American Express Membership Rewards - The Disappearing Platinum Upgrade

So I called Amex earlier this week and asked to have my green card upgraded to platinum (I spent pretty big money with Amex Last year). The green card customer service agent put me through to someone in the Platinum department who reviewed my account, said I had a good account with them and said he would put the upgrade through; I would receive my new card in a week or so.

I called today to check the status of the application, the agent said it was still pending, etc...

I called back about 30 minutes later to ask another question and spoke to 3 different agents in 3 different departments who knew nothing about the application - all 3 of them said it didn't exist.

I called back again after that to see if I had just gotten ahold of some bad agents who didn't know what they were doing. I spoke to another agent who said he saw something in my account about the upgrade, but was very vague. Then I got transferred unexpectedly to the plat dept., who told me they again knew nothing about my account.

Unbelieveable.... Within a time span of 30 minutes my pending application disappeared?

d

Uh,

So you want to give amex $300 for the plat card after you have experienced such wonderful service from them.... why?

Well, the service does seem to suck, and $300 is a lot of money; but if I get any one out of the 20-30 opportunities each year I'd have to get a free upgrade (as a plat cardholder) at a luxury hotel, the card will have paid for itself.

I already have that one reservation booked and it's available to be upgraded, I just need the card.

d

quote:
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"...but if I get any one out of the 20-30 opportunities each year I'd have to get a free upgrade (as a plat cardholder) at a luxury hotel, the ($300) card will have paid for itself...."
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I do not not know where you stay, but please advise where this is possibly true to assist in my education.

My suggestion (and my current practice) is to review travel patterns and choose a hotel elite program. Then either do the required stays or request a comp elite card.

Thatsa what I do and I usually receive very nice upgrades, booze, food etc. I also save the AMEX combo of crappy service and an annual payment of 300 bucks.

MisterNice


[This message has been edited by MisterNice (edited 02-04-2001).]

As a top tier elite in various hotel programs, I've also found this benefit to personally be of very limited value! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Hotel upgrade with the Platinum card? I never got one, and I've even stayed at some of the "Fine Hotels and Resorts". Most don't list upgrades as an amenity.

I ALWAYS get room upgrades at Fine Hotels and Ressorts as well as the the SLH group. It IS a listed amenity. Of course, upgrade is based on availability -- and only one room category, not an upgrade to a suite like with SPG Platinum. But most time, it works just fine. Some properties do have confirmed upgrades at time of booking. And not to forget: You get 2 cont breakfasts each day, late checkout AND one more amenity, which depends on property. Maybe you´ve got upgraded and haven´t realized?

joergi, I'm in Europe and don't have access to the guide, but I seem to remember a lot of properties have an amenity like "Free Afternoon Tea" or "Guaranteed Late Check-out".

And I guess it is tough to tell if you had an upgraded room unless you know the property well. (BTW, I never get upgraded at Starwood, either).

opus: That´s right, it isnt always easy to tell if you have been upgraded. Well, it never hurts to ask at check-in. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif And if to remind them... But the very good propertied mention it during check-in: "We have upgraded you due Plat Rate to a ...". Late Checkout is an amenity with EVERY FHR and SLH, so is 2 Cont breakfast AND the Upgrade AND one more like Tea or so. You find the extra amenities here:
http://app1.departures.com/fhrs/fhrs_search2.cfm

Had nice upgrades with SPG Plat, to huge Suites... But had to ask from time to time.

Thanks... actually, I never ask for hotel upgrades, because they aren't all that important to me (unlike airline upgrades). On rare occasions where I need a bigger room, I just reserve the bigger room and pay for it.

The big benefit with the Platinum card is an upgrade at Ritz-Carlton to the concierge level. Their food service is utterly superb. No need to go out for any meals, just camp out there. Bring your friends.

QuietLion: Does this work with ANY Ritz? I do have a reservation with Ritz in Dubai in April and -- of course -- would love to get an upgrade to Concierge Level, which is worth 70 bucks/day

I'd double check the Ritz Carlton information. The web site says that it still exists, but I tried to use that benefit in Atlanta a few weeks ago. Platinum Travel told me that neither Atlanta Ritz Carlton location (downtown or Buckhead) was in the program anymore. They also suggested that RC might have pulled out of the program entirely.

The actual hotel chain can vary by locale in the Fine Hotels program.

Check http://app1.departures.com/fhrs/fhrs_search2.cfm
for the current listing.

In Dubai, it is the Hyatt Regency.

The upgrade request finally went through with Amex, and I'm really upset.

I was originally told by the agent that I was upgraded, and all I had to do was wait for it to arrive in the mail. Apparently, after telling me this, the agent wrote down my information and faxed it over to the new accounts department where they got a copy of my credit record and processed my application. It was declined ("after you receive the declination letter you can write to us and ask us the reasons why"). I'm not very upset about being declined, but I am upset that the agent told me my new card was in the mail, and they took a copy of my credit report without my consent.

