Trouble transferring points to ANA, AMEX not helpful
Jan 26, 2015, 5:51 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 54
Trouble transferring points to ANA, AMEX not helpful
Was wondering if anyone has had similar issues and if you have any advice on how to get AMEX to actually help. My story below:
A while ago (9 months ago) I transferred a bunch of membership reward points from AMEX to ANA. Didn't have any issues.
Recently (1 month ago) I tried to transfer some more points and they didn't go through (returned to my account). I called AMEX and they told me to call ANA because ANA would be able to explain it to me (not sure why AMEX can't just do the work here). I called ANA, they confirmed by account and information (name, DOB, etc all matched AMEX) said that there is no issue with the account and that they don't see any transfer from AMEX (didn't receive anything and didn't reject anything).
Called AMEX back and asked them to investigate, they said they would and call me back, never heard back.
About 10 days ago I called AMEX back, due to this wait, the number of points required for my trip had changed, so I requested to buy points and transfer them to the ANA account. I told the customer service rep. about the recent issues and asked them to please make sure this worked. They purchased the points and transferred them (or so I thought).
Went back to my ANA account a few days later and didn't see any points, checked AMEX, and again the points had been rejected. Called AMEX and they tried to tell me it was an issue with my ANA account (I explained to them that it isn't that I've called, etc). They took down all of my information and told me they would call me back. It has been a few days and I still haven't heard anything from them.
Meanwhile, I paid $500 to buy points for a flight that no longer has availability. I lost out on my original flight due to this. And ended up paying cash for the flight.
Has anyone had similar issues? And how did you get this resolved? It just seems like awful customer service. I am a bit surprised by their attitude, I have a Gold card and platinum card (gold card for miles, although the 30K spend bonus is going away, platinum card for benefits) and spend a fair amount annually (all personal, no business spend), have been a member for 10 yrs, but none of this seems to matter (realize I am a small fish overall for AMEX, but this is really bad). Any recommendations? People I can reach out to in AMEX that are helpful? Just switch cards (super annoying...)
A while ago (9 months ago) I transferred a bunch of membership reward points from AMEX to ANA. Didn't have any issues.
Recently (1 month ago) I tried to transfer some more points and they didn't go through (returned to my account). I called AMEX and they told me to call ANA because ANA would be able to explain it to me (not sure why AMEX can't just do the work here). I called ANA, they confirmed by account and information (name, DOB, etc all matched AMEX) said that there is no issue with the account and that they don't see any transfer from AMEX (didn't receive anything and didn't reject anything).
Called AMEX back and asked them to investigate, they said they would and call me back, never heard back.
About 10 days ago I called AMEX back, due to this wait, the number of points required for my trip had changed, so I requested to buy points and transfer them to the ANA account. I told the customer service rep. about the recent issues and asked them to please make sure this worked. They purchased the points and transferred them (or so I thought).
Went back to my ANA account a few days later and didn't see any points, checked AMEX, and again the points had been rejected. Called AMEX and they tried to tell me it was an issue with my ANA account (I explained to them that it isn't that I've called, etc). They took down all of my information and told me they would call me back. It has been a few days and I still haven't heard anything from them.
Meanwhile, I paid $500 to buy points for a flight that no longer has availability. I lost out on my original flight due to this. And ended up paying cash for the flight.
Has anyone had similar issues? And how did you get this resolved? It just seems like awful customer service. I am a bit surprised by their attitude, I have a Gold card and platinum card (gold card for miles, although the 30K spend bonus is going away, platinum card for benefits) and spend a fair amount annually (all personal, no business spend), have been a member for 10 yrs, but none of this seems to matter (realize I am a small fish overall for AMEX, but this is really bad). Any recommendations? People I can reach out to in AMEX that are helpful? Just switch cards (super annoying...)
Jan 31, 2015, 6:24 am
#2
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 54
As an update in case anyone is curious. No one ever called me back from AMEX, so I called them back yesterday to ask about this. Apparently they had opened a case to figure out why this happened, but no one actually decided to look into it, so there were no notes, and nothing had been done.
I spoke with a supervisor and he told me the reason that the miles didn't transfer is that the AMEX servers had an issue connecting with ANA (i.e. not anything to do with personal info mismatch or anything like that, 100% AMEX's fault). I asked him why no one would contact me and why they wouldn't fix this by contacting ANA and figuring it out so that I could get my miles, he had no response.
His final resolution:
They reimbursed me the $475 I spent on miles AND they took away the 19,000 miles they had transferred to my account (basically just rolled back my miles purchase)
To be clear, I told him I didn't really care much what path they took, that I just wanted them to have better customer service and actually help me when things like this happened (and I wanted to be able to use my miles when I need to!). Bottom line is, I lost out on 2 flights I was trying to book, ended up giving them money, and got this money back, so for 1 month and a bunch of different phone calls (few hrs total) I end up exactly where I was a month ago, seems like terrible customer service, and I told the supervisor that while I appreciate his gesture, I thought the overall interaction was really bad.
Compare this to when I went to a michelin starred restaurant a while back and got sick. I wrote the restaurant just to let them know that my wife and I got sick, admitted it probably wasn't their fault (no way for me to know if it was just a random thing), but that since they source local that they might want to look into it and keep an eye out for other customers that night. They called me back and reimbursed my entire meal (I forced them to keep the tip) over $500.
I spoke with a supervisor and he told me the reason that the miles didn't transfer is that the AMEX servers had an issue connecting with ANA (i.e. not anything to do with personal info mismatch or anything like that, 100% AMEX's fault). I asked him why no one would contact me and why they wouldn't fix this by contacting ANA and figuring it out so that I could get my miles, he had no response.
His final resolution:
They reimbursed me the $475 I spent on miles AND they took away the 19,000 miles they had transferred to my account (basically just rolled back my miles purchase)
To be clear, I told him I didn't really care much what path they took, that I just wanted them to have better customer service and actually help me when things like this happened (and I wanted to be able to use my miles when I need to!). Bottom line is, I lost out on 2 flights I was trying to book, ended up giving them money, and got this money back, so for 1 month and a bunch of different phone calls (few hrs total) I end up exactly where I was a month ago, seems like terrible customer service, and I told the supervisor that while I appreciate his gesture, I thought the overall interaction was really bad.
Compare this to when I went to a michelin starred restaurant a while back and got sick. I wrote the restaurant just to let them know that my wife and I got sick, admitted it probably wasn't their fault (no way for me to know if it was just a random thing), but that since they source local that they might want to look into it and keep an eye out for other customers that night. They called me back and reimbursed my entire meal (I forced them to keep the tip) over $500.