Just got my Hilton HHonors statement showing a $1K TC purchase last month and a term change notice buried at the end of the bill which apparently means the end of my trips to Amex to get TCs.
Eligible Purchase Exclusions
"Effective April 2, 2009 we are amending the agreement regarding the accumulation of reward points (or miles) appended to your Agreement by adding the following to the end of the sentence defining Eligible Purchases:
or the purchase of American Express Travelers Cheques and American Express Gift Cheques or other cash equivalents.
Kinda sad.
But, I am confident FTers will spot a new opportunity soon.
Meanwhile, looks like there is one more Amex run in my future.
We were discussing this a few pages back. We're not really sure what it means, because in the original Terms and Conditions, it already said eligible purchases excluded "the purchase of American Express Travelers Cheques and American Express Gift Cheques or other cash equivalents.
Very likely though that this is the end. Obviously we'll all be waiting to hear from people who buy after April 2nd, and who's statement closes shortly after.
it would be nice if someone with extremem knowledge about this posting do a quick summary and post it on top, so we dont have ppl ask the same question(s) over and over and keep expanding an already grotesque thread
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Mileage PLUS VISA---Delta Skymiles AMEX
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it would be nice if someone with extremem knowledge about this posting do a quick summary and post it on top, so we dont have ppl ask the same question(s) over and over and keep expanding an already grotesque thread
but if the end is near 4/2 then its just a short time till the Title will be changed to Offer Gone,Over & Done With
It will be 30 calendar days for me at the end of the week.
At any rate, as said, I've never been rejected. Just have to speak to CSRs once and a while to manually force the approval.
Im sure You know how to count but Unfortunately I wont say the same for alot of people on here, who will ask the exact same question over and over again that was asked before and in some cases just afew posts above theirs.
I was basically Warning everyone that if they do NOT do a proper count from when they last got 'em most likely they will get the 'Denied' response and then post on here that The Game is Over. When in fact they ended up going less then teh 30 day wait period between their last purchase.
Watch out! The US Mint deal does interfere with this after all
For those of us who have been getting initial denials, and then having to get them 'pre-authorized' or whatever the process they do to manually get the charges to go through, it turns out that as someone had mentioned earlier. The US Mint charges to interfere here, just not quite in the same way as said earlier.
There are different sets of rules applying here.
Apparently any US Mint charge is considered some sort of quasi-cash-equivalence (not to be confused with Cash Advance). And it's a different quasi-cash-equivalence than what the TC's are... lesser on the 'cash-equivalence' scale.
Also, there still applies a 7-day rule, even though the TC's have a 30-day rule. But here's where it gets foggy.
Your TC's actually have the 7-day and $1000 rule still, but, are affected by purchases at the mint (or other cash-equivalences for that matter). If you have a purchase hit your credit card from the mint, it eats into your 7-day $1000 TC limit. So, if you bought $500 from the mint, for the next 7 days, your TC limit is only $500. If you buy $5000 from the mint, your TC limit is ZERO for the next 7 days.
The fact that you can only buy TC's once every 30 days is simply an additional rule when buying TC's.
Buying TC's does NOT affect your ability to make purchases at the Mint, it's only the other way around that has bearing.
In the past, they were apparently manually forcing the TC charges to go through despite the fact a US Mint charge (or others in the same category were there) for their customers with higher credit scores -- which they are monitoring btw, and last week they've apparently set the threshold to do this 'favor' at a higher level -- as in only those with credit profiles representing those in the 800's are going to have this courtesy done for them.
Long story short, wait 7 days from when your last US Mint purchase posted before buying the cheques. Since a charge posted on my account yesterday, the credit/fraud/authorization department agent actually told me to come back next Thursday, and it will work.
Additionally, although they wouldn't allow my charge to go through today as yet another courtesy, they did actually give me 1000 SPG points for my troubles. So, end of the day, I did get my 1000 points, which is what I ultimately was after anyway.
Of course, this info is all from what I was told on the phone today from multiple agents. But, it's so far the most reasonable explanation of the US Mint charges preventing TC charges I've heard so far -- and seems to fit based upon my looking over previous statements and noting that on occasions when I did not have a denial, there were no mint charges in the previous 7 days.
