Ancien Maestro

Rereading this post, I thought the annual fee is $699 for Platinum MR card, and 2 credits of $200 per year is $400 off, so a value of $299 annual fee paid for having the Platinum card.

Someone can walk me through how to get this card value down to $99?

The Aeroplan Gold version card gives you 1.25 points after 10K spend. The best immediate point value offered with a FYF card.

You could try and roll the dice and throw all the purchases onto the Gold MR version, and wait for a Avios transfer bonus. But its YMMV if Amex is introducing a Avios transfer bonus. Last years was March 1st to 31st IIRC. So the annual time as passed. The year previous were different months.

JJonahJ

They SHOULD, or they MAY?

Easy to say when it's not you that's taking the risk of applying, and when you have no concrete or reliable sources. Anyone can print out a page but there's no date/timestamp on a regular printout, so what kind of validity is that?!? If anyone believes this will work, I have saved the 20K signup webpages as a PDF document. But, if this works, then why not go for the 21K promo via referral? I may have a PDF of this too.

I wouldn't suggest applying thru this 'hidden' page without discussing first with an Amex rep, and getting a verbal OK that you will get 20K vs current 10K welcome points. At least then you might have the recorded conversation to use as an argument for the higher signup points.

Cana2013

If you ever tried to print the page, you would notice there is date at the bottom of the page.

JJonahJ

Not necessarily. Depends on your browser's settings/preferences. True, I can force it so that I get a date at the top of my Google Chrome printouts, but if I choose to use my IE browser, I won't get ANY relevant date/timestamps on the printout. Do you want proof? I can send you my PDF printout which has NO current date. Hence my wording of "regular" printout in my original post, I left it open-ended because I know that everyone's PC/browsers are configured differently, so you may or may not get a date as part of any browser printout...in other words, you'd have to ensure you set the correct page preferences to get any sort of date as part of the printout.

That notwithstanding, anyone can take a PDF or image file, and 'manufacture' a date and dope up a reasonably valid-looking printout, even 2 or 6 months from now. Would that still be valid proof/grounds to get a promotion to stick? How would you convince Amex to believe it is credible, seeing as there is such ease in manufacturing documents to have such fictitious values?

Keep researching for ideas. Something will break through eventually.

Ancien Maestro

Ok.. Just print a copy and make sure a date is on it. If not, then save the application to pdf file which has a date stamp on the file name description. This is if you're willing to take the risk of applying through the hidden page, which is Amex generated.

Cana2013

I use IE for most of the time and I never need to make any setting change to have the web-page link and date printed at the bottom of the page. It is a default setting.

CanucksHKG

I'm not sure why there's such a huge debate on printing PDF's with or without date stamps, but this summarize it nicely:

+1

Ancien Maestro

Would it constitute fraud to doctor a document and present as true? Especially with PDFs, everything is embedded. Documents are often used for legal transactions. I don't think it would be that easy to doctor a PDF.

cwhitt

I just went through the online app and got approved. Nothing in the app process contradicted the 20k offer linked above. Printed that page in case I need to call in about the 20k, and I'll report back what happens when I get the package.

On a somewhat unrelated note: I'm saving for a miniRTW late in 2015. Planning to get MRGold as part of the strategy to ensure I have enough points to book around end-2014.

Any suggestions on whether I should do the GCR rebate, or give a helpful FTer the referral?

(new to FT, but have read a fair bit and am hoping to be a good contributor on my journey to the miniRTW and beyond)

Christopher

echino

60k welcome bonus on Plat did not post.

I traded referrals with a friend. I referred him to Amex Plat, got 15k. The friend got the card, spent $1,000+, referred me, got 15k. But did not get the 60k. Emailed Amex, got a response that he already got "15k out of 60k" and that the email was forwarded to a relevant department to reply within 3 days. Two business days so far, no miles, no reply.

I'll update here once Amex responds.

markandrew

I was in YYZ and noticed the homepage offers for AmEx sign ups were:

50k Plat MR
25k Aeroplat
15k Gold MR

I wondered whether that was a sign of things to come and in line with recent devaluations on other products (Gold Biz, SPG and SPG Biz) but so far no change.

Admiral Ackbar

Spouse is still waiting on all 60K from a late february application. I usually send a message after the 10 week mark if they haven't posted (has only happened once on recent gold app) and they posted a few days after that.

Cana2013

I just checked the link and the page is till there

Cana2013

The referral bonus for SPG cards (both personal and business) is also reduced. It was 10k and now it is 5k for each referral.

markandrew

The Biz card was always refer from bonus of 5k, however the refer to bonus was cut from 15 to 10k.