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

[DarrenS]

strickers wrote:

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.

Some of you may remember @Ghengis, who used to frequent this site. He had some very wise advice about quietly going about your business.

[executiveclubber]

JDB wrote:

Now you can get a Gold card on minimum wage and a Platinum on median wage!

This isn’t true, median wage is £34k and Amex Platinum minimum income is £50k. Even as a household income, £50k would put you in the top 92% of UK earners.

[Wiseoldman]

executiveclubber wrote:

JDB wrote:

Now you can get a Gold card on minimum wage and a Platinum on median wage!

This isn’t true, median wage is £34k and Amex Platinum minimum income is £50k. Even as a household income, £50k would put you in the top 92% of UK earners.

just as an example

https://x.com/hkanji/status/1822771712863154302?t=Ux5B0SA-TiDi0kFkGy6kgA&s=08

[JDB]

executiveclubber wrote:

JDB wrote:

Now you can get a Gold card on minimum wage and a Platinum on median wage!

This isn’t true, median wage is £34k and Amex Platinum minimum income is £50k. Even as a household income, £50k would put you in the top 92% of UK earners.

Platinum and BAPP minimum income is the same at £35k.

The ONS says that in the year to April 2023 the annual UK median wage was £34,963. I did give myself the liberty of ignoring the £37 shortfall, but the figure at April 2024 when published will be well over £35k.

Anyway why pitch your flagship (open to public application) card at this level?

[Wiseoldman]

@DarrenS nothing is a secret for long now. IF it is happening someone is tweeting/X’ing, tiktoking/youtubing/gramming/redditing it. If you need an edge than you have to perform higher than everyone else and then reiterate when the world catches on quickly.

When i started we used to have a min 2-5 year product cycle and now in some businesses it is less than 3 months…too much tenwion and work

[jj]

If Amex attempted to charge £2,820 for a service that it knew in advance would cost only £465 to provide, what adjectives would HfP readers use to describe it? Smart? Savvy? Thieving b*****s?

Do those adjectives also describe a customer who does the same to Amex? If not, why not?

Genuinely interested to understand which direction moral compasses point.

[Wiseoldman]

@jj that is not how the world works. We all pay high Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC) when we acquire a new customer. The trick is what is Lifetime Value (LTV) of that customer. The trick or skill is to convert the customer into a high LTV customer. Amex has been playing this game for a long time. They know the CAC and know hoe many will play the system and then leave and how many will stay.

We see this in intro offers for all parts of life; insurance/mobiles….

The trouble is we are implying morality to corporations whereby they have proven time and time that they are corporations and not moral entitities. We need to be moral as best as we can but not be naive

[JDB]

@Wiseoldman – CAC/LTV measures are not how Amex UK works any longer. They have other metrics they need to show in order to keep the plates spinning and have ample data to know that the biennial applicants are a waste of money, so those chancers should count themselves very lucky!

@jj point re the hypocrisy is very valid. The excuse that somehow it’s OK to drop one’s moral standards and rip off Amex because it’s a big profitable organisation is just so feeble as well as being a very slippery slope. Where does it end? Plenty of companies are in fact very moral. I’m not sure how sympathetic the judges currently meting out sentences to rioters would be to the notion that it’s fine to loot rich Cartier but not the impoverished local independent trader. One could probably more easily queue barge in front of a little old lady rather than a burly builder, so that must fine because it’s possible. I am allowed to drive at 60mph on the country lanes but should I?

[jj]

@Wiseoldman, I’m not sure where you have spent your working life, but I can assure you that business ethics, morality and social responsibility have been a major factor in decision taking in every one of the hundreds of board meetings that I have attended. I can’t extrapolate my experience to all corporations, but I can tell you that some corporations very much behave like moral entities. Am I alone in regarding the extraction of a retention bonus from a company with no intention of honouring the implied bargain as being deceit?

Personally, I hope that someone from Amex reads this thread, decides to close the naive loopholes in its business processes, and uses the cash saved to enhance the attraction of its products for those customers who don’t churn. Sadly, I have no faith that Amex is smart enough to do that.

[Rui N.]

