Hi Dave,

I am in the same boat. My annual renewel is in July. By middle of September, I had not received my companion ticket and had to e-mail AMEX several times and they finally expedited it. When I received it, it was back dated to March 31st. With an expiration date of 1 year, they screwed me out of 6 months. Essentially, I have to use it within the next 5 months only on L, U, T fares. Additionally, only certificates issued after April can be used online so I am stuck calling India. I had to do that last year and spend 30 minutes on the phone booking my tickets because they couldn't understand the airport code. They almost booked me out of Orange County CA and I live thousands of miles from there. It was frustrating. So essentially, I am screwed twice over. I'm wondering if the annual fee is even worth it.

I love how the AMEX commercials say no black out dates but with LUT fares only that sell first, black out dates are created.