CommittedLurker

My background info:

I hold the following credit cards:

Amex Surpass
Amex Costco
Amex Plat
Amex Business Gold
Chase Sapphire
Chase Southwest
Citi Prestige

Excepting the Prestige which was just opened, all cards are several years old.

My credit score is 820+. No MS spending.

Avg Utilization of total credit limit is 2-4%.

I charge maybe $25k yearly on Amex and $35k yearly on Chase. I expect most of my Chase Sapphire spending to go Citi Prestige going forward.

I received a call from an Amex rep about 2 months ago, and yet again today

They are all enquiring why my spending on Amex has gone down (which happened probably 3 years ago when I opened the Chase Sapphire account).

I am wondering why I'm getting so much attention. Has this happened to anyone else ?

Fleck

Few drinks, you know how it goes.

Centurion

Take the call. It is most likely not a FR but a call to get more business. Amex is having their bread and butter business taken by Chase and Citibank and others.

CommittedLurker

I understand this. But my spending is hardly unique or high, so I am surprised that no one else here on FT (or elsewhere that I have seen) has experienced this.

Also, I don't think that offering to upgrade my Bus Gold to Plat for an extra 50,000 bonus points is going to solve their problems.

mia

Are you actually using the Gold card for a business? In my experience they call to reinforce your decision to get the card, and to encourage you to use it more. Chase does the same.

CommittedLurker

I am actually not using it at all, but it was used for my business initially to get 70,000 MR points with a $5,000 spend.

The first call I got a few months ago was focused more on my personal Plat card, and why I wasn't using it more (I do about $1000 per month), and I replied that my heavy spending is directed towards the Chase Sapphire.

The second call focused on the Bus Gold Card. The agent asked if I wanted to keep it (I said yes), and then offered me 50,000 MR points to upgrade to Plat.

Lately, I have been getting sign up offers for their Delta co branded card also.


I'm just wondering how desperate these guys are getting by calling people like me.

I bet Amex has lost a lot of business to Chase/Citi on their travel rewards cards (Chase Sapphire and Citi Prestige), and I think it will only get much worse once their relationship with Costco ends.

fwoomp

They never call me, but they send me a lot of surveys. They want the same sort of information they want from you (what would entice me to spend more), they just ask for it in a less personal way.

txflyer77

I just received a call from Amex regarding my business gold card, saying they'd been reviewing the account and want to talk. Just after that the call cut out so I don't know what the actual purpose of the call was.

Any thoughts on the best course of action? Call them back, SM, wait it out? I've been churning a little heavily lately. FWIW the business the card is for is an actual business (with income!) and not an "I sell things on ebay " business.

edit: Huh. Just got an email reminding me about the bonus for my new *Platinum* card. Except I didn't open a new Platinum card and I've never had one. I did open a personal Gold card last month.