uk1

It isn't a free benefit. You pay for it.

mia

Nothing is free, but not important. American Express is not the insurer. The cardholder has a contract with American Express which requires American Express to notify if there are changes in their contract with the insurer. Notice has been given.

It would be better if American Express had increased the annual fee and maintained the benefit, or offered it as an extra cost add-on. How much would you pay?

Comparing a product to its former features is not productive. Find a better product. Buy it.

markdg

yo ho ho, and a Merry Christmas to you too.....!

If it's not productive to discuss the changes to the Plat Amex, then why the heck are any of us on this site? I thought it was a talking shop for travel things. When I last checked, we were talking about travel things.

Of course, legally, Amex are fine - they've changed the contract, and notified us of the changes. However, what they're doing is affecting many people's view of the Plat card's worth (mine included) as it means many people will look to buy additional travel insurance to ensure they're insured for all occasions... and then question whether the Plat card is worth it any more.

Plus, of course, because we're humans, there is be a certain amount of "venting/ranting" when the quality of a purchase is reduced once it has been purchased with no financial recompense - as is the case here.

How's about reducing the features and giving me some of my money back for compensation of the reduction in features?

(I'm specifically didn't use the the word "benefit" as that to me implies something different. Here, the purchase fee of the card buys you a card with "features")

mia

We certainly should discuss how the insurance change diminishes the value of the UK Platinum card, but I think it's more productive to judge value by drawing a comparison to competing products than to moan about the change per se. Mass market companies seldom respond to complaints about product changes, but they do respond to lost business. Apparently they judged their product still offered better value than their competitors'. Prove them wrong.

1P

This is not the case. I have had annual travel insurance with Amex since 1985, at first via CIGMA, later via the Card when they upgraded me from green to Gold in the early 90s (and subsequently Platinum in the late 90s) and included annual cover in the increased annual fee. I can state categorically that the requirement to pay with an Amex card has never been part of the deal. If it had been, I would have cancelled the card years ago.

I use Amex Platinum mostly for domestic expenditure, with some occasional forays into Europe and the US. The forex transactions have always turned out cheaper than equivalent transactions on other cards.

The big thing for me is that I have always paid for flights to and from the US, and all hotel and transportation costs within the US, with a US-based Visa card on which I rack up huge quantities of frequent flyer miles — a major reason for not wanting to use Amex for this. The Visa card also gives me primary cover on car hire worldwide except Australia.

I, too, am dismayed by the changes that are being introduced, and will look elsewhere for annual cover, delayed baggage, etc, and cancel the card once I have transferred my 100,000+ Membership Reward points to the Hilton programme (since my airline,despite being the largest US airline, is not one that Amex will transfer points directly to — another annoyance which I shall be glad to leave behind).

Roger

As suggested upthread.Some of us are doing just that.

It would help of course if companies provided us with full details of cover.

My initial comments were made on the basis of the AmEx letter and FAQ document. I put the 'Insurance Documentation' to one side to read later. I've just done that and find that the insurance documentation consists of:
- front cover:
- unnumbered blank page;
- unnumbered title page;
- pages 2-6;
- front cover (again);
- title page (again);
- pages 2-6 (again);
- pages 23-27;
- 2 blank pages;
- back page;
- pages 23-27 (again);
- 2 blank pages;
- back cover (again).

Not much cover there, then. I imagine pages 7-22 are quite important so have just sent a message to AmEx.

Saturne-79

Hello,
This same letter arrived to me also here in Finland. Unfortunately. This was a big devaluation for Amex Plat, as we pay 550 € for the card!

Which was strange, they had little different rules: One must pay 75% from the trip with amex (or with MR points), then the insurance will cover as it just to do. I called Amex to find out few things:

- What about business trips, when your company will reserve and pay your trip?
- If using points (else than MR) for flights and hotels, what then? Will the insurance cover, if I use the points, transferred from MR to any frequent flyer or hotel program...

They could not answer any of these questions... ... ...

Lookin for other card as well, unfortunately there are not so many options here in Finland, but MC Plat and Black Diners. Looking forward for those.

Any way,

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!

mdj1

What is the level of luggage cover on the Plat and BA Amex?

Also, is it possible to increase this as a one off, for a wedding dress as an example.

BucksFlyer

- What about business trips, when your company will reserve and pay your trip?
- If using points (else than MR) for flights and hotels, what then? Will the insurance cover, if I use the points, transferred from MR to any frequent flyer or hotel program...

They could not answer any of these questions... ... ...


I would very interested in the formal response to these questions.
I would imagine almost every Platinum holder will have times when their host or company book their flight or accommodation which means almost everyone will have to purchase another insurance policy.

Jamjaw

But if paid for by someone else, work for example, would they not be covered by a different insurance? The only change is that the cancellation insurance does not cover non Amex things. Annoys me because of fx fees, not because work pays! That is covered by my corp ya agreement...

kingcedz

got this letter in the post a couple of days as well, was very annoyed.

This was one of the major benefit of having a Plat Card, especially the automatic cover for all trips paid or didnt pay with amex.

reading through the changes it feels like amex is just trying to cut corner with every benefit they offers at the moment.

but the silver lining seems to be the recent announcement in UK that will force merchant to stop charging for credit card payment (which tend to be highest for Amex Card). At least that means the cost of paying for trips using amex card should be lower compared to in the past.

P.S. Merry Christmas every one! :P

Deckard

A slight misinterpretation of the legislation there... "These rules said that only the actual cost of processing card payments could be charged to consumers.". Hopefully most retailers have agreed a price cap on card charges so we shouldn't be charged 2% ot the entire fee for example.

Silver Fox

They will just do what Ryanair does and call it an admin fee. Either way we pay.

Disco Volante

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

No notice on my personal or my business charge cards. It will not be here in time for the changes to take effect on 25th January. So my policies will live on unamended for a while yet. It is not clear whether business card policies will change.

Have any business charge cardholders received notice? Or any IDC cardholders?

uk1

I'm unclear why you feel the need to be both rude and to misinform - particularly as you appear to be the mod.

You seem distracted by the fact that Amex subcontracts its insurance. That's totally irrelevant.

You are 100% certain that a formal banking complaint would have the ombudsman siding with Amex are you?