LMAO

[JDB]

Rui N. wrote:

LMAO

Clearly you must work for a very different type of organisation, so you don’t realise that high ethical standards are not only the right thing to do but actually good business. The cost to a business of getting caught can be so high in both financial and reputational terms that strict compliance with rules and high standards pay off. Obviously, you can have a few bad apples that Rui N. everything for everyone and they can be hard to root out.

The case of Tesco and the accounting scandal is a good example of why to do things properly.

It’s a surprise and a big shame that you haven’t encountered firms that rely entirely on integrity for the reputation and longevity but maybe they scare you??

[jj]

@JDB I’m guessing that Rui N has never been allowed anywhere near a board room.

With good reason.

[strickers]

I can’t remember who said it, but the phrase ‘customer service of today is profit of tomorrow’ is very relevant in the business to customer relationship.

[Hbommie]

The whole point of this site is to show how to benefit from whatever card or loyalty scheme takes your fancy.

https://www.headforpoints.com/2024/02/01/is-american-express-platinum-card-worth-650/

Nothing new in the OP’s post.

If you take it as a boast, then fair enough, but the only thing they did to irk was cancelling after a retention offer which is nothing new.

[HampshireHog]

Oh for the days of my childhood monopoly board when owning and operating hotels was very profitable and utilities were not worth investing in…
Yes, some business entities have ethics but many more are sadly lacking in any corporate morality in my humble opinion from seeing the inner workings of quite a few high profile uk based businesses.

[HampshireHog]

In the way Amex sadly appear to offer big bucks to those who game the system are we surprised that they are taken advantage of and secondly when some folk trip up over the many unwritten rules we hear of their problems with Amex.
I really don’t understand their marketing and customer retention policy nor for that matter their odd range of products

[HampshireHog]

All of which reminds me I must refer Mrs Hampshire Hog for another card and get me a supp after she’s been accepted.

[Andre182]

This thread has been fascinating and truly an eye-opener to different perspectives. My intent was to help others by sharing my experience, though I don’t appreciate being called unethical or smug. To clarify, I never intentionally asked for the retention bonus with the plan of canceling the card. When a better offer for my partner came along, it made sense to cancel and get a supplemental card. Honestly, who wouldn’t? I don’t even agree that asking for a retention bonus with the intent to cancel is unethical. That said, I value the discussion and appreciate everyone’s input.

It’s been rather strange that so much sympathy is being directed toward Amex in this discussion. They are the ones offering these incentives, not out of charity, but because it serves their business model. Amex is a billion-dollar company. If they offer retention bonuses, it’s because they’ve calculated that it benefits them. No one is forcing them to do this. Why should we feel guilty for taking advantage of the benefits they’ve put on the table? This idea that we need to protect a massive corporation from its own marketing strategy seems weird.

As for the tone of this thread, I’d just like to say that while it’s easy to get caught up in the heat of debate, we should remember that we’re all here because we have a shared interest. Rather than tearing each other down, let’s focus on what we can learn from one another. Alright, now let’s sing Kumbaya.

[Peter K]

Only just read this thread. Wow, some chips on shoulders here.

Most of what the original person here gained from their card were what Amex throw at everyone. Is making the most what is offered then leaving any more immoral than having a fixed deal on utilities/broadband etc then leaving when it ends?

Are Amex doing things wrong? Maybe. But that is Amex’s issue.

Are loyal customers losing out? Yes (again see utilities, and (until recently) insurance costs for loyal customers rather than new ones).

Does Amex generate loyal customers from sign-up bonuses? Yes. I have introduced a few such ones to their ecosystem.

Is saying you’ll stay to gain a bonus then leaving anyway a bad thing? I personally feel it is dishonest.

Do certain ones commenting come across as rude sometimes and very helpful at other times? Are they hyperfocused on certain topics? Do they struggle/are unable to see others points of view? Can they come across as lacking empathy? Do they have black and white views of matters, a strong sense of what they feel is right and wrong? You judge for yourself on this and what that means, but it doesn’t make someone a bad person to be like this. We are all just part of the spectrum of life and taking input from various sources can help mould us, hopefully in a positive way.

[Rui N.]

