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The fact that they’ve never sorted the airport lounge access out to give the passes some sort of value is beyond me. Instead what did they do? Increase their offering from 2x useless free airport lounge passes to 4 on Gold! Go figure.
Retirees aren’t exactly the only people here! It’s not “playing the victim card” to point out that Amex will be losing spend from previous customers, especially those who are less affected by the current financial climate of high interest rates. We’ll see what the future brings, anyway.
@JDB, if household income is so inconsequential, why on earth does Amex ask about it?Amex lose spend from everyone they turn down. But as a commercial organisation they can turn down anyone they want, they have to judge spend against risk. Why not be a sup on a card of the person earning over £35K if that threshold is a stumbling block?
I made the victim remark as you’ve posted several times about an Amex policy on the back of how it effects you, whilst trying to position it as a bad decision by Amex.
Retirees aren’t exactly the only people here! It’s not “playing the victim card” to point out that Amex will be losing spend from previous customers, especially those who are less affected by the current financial climate of high interest rates.
Retirees and others on fixed incomes have been greatly affected by inflation as even with index linking, that’s usually capped at a level far below current CPI, let alone RPI. Their lifetime savings have also been similarly affected by rampant inflation. Many retirees have had huge erosion of their purchasing power even if they haven’t realised it. Also, for those with SIPP’s it’s quite hard to get a real return currently, so many pots will have been eroded. Conversely, many workers have received pay rises above the caps on index linked pension incomes and quite a few at or above the rate of inflation (which adds of course to the problem).
The fact that they’ve never sorted the airport lounge access out to give the passes some sort of value is beyond me. Instead what did they do? Increase their offering from 2x useless free airport lounge passes to 4 on Gold! Go figure.
Used PP successfully in LHR T2, plaza premium, SGP plaza premium, Manila A lounge and SGP Marhaba again, in the last three weeks. No issues. All lounges whilst nothing to get excited about were pleasant places to sit and wait and have sth to eat and drink. No one complained abt taking PP
@oldfashioned how did you reach 5k of amex offer savings over couple of years? At the top end savings are £100-150 per offer. I thought I was good at capitalising on the offers but 5k is amazing!
@oldfashioned how did you reach 5k of amex offer savings over couple of years? At the top end savings are £100-150 per offer. I thought I was good at capitalising on the offers but 5k is amazing!
I spend a lot of time in hotels and the ability to split the bill over various cards, the trick is having enough cards and doing it subtly, without going into to much detail on a public forum. If you can work in muliples of 20 (or more) per offer and the offer applies to places you want to use the card at anyway then its either a direct saving on in some cases makes somewhere that I cannot justify the rate at suddently becomes much more appealing. The various restauarnt and Harvey Nicols offers also stack up very nicely and while less so, used correctly the Harrods offers can be very generous, although the rule is never buy something you wouldn’t have considered anyway just because of a saving, its only a saving if you would have spent more!
My saving over the last couple of years is a lot more than 5k, especially if you add in that most generous of offers ever, Morrisons, now they were very happy times! The recent Virgin CC reappearance was very welcome!
Isn’t multiples of 20 exactly what brought the mostly now absent Genghis to the attention of the Amex police.
dougzz99
Isn’t multiples of 20 exactly what brought the mostly now absent Genghis to the attention of the Amex police.The key word is subtle
the trick is having enough cards and doing it subtly, without going into to much detail on a public forum.
Good job this forum isn’t public then! As some contributors seem to think here. 😂
the trick is having enough cards and doing it subtly, without going into to much detail on a public forum.
Good job this forum isn’t public then! As some contributors seem to think here. 😂
The forum is very much public, hence I didn’t go into much detail, just a brief overview that isn’t really news to anyone!
People are maybe disappointed that relatively static (often retirement) incomes aren’t putting them in the earnings brackets they’d hoped in a highly inflationary environment.
Really not that long ago, that 35k threshold was a significantly above-average income.
