Originally Posted by
Airport Coffee
I have the 10x offer on gas and grocery and I had the same problem as you when the bonus points started coming in. You are right it does bunch them together but the bonus for you is going to be 14x per bonus spend since you already get 1x on the charge so that may be where it is getting hard to figure out what they are giving you in the stared bonus on your statement
I was very confused as well on this, then confused when the bonuses posted with the unintelligible description, and wondering if it was for something else that I didn't realize. Looking into it, it looks like there are the restaurant/small biz bonuses (I'm a new plat holder, so it's 10x total). Interesting that I had Friday and Sat. bonuses post on Monday, so was confused as to which correlated to which, until I did the calcs myself.
Originally Posted by
esquiar
From the previous 10x offer, my understanding is Amex does 3 calculations:
1) Purchase price @ 1x -> Rounding (1x points == round purchase price to nearest dollar) -> Posts as normal
2) a) Purcase price @10x (or 15x) -> Rounding (10x means multiply purchase price by 10, then round to nearest dollar)
b) Subtract posted points calculated @ 1x
c) Post the remainder from the subtraction as bonus points
This works exactly for the days when I only have one bonused purchase. I haven't done a full reconciliation, but I understand that it consolidate bonus points from multiple bonus'ed transactions on the same day
I only have 1 purchase days so far, but this seems to be correct, at least based on what I am seeing on my account. For my 10x on restaurants, I don't think the 9x entry is rounding based on 9x the charge, but basically rounding to where the regular MR point + the bonus = 10x.
Originally Posted by
OTPorBust
There has got to be an easier way than this, anybody talked to Amex and get an intelligible response?
Not talked to Amex, but I find the way Chase does it much easier (that's where most of my cards have been). They do the bonus amounts (at least for regular 2 or 3 x (or whatever) categories) by transaction, and they round the total up or down for UR cards. Much easier to keep track of. For example, on my CSR, a $49.25 transaction shows it earned 149 UR (49.25 x 3 = 149.25). On my UA cards, they use decimals (and presumably round at the end of the billing statement). For example, a $14.10 2x earning charge on my UA card shows I earned 28.20 miles.
None of these separate, unintelligible entries - very easy to find, confirm and add up.
Originally Posted by
esquiar
Yes, a quick glance at the app confirms that $7.49 rounds to 7 MR at 1x and $7.51 rounds to 8 MR at 1x. I don’t have any 1x charges at $XX.50, so not sure how that rounds
Have no idea how Amex handles, and not on the latest of general rounding practices, especially at Amex, but at one point, wasn't rounding supposed to go to the nearest even number, whether up or down? So a $50.50 charge would round down to $50, while a $49.50 charge would round up to $50?
Originally Posted by
esquiar
It’s the best they can do to avoid rounding errors, which is more consumer friendly then some other simpler methods they could have used. I bet some other banks would just always truncate the cents (ie, floor to nearest dollar) before applying the 10x multiplier
Not sure I have any examples, but I feel like I have seen places do this before with rewards, etc. In context, rounding down on an individual charge is basically going to change nothing. But I bet it would save a big bank millions/year if they did this.