I'm on the phone with American Express and they are telling me that when you cancel an account, all pending points, regardless of the fact they are earned from spend and paid for when the balance is paid, are forfeited.

Needless to say I am furious as we're talking about some 83,000 points and the offshore person who processed the cancelation never mentioned this. A customer service complaint was taken, I'll hear back in 7-10 business days and decide how to respond from there.

I guess I could claw them back with a high incentive NLL offer, but what they did is not right.