Now it’s only 40% or so above someone doing a 40 hr/wk on minimum wage, particularly if that person receives child benefit, DLA, and possibly other state benefits on top. Minimum wage (and the huge bracket of people with jobs paying £1-3 above minimum wage that tend to track it) will likely rise another 8% or so in April too…
If you have an income above 35k be it from investments, drawdown, etc you can quote it and it should not be impossible to structure and be able to show evidence of that income on request. If you can’t, then, given the regulatory requirements in place, it does only seem responsible for a lender not to be dishing out high-fee high-interest premium credit products to those in the lower half of the income range – particularly multiple iterations of that product within a household which could easily be seen as even more irresponsible or even predatory lending in the case of unpaid debts; exposing Amex to significant risks.
If you do wish to rely on quoting spousal income to access Amex products then surely this is exactly what supplementary cards are designed to allow -so you are not being denied access to use of Amex products (maybe disappointed that you cannot repeatedly flip products to pick up sign-up bonuses as before – but clearly that gravy train could not last forever and has already lasted longer than anyone could reasonably hope).
Multiples of 20, what does mean? Triggering an offer 20 times across 20 cards?
Multiples of 20, what does mean? Triggering an offer 20 times across 20 cards?
@Ash – you ask far, far too many questions. Some of the smart posters above have clarified that it is possible to make an omelette without breaking eggs. You make yourself incredibly unpopular by constantly asking questions that the reasonably intelligent person really ought to be able to work out for themselves. Keeping quiet provides the best prospect of people continuing to have opportunities to exploit. I don’t care what people do in the privacy of their own home but when they seek to advertise their activities to the world it becomes objectionable to the more upright citizen.Fight Club people…can we stop this thread veering into unhelpful territory.
It’s not “playing the victim card” to point out that Amex will be losing spend from previous customers,
“Previous customers” – using different words for churners doesn’t make it different.
From a marketing perspective, it’s just much too complicated and it no longer has any vaguely premium cachet; It will be interesting to see if Amex does radically rethink the Platinum product in the UK or just continues to pay people to take it off their hands and/or hold it.
Really hope Amex rethinks plat benefits. Remove the statement credit offers like HN, dining credit and instead use it make the insurance better and add one or more status like Hyatt.
Personally think the Hilton and Meliá gold are underrated. Plus some more lounge collaboration with airlines to stay away from the riffraff using Ppass.Omg some people in this forum are just so full of themselves and very little else 😂
From a marketing perspective, it’s just much too complicated and it no longer has any vaguely premium cachet; It will be interesting to see if Amex does radically rethink the Platinum product in the UK or just continues to pay people to take it off their hands and/or hold it.
Really hope Amex rethinks plat benefits. Remove the statement credit offers like HN, dining credit and instead use it make the insurance better and add one or more status like Hyatt.
Personally think the Hilton and Meliá gold are underrated. Plus some more lounge collaboration with airlines to stay away from the riffraff using Ppass.The majority of the ‘riffraff’ as you so eloquently put it are using PP obtained via Amex Plat…
From a marketing perspective, it’s just much too complicated and it no longer has any vaguely premium cachet; It will be interesting to see if Amex does radically rethink the Platinum product in the UK or just continues to pay people to take it off their hands and/or hold it.
Really hope Amex rethinks plat benefits. Remove the statement credit offers like HN, dining credit and instead use it make the insurance better and add one or more status like Hyatt.
Personally think the Hilton and Meliá gold are underrated. Plus some more lounge collaboration with airlines to stay away from the riffraff using Ppass.The majority of the ‘riffraff’ as you so eloquently put it are using PP obtained via Amex Plat…
Isn’t that exactly the problem he’s referring to? amex Plat has become so mass market with the ‘give you your money back’ offers (dining credit, Harvey Nichols) that too many people are getting access to lounges via it. If the benefits were re-thought, including a direct contract with lounges rather than via Collinson, and that resulted in a card fee hike, many of us would be happy to pay it. I’ve never been refused Lufthansa Senator lounge access using Amex Plat, and that is vastly superior to the experience of say Escape Manchester (when rarely admitted). The LH lounges have a wide variety of seating and food and you can work or lounge there easily. Too many UK lounges have simply become rooms where Priority Pass holders can compete to see who can get p1ssed the fastest.