Programs: DL/NW Plat, BD *G, Hyatt Diam, Hertz 5*. Other programs: AA, CO, UA, Choice, HH, SPG, Club Cholula
Posts: 11,987
I haven't purchased in a few months and will be availing myself of this opportunity either tomorrow or Monday - I only get to purchase these when on the road, given the complete lack of locations in my state.
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2009 DL/NW UGs as FO/SE - 31/34; as GM - 2/2; as PM - 4/4; 12 RJ segments My Flickr Site
Got my last 4 today 2 x 2 places. Funny thing I went to my 1st stop 2nd today. so after having gotten 2 CCs done I walk into stop #2 and Im asked 'has it been 30 biz days since you last got any?' of cause since I just got 2 CCs done I said 'Nope' a lie. She processed them both and when I had evrything in hand , I told her 'had it have to be 30 biz days and not simply 30 days, I would have been Denied'. The rule is 30 days and not 30 biz days.
My predication of what will happen come 4/2; if you go in and its been 30 days you will get the TCs BUT not get any miles or pts for having gotten them. I had a Gold card where I was earning MR pts thru Nov but when my Dec pts were to post it was short exactly 1000 pts as was my Jan statement, I still got the TCs but Amex stopped giving pts for having done so. so too I believe comes 4/2 but we wont know for sure till someone gets them after 4/2 and gets their statement with that purchase on it. My next possibility wont be till late April as Ill be out of the Country early to mid April and my statements for april will have closed before I get the chance to try it out myself.
Programs: DL/NW Plat, BD *G, Hyatt Diam, Hertz 5*. Other programs: AA, CO, UA, Choice, HH, SPG, Club Cholula
Posts: 11,987
I purchased Monday in the eligible LAS office - they asked if I had purchased from that office before, I said "yes, a couple months back" and was on my way.
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2009 DL/NW UGs as FO/SE - 31/34; as GM - 2/2; as PM - 4/4; 12 RJ segments My Flickr Site
It's over early for me...went to the AmEx office and was denied. The teller called customer service and after 30 minutes of CSR trying for figure out why I was denied TC purchases (even with $12k available balance, and $3k available cash) she finally told me that I don't have enough tenure with the card (that I got last November). She explained the they are tightening up cash and TC's at AmEx.
It was a good run and I appreciate the FT'ers that helped me get a few extra points via the TC game, thanks!
Anyone tried this recently? I am going to try this weekend for the last time.
I tried it on Tuesday at the Palo Alto, CA branch. All went very smoothly, for both personal and business SPG cards. Too bad my cash advance limit is only $500 on each. So I'll have to go another time in the next few days, to get $500 more on each to max out on the last opportunity.
They've made this difficult for me. Cut my cash advance line down to $200 (and credit line down to $11K). Apparently they did not like the fact that I was 1) buying 'cash equivalences' often (i.e. these TC's and the $1 coins) and 2) I do a hell of a lot of churning on the Citi AAdvantage cards. Apparently I'm more of a credit risk than previously. Why don't they just admit they don't like it when people game the system to earn free miles/points en mass?
Or perhaps, they might have really freaked out when I used my Citi PPE card to fund a Citibank account to the tune of $60K, and thus had a debt of that much for a month. Of course bad luck for me that they decided to run a quiet financial review on me at that time.
At any rate, at $200 per week (up to $1000 a month), this is losing value in a hurry. I might try to fight to get my Cash Advance back up (as the 60K 'funding' debt I had is now gone) if I knew what the April 2nd date really meant. But, it really sounds like they'll be plugging that hole once and for all. So, I don't think I even want to waste my time (and perhaps a credit pull) just to restore the CA level.
As a side note, the annual fee on my SPG card is billed on Apr 20th. Would anyone who happens to try this out after April 2nd, and has a statement closing soon after with this charge on it be able to report if they earned points? I fail to see the reason to pay the annual fee on this (as low as it is) if there are no more 'free points' to be earned.
Why don't they just admit they don't like it when people game the system to earn free miles/points en mass?
