged up the AMEX offer!!!

[DonLee]

SteveCroydon wrote:

Why can’t I send @captainkirk a referral link? After all, I flagged up the AMEX offer!!!

That was already flagged a few days ago in one of the daily post. And we all agree this is the way to pay our share for this site

[phantomchickenz]

…and it was mentioned a few times in the comments to yesterday’s article

[PIL]

SteveCroydon wrote:

Why can’t I send @captainkirk a referral link? After all, I flagged up the AMEX offer!!!

The long standing etiquette is that Rob is arranging such links. Otherwise, we would be seeing ref links posted all the time from anyone that is reading these topics

[BBbetter]

Either Amex doesn’t care about the retention rate or someone is sending fake data to management.

On another note, would people retain the card if they were offered BAPP or gold cards free instead of retention bonuses?

[Lady London]

JDB wrote:

I’m enough of a tart …

Still reeling from the shock, JDB.

BBB you may be onto something.

[TGLoyalty]

Get a retention bonus in Gold card anyway …

Why would I swap 55-70k points for £195 off

Don’t see why people keep BAPP for longer than it takes to hit a voucher either … since it looks like no pro rata refunds is dead I can’t see any advantage.

[JM1987]

Slightly unrelated but this was the most recent Amex Platinum thread…

I’ve got AMEX Platinum already, if I had a Supp Gold card to my account in my name, will I benefit from the 2x points on airline spend, or is that wishful thinking?

[TGLoyalty]

Nope it’s not an actual gold card it just doesn’t have the Platinum card benefits like hotel status / Priority Pass / lounge access (1 free the rest are £285 each)

I’m sure only the charge variant can have the gold/green supps too.

It basically covers the holders with the insurance products, participate in Amex offers and lets them charge to your account.

Need an actual gold card account to get the proper gold card benefits like x2 MR on spend etc

[BBbetter]

TGLoyalty wrote:

Why would I swap 55-70k points for £195 off

No, TGL, the hypothetical question was if there was no retention bonus and instead, a free second card was offered.

[TGLoyalty]

BBbetter wrote:

TGLoyalty wrote:

Why would I swap 55-70k points for £195 off

No, TGL, the hypothetical question was if there was no retention bonus and instead, a free second card was offered.

The hypothetical question is being asked when we have the precedent on retention points and it’s been going on for about 4 years.

So the question really is would you swap the bonus for a free gold or BAPP. The answer is no I wouldn’t stick with a £600 platinum card because they said I could have one of those gratis.

What would actually be the point of gold for free? they could just improve the Platinum earnings rate on travel and fx spend.

BAPP might be more interesting but a bumper sign up bonus is more interesting than holding it.

[StanTheMan]

FFoxSake wrote:

JDB wrote:

for 100k MR I’m enough of a tart that I would apply and keep the card longer term especially when ones palm is greased with a generous retention.

Gamekeeper turning poacher? 😉

You think you know a man, then he does this……. What a world

[JDB]

@StanTheMan – it’s just business! If they pay me enough and let me keep the card I like, I’ll have their Plat card, although it is of minimal utility. As yet however, they are only willing to pay churners the big bucks rather than those with a long track record of holding. Having visited the T3 Centurion Lounge yesterday, Amex’s UK Platinum problem is ever clearer.