American Express Membership Rewards - How MR stole 170,000+ miles from my account

I'll try to keep this short..... I tried to book a Westin stay online the AMEX site and wanted to pay using MR. (The way it works is that they charge your card for the stay in actual dollars, then deduct the points from your account, then credit back the dollars to your account).

Just as I finished booking it an error message pops up on the screen thats say their system is unavailable at the moment and I cannot use MR points for the stay but my reservation was made and and my card has been charged. Since I wanted to use MR for the stay, I immediately called and cancelled the reservation and was issued a the dollar amount credit back to my card. No problem, right? WRONG! The next morning I log into my account and of course they deducted the 87,000 points from my account for a stay that supposedly never went through and was cancelled. I called and tried to bring this to their attention. They found their mistake and said they would reinstate the points, no problem.

WRONG AGAIN... not only didn't the points get reinstated, they deducted ANOTHER 87,000 points!!! I have spent over 3 hours total on the phone with them to no avail. They just don't get it! I have no reservation. The dollar amount on my statement is correct. But I am out over 170,000 points because all these idiots can't seem to figure it out. I have even spoken to a manager at MR and she was a total idiot who insisted that no points were deducted. I have the online statements to prove it.

Looks like I will be giving up a Business Centurion card, 2- Business Gold cards, and a personal platinum card next year. I can not believe their incompetence.

Try their online email customer service it is less time consuming and more responsive.

I see you have a cent card - try calling their customer service vs. MR.

I agree - call Centurion. You are their best customer, they have to be idiots to let you go. You can aslo write a letter.

If all else fails, call to cancel the card and when they ask for a reason, justtell them. Then watch them run....

Personally I would expect something like this to take a few days to clear up. Make sure you log your calls, talk to a supervisor, and figure out what is up.

I would not be suprised to hear that what you are looking at with your online statement is not the same information that the person you spoke with had. Frequently companies have different databases for online reporting than what is available to CSR's.

You did not specify how many days in duration you have spent working on this, but if it is a 1 or 2 day issue and you are that upset with the service level you probably should go elsewhere for your credit card needs. If you think that you would get better service levels from any reward program from other credit card companies -- you may be in for a suprise.

Maybe if you go back and talk to a different supervisor, it will be resolved. I am unfamiliar with MR (I have other AMEX w/ cash or miles), but would you happen to know if the CSRs you talked to were overseas? I have had bad experiences w/ CSRs (including managers) who were based in India (my guess). They declined to state where they were located, but from their diction and accent, I'm pretty sure it was India. I'm not necessarily knocking Indian call centers, but my personal experiences have been bad.

to temper my earlier response. MR/AMX will fix this, and i would not worry too much. just escalate until you get someone who'll work for you.

Call Centurion CSR. Tell them that you don't want to be transferred to the MR department. Tell them that you want them to fix it and to call you when it's done.

They'll do it.