American Express Membership Rewards - 5 Million Point Contest

I received a mailer last night promoting the Membership Rewards "5 Million Point Contest". It was included in my quarterly statement. There will be a grand prize winner of 1,000,000 miles, 3 first prize winners of 500,000 miles and finally 15 second prize winners of 100,000 miles each. You have to write an essay in 50 words or less about your dream vacation and the catch is that Amex will redeem 2,000 miles with your entry. If you were to compute the cost of the 2,000 miles at 2 cents a mile, you are spending $40 to have a chance to win these prizes.

Every promotion that has ever been offered to win mileage awards have been free and have never asked for you to pay for the chance to play. I personally think that Amex has a lot of nerve to approach their customers with this type of junk offering. Amex should be rewarding their customers with a mileage promotion, not charging them. Do you think based on their past history such as the recent DL/Amex 50,000 mile matching promotion that they are even capable of reading our entries and be subjective? Will they even read them or is that just a ploy to lure people in to redeem their miles?

What are your thoughts on this one?

Well, count me out! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

I received this offer a couple months ago . . . I was amazed. I'm still amazed they try something like this.

Somehow I don't think they are looking for serious writing talent :-)

Eddie Whitman

Sounds like an illegal lottery to me!

Djlawman

I am disappointed too; sounds like Amex is getting cheap.

This also seems like a lot of work, although I don't know which is harder: writing an essary or coughing up the 2k miles.

What was AMEX thinking with a "cost in points" to enter a contest? In some states this might be a violation of their laws.
Perhaps they hope to have at least 1,250 entries so that the points cost to them for "the 5 million points in prizes" is zero.

I could not believe what I saw too. This is very cheap! I thougt it was a good idea, until I saw you had to spend your points. They must think we are stupid, but I'm sure they will find enough people to give up their miles, and AMEX will even make lots of money on this cheap promotion. I know they are in business to make money, but this is the wrong way.

The Cheek of it!!

You have to spend $2000 dollars to enter their competition!

Here in the UK, we have a rule that all contests have a 'No Purchase Necessary' rule. Probably why I haven't seen it over here.

Interesting point I have just realised, you guys in the US earn one point per $ spent, whilst i get 1 point per £ spent, so you get a much better deal, and as for the Canadians well I'd be flying First Class a lot more with my MR points......

Richard

Richard-

If you were to compute the cost of the 2,000 miles at 2 cents a mile, you are spending $40 to have a chance to win these prizes. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Richard Mannionoh, very ture.. I was shocked by this promotion..To make $2,000 worth of purchases just for an opportunity to enter a promotion that I don't have the best changes of winning.. Oh no, forget about it..

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by WHY2K:
What was AMEX thinking with a "cost in points" to enter a contest? In some states this might be a violation of their laws.
</font>

Does anyone know the law in NY?

LQQKs like with all the 'opt outs',
the odds of winning will be GREAT!

Thank YOU!

A couple of years ago, Amex had a similar competition in the UK which deducted 1000 miles (Guessing the cost of a RTW trip, each contestant was allowed 5 estimates). Although slightly put off by the cost I entered, got 3rd price and whoops 100,000 points easily converted into 200,000 Eurobonus points. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif