Here’s how I used the Amex Platinum in the last 9 Months—A success story?

[BBbetter]

I’m all for making hay while sun shines, but I agree with JDB – notch up your gains and move on quietly. Pretty much all the frequent posters here have all done this, nothing new. Its a marathon, not a sprint! I’d be planning the points strategy 3 or 5 years from now, not be busy shouting from rooftops about year 1.

[TGLoyalty]

To the OP thanks for highlighting the refund protection. I’ve stored that in the memory bank for the future.

I see JDB’s point and I see yours … and to be honest @BBbetter makes a really good one. But glad you made it work for you.

[aq.1988]

I don’t think OP has posted anything that most Platinum cardholders wouldn’t already know about. Not sure there is anything that Amex could “shut down”, almost everything is the standard benefits of the card, and the OP has simply placed a cash value on them. The only part that most people would frown on is to still cancel the card after accepting a retention offer. Given that most people (I would hope) would keep the card after taking an offer, not sure how much it would affect others if Amex started adding some requirements to keep the card on these retention offers.

I would say is that given the value you have got from the card, whether it was worth keeping it for another year at least. Obviously you wouldn’t have got the 75k SUB again, but there were 25k on offer for spending in month 15, and you probably could have got 35/50k retention offer again. That alone would probably cover the card fee, even if you don’t need the other benefits given that your partner also has a Platinum.

[strickers]

I don’t know who I am more miffed at, the OP, not for having done it but for highlighting, did I mention the first rule of flight club? Or Amex for allowing this to happen, there’s nothing significantly new in the post that hasn’t been done before. But some of us have long memories, Curve losing Amex, IHG credit card pulled etc. etc.

[ed_fly]

I would expect, hope even, that Amex takes a note when retention bonuses are offered and taken, and time between retention offer and card closure. I’m sure it’s something they must keep an eye on, some recent reports of belt tightening on BAPP retention offers.

I’d personally think twice about taking a retention bonus and cancelling soon after. 50k MR is obviously appealing, but Amex deciding to block me from holding their cards again would make 50k MR seem like a very bad return. (Notwithstanding the moral question of such actions).

[points_worrier]

executiveclubber wrote:

Welcome to the forum & thanks for sharing your success! I see you’ve met JDB…

Occasionally known as Mr X in these credit card circles…

[slidey]

Andre182 wrote:

Lastly, the fact remains that if posts like mine provide value to even one person, which they clearly have, then that’s what matters to me. I’m here to share experiences, learn from others, and hopefully help people along the way (emphasis on hopefully so as to not be labelled as arrogant). If you see that as contributing to the noise, that’s your prerogative. But I’m going to keep sharing, because I believe that’s what these forums are about—helping and learning from each other.

No way this guy isnt trolling at this point lol.

[zio]

Seems invested enough to write some long posts.

Btw is it just me that still can’t quote?

[TGLoyalty]

Nope, quoting is completely broken for some of us on mobiles.

[aq.1988]

TGLoyalty wrote:

Nope, quoting is completely broken for some of us on mobiles.

There is a trick someone mentioned that if you put your phone in landscape mode, then you can quote. I’m using the Samsung browser on Android btw.

[DonLee]

Only 1 referral in 9 months is definitely poor. I would max out 180k

[Maples]

DonLee wrote:

Only 1 referral in 9 months is definitely poor. I would max out 180k

Wouldn’t really say it’s poor when it’s highly dependent on how many people in your circle actually care about Amex. How are you able to max it out – are you constantly in contact with new groups of people?

[TGLoyalty]

@aq.1988 none of those “tricks” work why I said completely broken

[Maples]

Lots of gatekeeping on here. Great for OP to share their experience and help future people to get an actual rundown on things that people have been able to make use of.

We’re highlighting the fact that OP’s just repeating stuff that’s been done before and how Amex could axe benefits, but yet we’ve got the same articles being cycled through or the retention offer threads being used and enabling the abuse of retention offers, but oh well. I wouldn’t be surprised if OP went through the thread and got some ideas. I certainly did use the threads to see up to date offers, and then ended up upgrading after plans ended up changing – I was only keeping the Gold for the lounge passes at that point.

It feels like a lot of people are keen on getting a retention offer and then cancelling it soon after – like JBD says, nothing illegal, but shitty morals right there.

Reddit (r/amex or r/amexuk) will probably be a bit less judgemental.

[Aardvark]

Thanks Andre182 for posting this I didn’t find it smug or arrogant! This Forum is for sharing information. Course for any topic it always depends on your individual needs but there is always something to learn from others. Posting anything on this forum should be judged in the spirit of trying to assist others and not being judged by full time keyboard warriors if you get my drift!

[smitrax]

Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.

[Joe G]

I have had the Platinum for a few years and at last renewal I was a bit on the fence about wanting to keep it with the increased fee etc. I decided for me it was just about fair to keep for another year as I felt we got just about value enough out of the benefits for the fee, but as someone who pays the full card fee every year it does get a bit annoying to see people getting exponentially more benefits for signing up for a short time and milking it though I can see why it would be attractive to do so. I’m not sure I will renew for another year after this one expires.

I would say it’s definitely on AMEX for having a strategy that seems to favour new (and often temporary) customers over loyalty, it must work for them or they wouldn’t be doing it. I have to say It seems increasingly more attractive to just sit it out for a couple of years then jump back on the gravy train as a “new” customer than keep paying the annual fee and getting substantially less benefits.

[Grant]

Joe G wrote:

I would say it’s definitely on AMEX for having a strategy that seems to favour new (and often temporary) customers over loyalty, it must work for them or they wouldn’t be doing it.

