Nvgfocus

Yes, pretty easy. Just give them a call and tell them you are re-thinking membership. Got 90 euro off + 3 months double points

coolblue21

20,000 points + 3 months double points is the alternative option offered.

Yreal

Thanks guys, easy enough.

IstKong

Had a standard Gold card. Called to downgrade to a Blue card because I don't travel that often due to COVID and THC program is now useless for me... Few days after receiving the Blue Card, my Membership Rewards was credit with 25 000 points... I didn't asked for anything more than a downgrade.

I think that it's pretty easy to get some kind of bonus with AMEX these days...

Yolow

Called customer service a few minutes ago and have been easily granted 1 year free of charge (usually 165Eur for Gold amex flying blue). I received confirmation by email.
Guys are pros during these days.

Xandrios

Interesting, so you have received a more generous offer than others. Perhaps its related to the amount of spent on the card. Was that in NL or FR?

My yearly renewal is in a few days, so it sounds like I'd better be calling too. The only thing keeping me from giving up fully is that I have a whole bunch of airline vouchers that, when used, would still be covered with the Amex travel insurance. Though a standalone insurance policy would likely be cheaper and perform better for that purpose anyway..

Yolow

This one was with Amex FR. The person from Amex said that, as I never benefited from a commercial gesture for the past 2years, she can easily give me free subscription on next date of "anniversary". Only proposal that was made but fine for me.
We did not talk about expenses with the card and, to be honest, it is not extraordinary (<Eur1k/mth).

Talking about Amex travel insurance linked with the card, at least for FR, please bear in mind that you will be covered only for trips inside and/or round trips from country of residence (this later should be <90days duration). I recently suffered the sad experience of booking a multidestination trip with last leg back home to be paid apart and with FB miles. Before booking the return, some flights were canceled and Amex insurance (AXA) kindly refused to help as I could not give evidence of return.

Snick

Has anyone got any experience with medical insurance with Amex?

I have quite a situation with a trip where only the return flight is an award Flyingblue-AF ticket and taxes charged to Amex FR.
Hotel is award with the respective chain. First flight is award, taxes billed to other card than Amex FR.Frontline agent said that because the first flight was not charged on the card, the insurance is not applicable. However, "ou bien avoir bénéficié d’un Billet Prime Flying Blue" does not say more than that. It's not clear that it must be a roundtrip award or that the other flight must be charged to the amex.

Should I escalate to superiors?

IstKong

I had an extremely bad experience with the repatriation coverage (AXA) of my AMEX gold card when dealing with a serious disease in china a few years ago.

Hopefully I had a Visa Premier and they handled professionally the payment of the local hospital bills and the repatriation in business class on the first direct flight available.

Would not recommend AMEX for the travel insurances (in France at least). They are extremely bad (one of the reasons I switched to the basic Blue card).

carnarvon

Can you be a bit more specific, as this raises some concerns. I always assumed that hospital costs coverage and repatriation would be a no-brainer with such a "high end" cover. Incidently, where did Visa Premier Insurance perform better?

Thank you in advance for your response.

IstKong

Well, I unfortunately had to deal with a relative being seriously ill near Shanghai a few years ago. Took him to a private hospital and got a confirmation that he needed to be hospitalized. Called the number on the back of his AMEX Gold card, and they transferred me to AXA that handles those issues. Despite the obvious emergency, they did nothing more than sending an email asking for the receipt of the medical consultation to eventually be refunded. They also seemed to be very incompetent on how to deal with the Chinese medical system, and, surprisingly, with repatriations in general.

His medical conditions deteriorated so quickly that when at the airport (NKG) trying to go back to France ASAP, the medical station of the airport called emergency services and he was hospitalized at the local public hospital. Called this time the number on the back of the Visa Premier (LCL), was redirected to Mutuaide (the insurer), and they handled the situation very professionally. They got in touch with their local contractor in Shanghai that handles medical repatriation in Asia-Pacific. This company sent someone to pay the hospital bills and communicate in chinese with the hospital (big language barrier in China), and then, a french doctor that met him for repatriation on the next flight out of Shanghai.

Also, they were frequently in touch with the local hospital and with me to ensure that everything was OK.

Then they refunded by wire transfer all of the hospital bills we had to pay before the insurance handles the situation.

I learnt quite a few things in this awful experience :

- Always travel with several credit cards because the insurer of one may not be what you would expect.

- Travel with a big cash withdrawal limit especially in those countries because in this case the first hospital bills were to be paid upfront in cash before the insurance handled the case.

- Public hospitals in Chinese big cities are no joke. Modern, clean, professional. Extremely helpful, kind and competent staff despite the language barrier.

bostontraveler

That is horrific. My experiences with AXA have sometimes been OK but mostly negative. Either requesting unnecessary documents, denying claims because they didn't read documents properly, giving incorrect information on the phone, refusing to answer questions in writing to their customer service e-mail, long processing delays... add to the fact that many of the agents are incredibly rude.

If Amex were serious about providing a quality insurance product that is commensurate with the fees they charge, they would hire Chubb or an equivalent.

With respect to your LCL Visa Premier card, were you covered even not having paid for the ticket with the card? In other words, is it generally-included coverage? I will have to look at my Visa Premier.

I have never had to use their medical insurance but these kinds of horror stories make me very uncomfortable.

carnarvon

Same here.

What to do? Calling them will lead to them saying that they always adhere to the T&C.

Once your are in an emergency situation, the last thing you want to have to do is argue with them.

However, reading the story, I tend to think that our friend had to deal more with an incompetent individual rather than with an insurance company whose corporate policy is to deny coverage at the risk of letting people without medical care. How can we know for sure unless we interview 100's of clients?

bostontraveler

Yes :-( But when you think about it, Amex plays the same game. No way to contact them in writing except by postal mail-- in 2020-- no Twitter, Facebook or email... completely useless. I like to document my conversations, especially when it concerns things like disputes or insurance. Clearly they have been directed to keep everything on the phone.

Clearly our friend had a more complex situation. Disturbing.

IstKong

The flights were paid with the AMEX. The insurer of Visa Premier didn't asked if we paid the ticket with this card. Didn't checked the T&C, maybe we were just lucky enough. But I think that if the trip is at least partially paid with the card, then it's covered.



Very true. What the T&C says is not that relevant because you won't have time to argue with them in an emergency situation. If they don't want to assist you they will always find something in their policy to not assist you.

So it's wether the insurance company really want's to assist you or not. In an emergency situation the insurance is always in a dominant position, and you don't have the time to argue with them. It's a hit or a miss.

The behaviour of the AMEX insurance made me think at that time that their plan wasn't to do any repatriation or assistance but instead asking me to send a huge amount of document, and then see if they can basically don't cover the case or do any repatriation without being legally involved weeks or months after.

If you read carefully the T&C of the repatriation insurance of each of those cards (Premier, Gold...), you will see that they don't take any responsibility in emergency situation and that you should instead contact the local 911. But they also says in those T&C that they are not covering hospitalization without pre-approval, and that you cannot take initiative before calling them... which is not realistic in an emergency situation in a foreign country. They basically have everything in their hand to not assist you if they don't want to do so.

T&C of my Visa Premier card (Boursorama) :

So if you call them and they don't want to do anything, you are screwed.