American Express Membership Rewards - Amex Callaway Golf Card: Now a worthless piece of....

You fill in the noun.

I've held this card for about five years. The reason I got the card was that I wanted to earn some points to get David Leadbetter golf school tuition. (You earned DL school value at a rate of about 1.5 cents per point, pretty good for a no-annual-fee card.)

Finally, last week, I reached the point level needed for the reward I wanted. So I called Amex to redeem.

Their response: the Callaway Golf program underwent a complete overhaul in early 2001, removing all Leadbetter awards (and other rewards) and devaluing all points by about 50%.

My major beef is this: at NO time did I ever get a new award catalog, or even a slip of paper in my bill saying the program was changing. The award catalog for this card is NOT available on the Internet. The only way to get a catalog is to ask for one to be snailmailed to your house.

The agent on the phone admitted all of this, and said the ONLY way to learn of program changes was to call customer service and ask. I asked her if she thought that was fair, and she said "Yes. We change terms of our cards all the time." (My response: usually you change fees and rates, and you are required by law to snailmail me the fine print.)

The agent also went on to say I had no recourse, and muttered something about how few points I had anyway, inferring that what a useless customer I was. (I refrained for telling her that I did a great deal of volume through a Skymiles card, earning some pretty sweet bonuses. Figured she'd think I was gloating.)

So my choices are as follows:
- Write a letter to someone and complain. Wait six months. Get stupid form letter telling me to go jump off a cliff. Redeem points for the awards they have now. Cancel card. Tell everybody I know how evil Amex is.
- Redeem points for the awards they have now. Cancel card. Tell everybody I know how evil Amex is.

Do I have any recourse? Is a complaint letter worth it? I've heard all sorts of stories about how Amex places next to ZERO value on the general consumer, so I have almost no doubt what the result would be. I am probably going to redeem my points for a stack of free greens fee certs, maybe a pair of shoes, and a new 3-wood (all at a lousy redemption rate) and call it a day...

This is the last Amex product I will ever use.

That's the problem with all these co-branded cards.

The only real "full Amex" cards, where you find 100% Amex inside and outside, are the classic cards (charge or credit cards without co-branding) .

All other products are the result of a partnership between Amex and another company, club, etc. There are dozens of such products in many countries (Amex horse card, Rotary Club Amex, etc.).

Amex offers his merchant network and processing facilities, and the partner manages the "special" benefits (and may change them from time to time !).
Usually, the partner is solely responsible for the "miles" program.

It's not correct from Amex if you didn't receive the information about the change.

But maybe it was written on the information page with some monthly invoice, in a month you didn't use your card ...

The Golf Card, like many of Amex' micro-small co-brand cards, are not getting the attention they should. But then you have to stop and think about what Amex is doing and if these credit cards are even worth having around for the value and/or audience. For instance:
- The NRA Card - no not the National Rifle Association but the National Restaurant Association
- The Multiple Sclerosis Card - great idea but how many people really have this Card and use it in order to give a worthy charity a donation on each purchase
- Knicks and Rangers Card - discounts on merchandise and only available in the NYC maarket

It's a sad commentary, but Amex has some great co-brand Cards like Delta, Starwood, Hilton, Costco, etc. and their financial and customer service resources are going to go towards these Cards, not the Golf Card.

I didn't realize there were so many Amex cards out there.

I guess I see how the partner (in this case, Callaway) could switch the terms of the card, and it might not be *directly* Amex's fault. But the bottom line is that I think of this as an AMEX product, not a Callaway product. Thanks to this experience, I'm throwing my Amex card in the trash and I will never get involved with another Amex product again*. I'm not throwing my X-14's (Callaway irons) in the trash. Perhaps Amex should exercise better control over who uses (and potentially soils) their brand name.

*Unless they send me another 60,000 mile bonus offer for a Gold Skymiles card.

It's easy to see which card is a full Amex card, and which is only a co-branded product.

The 100% Amex have the classic design, with the small centurion head in the middle (charge cards), on the upper left side (business/corporate) or a bigger one on the left (credit cards).

The co-branded cards all have the blue Amex square logo on the lower right side and no centurion head.

Visa and Mastercards are also issued and serviced by the member banks, not by Visa or MC.
That's the reason why there is no consistent service valid for all cards, some products may be good, some may have a bad service.

You#d rather apply for a Starwood card, or use a standard Amex.