Adam Smith

I've already felt like the Platinum card wasn't offering very good value at the moment with no travel to enjoy most of its benefits. Amex Canada is doing 2x points on the card, which is sort of okay but not all that valuable since most of my spending is on travel, and did launch an interest offering this morning that's 1:1 statement credit (up to $250) for spending at a small number of grocery stores, which is not all that valuable to me since none of them are at all near me. So overall it's maybe not terrible, but not great.

Long story short, I found out today that my Platinum card had been incorrectly "invalidated" by an Amex rep who messed something up a couple of days ago. This was inconvenient to me as my credit card was declined when trying to pay for my lunch, but then I had to spend half an hour on the phone with Amex figuring out what happened and getting them to send me a new card, and now I'm going to have to spend who knows how long changing my card number on file with Netflix, Amazon, etc...

Where this gets COVID-related is that normally I find Amex will throw a few points or a small statement credit or something at you as a goodwill gesture for something like this. You know, 5,000 MR or $50 or something. And it's good enough that I'm at least mollified even if not entirely satisfied.

But I was told (by a supervisor) that Amex Canada's current policy is zero goodwill gestures, because of COVID. I was told about all the wonderful ways they're "adding value" to the cards, i.e. the 2x points and that $250 statement credit I mentioned above. I pointed out that the benefits of the Platinum card are almost all travel-related, and therefore currently inaccessible, so at best some of these things are trying to make us whole for the things we've lost. But to offer zero additional compensation for the inconvenience they've caused with this whole fiasco is just brutal. I also took the opportunity to talk to the guy about the renewal of my Platinum card, which is coming up this month, and whether they would do anything in terms of reducing the fee, offering a few MR, etc, and told was the same thing.

I've had various forms of Amex cards since 2008, and generally I've found their customer service to be quite good, but I'm really disappointed by this attitude and response to the pandemic that I've encountered here, and I may cancel my Platinum card out of spite (and then just get another one when travel resumes and it's actually worth having).