From a marketing perspective, it’s just much too complicated and it no longer has any vaguely premium cachet; It will be interesting to see if Amex does radically rethink the Platinum product in the UK or just continues to pay people to take it off their hands and/or hold it.
Really hope Amex rethinks plat benefits. Remove the statement credit offers like HN, dining credit and instead use it make the insurance better and add one or more status like Hyatt.
Personally think the Hilton and Meliá gold are underrated. Plus some more lounge collaboration with airlines to stay away from the riffraff using Ppass.Well they do seem to be making serious progress on solving that last problem with the expansion of Centurion lounges in places that have a high throughput of worthwhile Amex customers?
From a marketing perspective, it’s just much too complicated and it no longer has any vaguely premium cachet; It will be interesting to see if Amex does radically rethink the Platinum product in the UK or just continues to pay people to take it off their hands and/or hold it.
Really hope Amex rethinks plat benefits. Remove the statement credit offers like HN, dining credit and instead use it make the insurance better and add one or more status like Hyatt.
Personally think the Hilton and Meliá gold are underrated. Plus some more lounge collaboration with airlines to stay away from the riffraff using Ppass.The majority of the ‘riffraff’ as you so eloquently put it are using PP obtained via Amex Plat…
Isn’t that exactly the problem he’s referring to? amex Plat has become so mass market with the ‘give you your money back’ offers (dining credit, Harvey Nichols) that too many people are getting access to lounges via it. If the benefits were re-thought, including a direct contract with lounges rather than via Collinson, and that resulted in a card fee hike, many of us would be happy to pay it. I’ve never been refused Lufthansa Senator lounge access using Amex Plat, and that is vastly superior to the experience of say Escape Manchester (when rarely admitted). The LH lounges have a wide variety of seating and food and you can work or lounge there easily. Too many UK lounges have simply become rooms where Priority Pass holders can compete to see who can get p1ssed the fastest.
I think its actually too many Bonk on the Beach customers and Holiday extras bundles that are the problem with UK lounge access
I just finally settled with the Green Charge Card (no longer available) which suits my needs perfectly…£60 a year which I get refunded thoughout the year with offers. 1 MR point per every £1 spent and an extra year’s warranty cover on 2 x TV’s and a washing machine. No bonuses to chase anymore (been there, done that) and use the MR points to purchase Hilton points whenever Amex run the 30% bonus promotion. I use my Barclaycard Hilton (no longer available) where Amex isn’t accepted. I have the free Virgin Atlantic card for EU spend and the Barclaycard Rewards for further afield. I’m as happy as Larry!
I just finally settled with the Green Charge Card which suits my needs perfectly…£60 a year which I get refunded thoughout the year with offers. 1 MR point per every £1 spent and an extra year’s warranty cover on 2 x TV’s and a washing machine. No bonuses to chase anymore (been there, done that) and use the MR points to purchase Hilton points whenever Amex run the 30% bonus promotion. I use my Barclaycard Hilton where Amex isn’t accepted, and have the free Virgin Atlantic catd for EU spend. I’m as happy as Larry!
off course the fee free card is also an option, only difference i think being the extra appliance warranty
Correct and to me the extra warranty cover on white and brown goods is worth £5 per month. The offers seem to be slightly better on the green card than the free card.
The majority of the ‘riffraff’ as you so eloquently put it are using PP obtained via Amex Plat…
I doubt it. Even if that’s the case, it’ll reduce once churners stop applying from October.
Most likely it’s due to what yorkieflyer mentioned.Another missing piece is a free or paid guest entry for Eurostar lounge.
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