redtop43

First, I would like to suggest this thread for a sticky. I know that stickies take up valuable real estate, but issues of receiving bonuses are an extremely common topic, and one of high importance. Very little is more frustrating than being denied a bonus for which one is qualified.

I will present my personal most recent story, but also draw on other personal experiences and a summary of information posted by others on this topic.

First, a headline. Always document your bonus! Get screenshots, save copies of invitations, and if you are promised something on the phone, document the call. Ask the agent to note it in your file, and get a Memo ID. Amex will not give you a bonus just because it's the right thing to do, because they were giving it to other similar cardmembers at the same time. And do not assume at all that bonuses available online will be extended to a phone application.

So what happened with me?

In January, I wanted to refer my wife for a Plat card. I sent her a referral link, by which I would get points (see next paragraph) and she would get 50,000 points after spending $3,000 in 3 months. However, her link did not work. We tried about 10 times, and each time the application froze on the second page.

While this was happening, Amex increased their referral bonus from 5,000 to 10,000, then 20,000 points. There were website issues with the 20,000 bonus, and a note on this board that Amex was honoring the 20,000 bonus.

I called Amex and explained the situation. The phone agent I spoke with had to put me on hold, apparently to get some kind of approval, and then came back and said that we would get the referral and signup bonuses. He gave me a Memo ID number, which fortunately I saved. I confirmed this later in writing via secure message with Amex.

A day or two later my wife applied on the phone, got the card, I wrote to Amex, and got the referral bonus with no difficulty. It took a few weeks for her to meet the $3,000 spend requirement.

Now another note. Amex will tell you that it can take 8-10 weeks for spend bonuses to post, but in practice that is not the case. Bonuses post very quickly. I have had all my spend bonuses posted within days, often even before I thought they were fully earned (i.e. $9,500 spent on a $10,000 requirement). If more than a few days have passed since you earned your bonus and you have not gotten it, Amex is very unlikely to give it to you voluntarily. Do not believe them when they tell you it might take time. You are going to have a problem.

In my case, I initated correspondence via secure message from both my account and my wife's. In fairness to Amex, part of the problem may have been that some of the correspondence, including my reference to the Memo ID, was on my Amex account, while the bonus was due to my wife.

My wife was told that she would not get the bonus, we replied noting the Memo ID, and we were told that it was "escallated." About a week later we got a snailmail letter saying "Sorry, you are not eligible." Within the next 12 hours we wrote to Amex telling them that we had been promised it, got another letter saying "No," wrote and told them to look at the correspondence in my account, and within a half-hour got another letter saying "No." This particularly irritated me, since they clearly has not reviewed the notes. We then got another letter saying "Your matter has been escallated" - ignoring the fact that they had closed it already.

The next day I called Membership Rewards, and after speaking to a supervisor I was told "Mr. Redtop, I have looked at the notes, you are absolutely right, you deserve the bonus, and there is nothing I can do about it. Membership Rewards does not have the authority to adjust bonuses." I was told to write to Amex at 777 American Express Way, Ft. Lauderdale. They told me they could not give me the phone number, but that I could Google it. I wrote and faxed a letter (they had given me the fax number) and now tried to call. The number was busy all day.

The next morning I called again, still busy, and now called Platinum Customer Service. By this time I had registered myself as an account manager on my wife's card, to clear up any issues of privacy. After a brief chat, I was transferred to a supervisor, who turned out to be a supervisor in - Membership Rewards. I had a repeat of the previous day, "Yes you deserve it, we can't help you." I now went up one more level, speaking to the supervisor's supervisor.

This woman now did the following:

a) Told me that the ability to issue MR points has been severely restricted. She said that too many people were giving them too freely, and they just cut back so that very few people now have that authority. (Readers of this board will note that until about a year ago, Amex was in fact giving out bonuses almost like candy.)
b) Told me that these matters are handled out of Amex Corporate in New York. She gave me the address, 200 Vesey St. 42nd floor, and the name of Lynne Biggar, Senior VP and Program Manager. Again, she said she couldn't give me the phone number, but I could Google it.
c) Read me the contents of the Memo ID, which had two bonus codes - one for the referral 20K, one for the signup/spend 50K.