The way I see it is for every one customer like the OP, there will be many more who sign up reap the benefits to varying degrees and then don’t cancel the card either through laziness, forgetfulness or potentially ignorance.

The same is true for a lot things like insurance, mobile phones, fibre, Sky TV etc.

[Wiseoldman]

I feel the OP was entitled to express their jiy and happiness at what they got. We do live in a world where all the joy and misery is shared for all to see. IF we think Amex is not aware of usage of these perks and how many people take retention and cancel and not find the maths in their favour than we live in a different world. Amex pays influencers to shout these benefits to the world and obviosuly more people keep the product than cancel. Even in the OP’s case they brought another customer to Amex.

Every time there is a Amex offer @Rob lists all the benefits in exactly the same way as the OP did.

Amex has a working strategy and some may not like it but it is working for them.

[scholar wong]

Am I missing something? The bulk of the value is based on the SUB/Retention bonus and the favourable insurance claim. The SUB is a one-off, the insurance claim outcome can’t relied upon nor can the retention bonus.

Ignoring those items there is value, but not not a huge amount.

Isn’t this a typical outcome for anyone with a special offer SUB?

I will say the approach to the insurance claim isn’t something I’ve considered before, i.e. “hello, can I claim for the RP, but only if I don’t have to return the item”.

[JDB]

@Wiseoldman – it’s all very well to support this OP’s actions but don’t you think it’s grotesquely unfair on all the ‘regular’ high fee paying cardholders for Amex to shower the chancers with points?

Of course it’s made worse by the OP rubbing everyone’s nose in it. One way or another the ordinary cardholder pays for these monster SUBs and retentions; they don’t come out of Amex profits as suggested. I don’t know why regular fee payers don’t complain to Amex.

I found the OP’s story particularly scuzzy because of the pretence that after trying out the card he ultimately decided it wasn’t worth keeping. Yeah, right. However, I was very restrained until endless attempted justifications emerged.

Amex tolerates this because it struggles big time in the UK so it keeps the two year rule vs the US lifetime rule which enables it to keep telling shareholders that new customer acquisition and retention is strong while neglecting to mention either that they aren’t really new or the cost involved. These sorts of statements aren’t allowed in the UK.

The UK is a very competitive and dynamic card market (far more so than any other European country) and Amex finds it very hard to be relevant or compete, so its market share and merchant acceptance keeps shrinking. Many providers, both sleepy high street banks and fintechs are really upping their game in higher fee cards. Twenty something years ago Amex had some cachet and suggested you were quite well off. Now you can get a Gold card on minimum wage and a Platinum on median wage! So Amex flagship product for less than half Barclays or HSBC Premier requirement.

Amex is also seemingly forced to offer the same own brand card range in the UK where there is less willingness to hold quite the portfolio of Amex cards US people have. Thus Amex has no UK killer card – Plat / Gold / BAPP – the ‘big three’ each have different offerings of value but no mix and match that would be so much more powerful. How does the flagship card have lower points accrual than the others, etc. etc? The benefits of the BAPP that have improved over time are entirely driven by BA not Amex. They seem to have no clue except just to keep jacking up fees, SUBs and retentions, creating something of a vicious circle or downward spiral for themselves while others eat their lunch.
Why not just plough on with the same old failed ‘strategy’?

[JDB]

@JoeG – these handouts to those gaming the system do seem horribly unfair for the regular, long term cardholder. Amex needs to provide a level of benefits that doesn’t require excessive welcome bonus nor any retention. A card ought to be able to stand on its own two feet.

Clearly it’s cheaper to buy off a small number of customers and dumb down the cards for everyone. It doesn’t feel like a long term winning strategy.

I note also Rob’s comments about Barclays quickly discovering that jumbo offers don’t necessarily get you a good class of customer!

[Wiseoldman]

@JDB I completely hear and feel you. This is an issue not just in the card market but also in other markets. I think the game has changed from both sides; their used to be a loyalty to high spending/long term fee paying customers and it showed in the Amex customer service. I am old enough to have used conceirge in a global market and just expect them to perform miracles. There used to be pride in “customer since”

Amex broke that by downgrading customer service and becoming transactional and encouraging customers to be transactional rather than build long term relationships. I guess it is generational and two-sided.

I think in UK the only company in recent times that has shown any modicu of customer service ethos is Octopus Energy. Dont remeber any new company with good CS. People like JL have downgraded to the extent of not being recognizable.

We live in churn and burn world now. Feel the pain and remeber the good old days

[JDB]

@Wiseoldman – unfortunately customer service is one of the victims of all these unnecessary handouts as is the poorer selection/value of offers. It’s a bad thing to cut as Amex service is one of its few distinguishing features vs other providers.

This isn’t really such an olden days thing either. Amex has got much more transactional and focussed on precise application of terms in very recent times and it is partly because of the way customers treat them. Even two years ago, if an offer didn’t track, Amex would apply it immediately to your account. Lots of people latched on to this so falsely claimed all sorts of things to get offers after the event. You will recall Rob’s goodwill being abused by people asking him to intervene re the BA 70k SUB. Amex has got vastly more resistant to chargebacks and s75 in the defences couple of years – very aggressive defences in published FOS cases.

This is why I abhor the fact that so many posters here laud the chancers when they are so destructive and anti-social.

[Wiseoldman]

Amex needs to then tier its offering to service for paying members. It has that choice but is choosing not to do so and downgrading the service for all. We have all offered differentiated products/service levels to our client so if Amex is not doing so it is by choice. I do fee it is a generational thing as Amex product teams have also become younger and have the same influencer/transactional mind set so that is what they are offering.

At one level it is pure pay for play with no loyalty/relationship (obcure & discretionary) layer.