ehallison

Without scrolling through 40 pages of threads to find examples, I'm certain that my husband isn't the only ONE data point that Happy's post described. We spent on actual hotels and retail purchases, and all of my husband's previously earned Amex MR points were blocked from transfers.

pacolovestacos

People on Reddit are losing their minds over the points still being frozen.

Mountain Trader

Virtually all who applied and got the card were blocked. The data points of interest now surround what happens next. Some have been unblocked, others who were unblocked were blocked again. The one I mentioned upthread (eg. Gift card purchases won't count for minimum spend) is the first I read on that. There may well be others now.

yOyOYoo

Yup, all my previous MR points from my AMEX PRG account were blocked along with the MR points from the 100K Platinum offer. My entire MR point balance was locked for "6 to 8 weeks."

I'm lucky in that I slipped by the automated line to transfer out 160K points to Krisflyer. I did miss my opportunity to book Suites class, so I have to settle for Business class and Suites waitlist for now.

The whole points fiasco has really soured my impression of AMEX. I'm tempted to just cancel my Platinum card and get the AF refunded.

acefspadez

points finally unfrozen today. Points were posted on June 1st. Tried everyday to transfer to airline and finally went through today. Had 3k simon mall gc, was afraid of t&c so I added over 3k of spending.

pacolovestacos

If you transferred out your points, I would absolutely get the AF refunded. Just make sure to get the $200 air credit first.

azepine00

if amex decides to take their campaign on bonus ofer abuse one step further they can rescind the bonus and hit you with of point advance cost if you decide to close the card without paying fee

ymmv of course and this seems rather drastic but then they never froze accounts due to abuse of targeted offer either... there is always first time for everything...

remember - you need amex, amex doesnt need you

Troopers

Let some time pass and emotions settle before you decide. Best not to make a decision on emotions.

seen_chong

Amex could have easily been straightforward in their approach to this issue by letting members know their MR accounts were frozen and the specific timeline of when it would be unfrozen.

Instead, they chose to play this game where they award points and make them available, giving the impression they could be used, only for users to find out their requests have failed once they've made travel plans.

It's just a backhanded way of dealing with an issue head on and I'm sure their own CSRs would have appreciated this as well, instead of having their lines boggled down by frustrated members who can't get a straight answer as to what exactly is going on. Would have saved them many CFPB complaints as well.

They're only making a bad situation (unintended leak of 100k offer) worse and frustrating everyone, including their own employees, in the process.

Happy

Correct. As an example, my friend has Biz Plat and this plat, plus Everyday Preferred. All his spends on all cards are organic yet his MR account is frozen, together with several 100'Ks MR pts in the account BEFORE this plat card.

However he was able to use the telephone mechanism to transfer a good portion of the pts to Delta during a brief period the phone transfer resumed working (NOT the one about to call after hours) when I alerted him about this discovery posted in reddit. He really did not want to do it because he already has 700K DL miles but upon reconsideration, he went ahead to do the transfer - given his home base is PDX, DL has tremendous availability for TATL business class in saver with only one connection and very easy to find 3 J seats for the whole family. Hence DL is very useful to him. If you can use SEA/PDX as your airports, you are golden with the DL awards, fwiw.

His regular transfer attempts remain blocked as of today.

The data points are numerous but no need to list them all out here.

I am sure you have enough sources, public and private, to find your own data points.

You can guess however you want. It does not help you or anyone an iota if the MR accounts remain blocked.

pacolovestacos

Why? AMEX made their decision based on emotions.

No. That's why I said that person should transfer out the points, and then cancel. If the person has a 0 balance, the points obviously can't be rescinded.

Troopers

Because Amex may choose to end the relationship for the foreseeable future.


How do you know this? And if true, seems like a poor reason; "Amex made their decision based on emotions, so I will too".

mia

Please write about American Express policies and practices, not about each other. Do not speculate about other members' intelligence, knowledge, understanding or motives. Hint: sentences which include any form of the word you are likely to be personal. Once you have made a point, please do not repeat even if you think others have not understood.

LWT3

I agree. I would fire the person who is calling the shots on how Amex is handling this.

thepupil

Ok we're past the 8 week period where AmEx claimed they could hold our points hostage due to the terms in the signup application. I myself have been waiting for almost 10 weeks. All my spend is legit.

Does anyone have data points on what happens if we file CFPB complaints regarding this? Will AmEx close accounts/forfeit points or force them to be redeemed at their cash value?

A skeptical part of me suspects that the higher ups at AmEx have decided to stall/freeze/sandbag point redemptions until September 1st (which is when they will offer zero refunds on annual fees) so as to minimize the financial damage/fallout from the 100k point platinum application offer that went viral.