I now called Lynne Biggar. I did not reach her directly (no surprise), got cycled back to an operator, said that I would be happy to talk to her assistant, and got transferred again. The women who answered said she was on the proper team and could help me. Within 10 minutes she had reviewed the notes, and posted the 50K points, plus a 20K adjustment for all the nonsense that went on.

I hope this post doesn't kill the goose laying the golden egg. We know the travel companies read this board, and I hope no one at Amex says "OMG, our customers know how to get us to resolve problems, we can't have this!" At least readers of this board will now know how to resolve these kinds of issues, or at least what worked for me. The only thing I wish I had done differently was when I spoke to the Amex rep in January I should have asked for the specific bonus codes.

So in the end, we now have 90K points but a lot of aggravation. I guess it's par for the course.

Good luck to all in resolving similar problems.

womanofaction

Thanks for posting this - so much good info in here.

I had similar issues with AmEx in the beginning of the year and tried everything I could think of to resolve them - tweeting, emailing, calling - but didn't get as far as you did, and eventually I gave up.

Good for you for being persistent, and great that you took the time to post. Maybe your struggles will not have been in vain if someone else is helped by what you took the time to document ^

bcfan

I'm having an issue with my bonus points posting for Amex PRG card. Everyone agrees I should get them, but have to wait "6-8 weeks".
As of today it was 8 weeks + 1 day and no points so I called again. After putting me on hold for 10 minutes, agent comes back and says they don't mean 8 weeks they mean 2 months so if I don't get the points on June 11th to call again. Sigh.

redtop43

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I suggest you get out your armor and battleax.

Amex points usually post very quickly, and customer service is often clueless. If you haven't gotten them by now, you are probably about to get a song and dance about why you're not eligible.

I hear there are some Vikings who know the credit card game well - you might want to hire one of two of them to go with you to visit Amex on 42nd street in New York.

You didn't make the mistake of applying by phone, did you?

bcfan

LOL. I applied online, I have screenshots, and have a letter that was sent to me stating I would get the points "six to eight weeks" after I met the spend.
We'll see what happens Monday June 11. I used a points advance (after receiving the letter) to take advantage of the BA 50% deal, so really hoping this works out.

friedablass

Ditto on this. I also had an issue with bonus points a short while after signing up for Amex Gold and called them as well as sent secure messages, but I guess I should have been more persistent as the OP was. Too bad - way too late for me now, but at least I'll know for the future not to give up (and to keep a paper trail!)

gum

Thanks, redtop43, for your great thread. At the moment I have a símilar issue with Amex Germany.

Normally I don't refer any services/cards/accounts to people I know personally to stay the kinship/relationship with friends or colleagues clear of selling stuff. @:-)

After a bad experience of a relative with the bank's services and the genuineness of the branch manager with an other isse she wanted to open an Amex credit card account.

The hassle began when we printed out the refer bonus on paper and started the credit card application with snail mail.

Although Amex at several times confirmed by phone that the "Freundschaftsbonus" is also valid if the application comes in with snail mail clearly stating both card members you can guess what: Nothing happened.

I know that this was/is a great offer due to the fact that these welcome bonus qualifies for a free MUC->LHR->MUC flight when transfered to BA (with a surcharge of some points in the meantime generated).

The card was issued in January 2015 and now we have mid-June! The application was processed fast but not correct.

Despite phoning several phone reps of Amex in Frankfurt it's just spinning around somewhere.

Two secure messaging requests delivered only some text blocks.

Although it is a very simple issue: Calculate the "Freundschaftsbonus" (refer bonus), book it on the account and utilize the card fee and membership rewards terms as they were valid with the "Neujahrsangebot" (new year's offer).

So I got valid info from our thread and will try that approach with trying to escalate.

In the meantime just have stopped using my card and test the IT system after how many days it will send some E-Mail or phone rep out to ask what happened.

I assume they have something like a customer re-winnng team.

Then I will try the approach getting "Memo IDs" after every call. At the moment I *assume* that the phone reps just say they will care but they don't.

EDIT (June15th, 2015/16:42CEST): Tiny update after 8 days not using the card: Nothing happened. So it seems that the winning-back of customers workflow doesn't start after one week non-utilization of the card.