Waiting for my Bluetooth headset (need it to Skype) to charge back up a bit so I can call Amex AGAIN after just spending nearly two hours on the phone with them... And a total of 4 - 5 hours in the past few days. So I shall kill the time by whining at a message board.

Scenario: I wanted a personal Delta SkyMiles card to take advantage of the double miles promo that's going on now. I'd previously used my business SkyMiles and SkyPoints cards in previous promos, but the recent ones, including this one, are for personal cards, SkyMiles only. So I called in 3 days ago, had a closed personal SkyPoints account reactivated, and called back the next day to have it changed to a SkyMiles account. They said it'd take effect in 24 - 48 hours. I'd recently had a business card changed, and it took effect within 24 hours (in fact, I had it changed twice, because they changed it to the wrong type of card on the first attempt! Both changes took < 24 hours to reflect on the website.)

I'm currently overseas for several months so I need the card delivered here to Australia. Called up, got sent to card replacement as expected, waited forever for them to get card replacement special services on the phone to do the international replacement order. The CSR I'd talked to before going to card replacement said it'd be sent out as a SkyMiles even though it was still showing as a SkyPoints on the website. Card replacement showed the card as CANCELLED still (it's shown active on the website for 3 days now), so they went off to talk to a regular rep. Eventually got back to regular customer service myself, and after an eternity spoke with a supervisor after the rep couldn't do anything (and kept asking about the double points promo, which was completely irrelevant since I just needed the card, not to know repeatedly if my SkyPoints card was eligible for the promo, which it isn't.) See, my cycle cut date is Jun 14. And apparently the change was late enough that the card would stay as SkyPoints until the next cycle cut on Jul 14 (despite previous assurances to the contrary.) Of course I want to be earning double miles now, not waiting a month... Talked to the supervisor for a bit and she finally came up with a good compromise: she annotated my SkyPoints account that I be credited with the double points for the next month after the account converts, with a minimum of 2000 SkyMiles for my inconvenience. So that actually solves the problem nicely (assuming I don't have huge problems getting the credit next month when I call them back...)

Very odd that OPEN can change a Business card within 24 hours but a personal card requires a wait until the cycle cut (1 month for me in this case!)

Earlier today, called to check on the status of two cards arriving via DHL that were supposed to arrive today but didn't. Apparently Amex isn't very good at tracking things; they have to call DHL to get tracking numbers. It took me 40 minutes to get the tracking numbers from the card replacement rep.

Similarly bad and long experiences initially reopening the SkyPoints account, then converting it, and with ordering my replacement for my new cards earlier this week.

I did the same with my Citi Chairman card a week ago. Took less than 5 minutes to set up the replacement. Called on a Tuesday morning and had the card and Priority Pass around 9am Thursday. (One via UPS, one via FedEx. Amex's DHL seems to take 3 days even though DHL quotes 2 days US->AU; not a big deal, but I'm annoyed at the moment.)

Apparently talking to Amex has become a full time job for me. Now to call back and try to get that SkyPoints card sent over here... Though I am thankful that Amex is great in that they'll ship a basic consumer card express internationally, even if it takes me hours to deal with it.

Headset charged up... back to try to order a replacement again (and hopefully my last call to Amex for a while! Well, other than to cancel my Business Platinum card now that I've replaced it with a nice Chairman Card.)

Funniest part of the ordeal: before putting me on with the supervisor, the rep asked me "sir, would you like to add any additional cardholders on this Delta SkyMiles card before I transfer you?" I started laughing quite hard while telling her that that'd be difficult since I'd just spent almost two hours not getting a SkyMiles card.