I spoke to several people in customer service, and received an apology. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif Then, after I continued to tell them that getting a copy of my credit report was unacceptable and that I wanted the situation rectified, they offered me $25, which was then upped to $50. I told the agent I didn't care about the money, and that wasn't a solution, but apparently Amex thinks that $50 is enough to compensate me for their violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, in addition to the misinformation I received and time I wasted.

Is there anything else I can do to get a resonable remedy from them?

d

their violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act

Did you honestly expect them to extend you new or additional credit without obtaining a current copy of your credit report?

Dupe.

[This message has been edited by UpgradeMe (edited 02-08-2001).]

I don't see how that's a new extension of credit. Couldn't they just swap your account to platinum and charge your the $300 a year, yet keep your spending limit the same?

Uh.. yeah, I did expect the upgrade without a credit report when the rep said "I've reviewed your account and you're approved for the platinum card" and told me to expect it in 7-10 days.

Now had he said "you're approved, pending a review of your account and credit record" that would be a different story.

d

As for your situation being a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, I believe you are mistaken. Since you are a current Amex customer, they have the right to check your credit report at any time for any reason, or no reason at all, as often as they like.

If you get a copy of your credit report from a reporting agency, you'll see a listing of all inquiries of your credit file in the past two years. There are separate sections for reports that are a result of an action taken by you (such as applying for a new card), and ones that are done for other reasons, most of which will be your current creditors. For your current creditors, you'll see a list of each creditor, along with the date(s) that they received your report.

In a way, I found it interesting to see when my various creditors made inquiries. Some seem to do it once a year, or once a quarter. I was able to correlate some requests with months when I had made unusually large purchase on that card, so apparently making a large charge will trigger a credit inquiry outside of whatever the normal schedule is for that creditor.

Also, note that requests by current creditors aren't counted against your credit "score" as the ones that you initiate are.

As for Amex Platinum, I've come to the conclusion that in many cases, the the primary criteria are qualification for a basic Amex card, along with a willingness to pay a $300 annual fee. I got a Platinum card last year, and charged my Federal income tax payment to it. Because of the amount of the charge, this apparently triggered something within Amex, and I got a call from them. The next week, I got a letter from them telling me that my $300 Platinum card with "no pre-assigned credit limit" had been assigned a limit of (x)thousand dollars. When I called to ask about this, they told me that the type of card (Platinum vs. Gold vs. Green) really had little to do with the amount of credit they're willing to give you. This certainly wasn't true 10 years ago, but the Platinum product sure seems these days primarily designed to get $300 a year out of people.

In my case, one of the main reasons I got the Platinum card was to take advantage of the International Airline 2-for-1 Program. I called and asked them how I was supposed to do this, considering that most of those tickets were more than the credit limit they had assigned me, so even if I had a zero balance I couldn't buy a ticket! The agent seemed to realize the irony of the situation, and told me that if I needed to buy such a ticket, they could approve an individual purchase if I called them in advance. I understand why charging a large purchase to a new card would trigger a review of the account, but to this day I can't figure out what about my profile caused them to limit my account. Surely, they could see from my report that I've been a happy Diners Club cardholder for many years - I suppose they just wanted to keep it that way! :-)

Inquiries from current creditors that are not initiated by me show up in a different column, one that is not reported to new creditors.

Unfortunately, Amex's inquiry shows up in the column for inquirires that were initiated by me, and hence is reported to new creditors. The FCRA says that inquiries that are not requested by me should not be in this column and cannot be reported to creditors.

d

Doppy,

I see your point. I think it comes down to a semantics issue with Amex. Is there really such a think as "upgrading" a green card to Platinum? I don't think that there is. I know of a person that has a green card, and when he got a Platinum card, it was a separate account and this person in fact still keeps the green card (for who knows what reason) and gets separate statements for each. Amex seems to treat this sort of situation differently than, say, Citibank. When I upgraded my regular AAdvantage card to the gold version, it was a true upgrade, with the outstanding balance being transferred over and the old card becoming invalid once I activated the new one.

So, from Amex's point of view, they probably view you has having requested that they open a Platinum account in your name, and a new account is clearly a situation where a customer-initiated credit inquiry is allowed.

I can also see how the Amex agent didn't get into a semantics argument with you on the phone when you requested an "ugprade to Platinum," as this would create an adversarial situation with most customers.

I understand your frustration with this, as I've been caught up in situations similar to this, where no matter how hard you try to work within the set of rules, something adverse happens that's unexpected. I just don't think it's due to any malice on Amex's part.