Hear hear.
The OP was just using the benefits of the card, nothing else. Didn’t even get an overwhelming amount out of the card (but good call on remembering the purchase benefit).
If he (or anyone else) didn’t get more “money” back from Amex than they paid for the annual fee, why the actual **** would anyone take the card? Are Amex customers supposed to be charities now?

I just recently got £240 chargeback on my Gold card because of Google’s almost-fraudulent (alleged! Alleged!) behaviour when selling me a cell phone. Next time I’ll send a check to both Google and Amex to help their bottom line.

[Aardvark]

Andre182 wrote:

This thread has been fascinating and truly an eye-opener to different perspectives. My intent was to help others by sharing my experience, though I don’t appreciate being called unethical or smug. To clarify, I never intentionally asked for the retention bonus with the plan of canceling the card. When a better offer for my partner came along, it made sense to cancel and get a supplemental card. Honestly, who wouldn’t? I don’t even agree that asking for a retention bonus with the intent to cancel is unethical. That said, I value the discussion and appreciate everyone’s input.

It’s been rather strange that so much sympathy is being directed toward Amex in this discussion. They are the ones offering these incentives, not out of charity, but because it serves their business model. Amex is a billion-dollar company. If they offer retention bonuses, it’s because they’ve calculated that it benefits them. No one is forcing them to do this. Why should we feel guilty for taking advantage of the benefits they’ve put on the table? This idea that we need to protect a massive corporation from its own marketing strategy seems weird.

As for the tone of this thread, I’d just like to say that while it’s easy to get caught up in the heat of debate, we should remember that we’re all here because we have a shared interest. Rather than tearing each other down, let’s focus on what we can learn from one another. Alright, now let’s sing Kumbaya.

Keep up the good work – there is always something to learn. Also on this forum sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees if you know what I mean!

[vzzbuckz]

AMEX are a canny company in that you never know when something comes along that blows other benefits out of the water. For example, the OP got most of the value from the Membership Rewards Points (valued at £2,700) or something along those lines.

I’ve had the Amex Platinum for a number of years now; made a lot in the first year with the sign up bonuses, retention bonuses etc but that’s usually for year 1. I kept the card as some of the perks suited my lifestyle but wasn’t making any bonus until we went on holiday to an all-inclusive Hilton in the Caribbean which we booked via TUI (different card). As it turned out, we discovered at checkin, that if you are gold or higher, you get upgraded to the Premium level with additional pools, better booze, dedicated restaurants and so on. We were there for two weeks. To buy the upgrade via TUI would have cost an extra £1,600 – so would that be classed as a benefit?

Before you ask, the benefit has stopped now and Hilton has rebranded the perk, but I think that’s one of the reasons AMEX has a loyal following – sometimes, good things come up which you (and probably they) weren’t expecting.

[Misty]

Andre182 wrote:

JDB wrote:

As the thread title suggests, a “success story” for you, but pretty terrible for Amex, actually quite embarrassing for them, highlighting the absurdity of their UK ‘strategy’, so maybe best not to shout about it from the rooftops.

Appreciate your perspective, but I don’t see why not shout it from the rooftops. Unless I’m missing something. When I was first looking into credit card rewards and points, reading about others’ experiences was incredibly helpful. Sharing stories like this helps others understand how to make the most of the benefits available to them. It’s not about exploiting the system, it’s about being informed and strategic. If this information can help others do the same, then I think it’s definitely worth sharing.

The reason ‘not to shout things from the rooftops’, is because these forums are monitored and what you are doing will gradually be closed down, ergo rather than helping others as you altruistically put it you will be hindering them.

The information is out there already and most on here know how to use it. It is also given in a much more subtle way. You have given a boilerplate example that can be worked on from top to bottom and not just by other users.

As said go quietly about your business.

[Harrods]

It’s always the people who are new to these forums with no post history with nothing better to do that ruins it for all of us.

What has this post achieved exactly? To make yourself feel good or to encourage others to do the same?

[Misty]

Harrods wrote:

It’s always the people who are new to these forums with no post history with nothing better to do that ruins it for all of us.

What has this post achieved exactly? To make yourself feel good or to encourage others to do the same?

+1 Generally speaking I love the fact that this forum isn’t moderated but if it was this thread is something that would benefit from it.