USA: MR points transfer blocked, account being reviewed [Consolidated]
 

Amex is not permitting me to transfer any MR points to airlines, etc. They are giving the the following message:
I've had this Plat card for 5+ years at this point, and have not gotten any sort of bonus points in years.

The people at the MR number tell me that everything is likely to be frozen for 6-8 weeks. That would cause me to lose a flight I am trying to book on Delta, but it would also put the resolution on the other side of my annual renewal. It is tough to imagine paying a $450 to keep a card with frozen points particularly after a freeze prevents me from getting an award ticket. The ticket is going to cost me $650.

So, ...? Any ideas?

I'd call in the morning and ask to speak to a supervisor.

Did you open any new MR earning card recently?

Feels like this thread...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-plat-usa.html

My wife added me as an authorized user when opening a Business Plat a couple weeks ago, but no new MR reward cards of my own.

Conversations with supervisors in MR and Plat Customer Service led me to call the fraud protection people this morning. Fraud protection said that it was not their group putting the hold on, so transferred me back to MR.

So far, my effort to reach someone able to tell me the cause of the review has failed.

Information from the MR Supervisor is that the review was triggered by a 15,000 point bonus added to my account about three weeks ago as an incentive for me to agree to the extended pay option.

So, Amex asked me to agree to modify my account and offered me 15,000 points to do so . . . then, they froze my account to investigate the same 15,000 point bonus. Assuming this is correct, it is completely asinine.

Any ideas on what I can expect them to do for me (if anything) to compensate for my (at this point potential) lost award ticket on Delta and/or in connection with my $450 renewal, which is due in just over two weeks?

See here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...on-offers.html

They will do nothing for you. I had several bonus cards and they froze my account for all of my points for over 6 months. They did nothing until I filed a complaint with the CFPB and then 5 days later it was resolved. If you don't want to be lost in their black hole with no one to talk to and no one to get a decision from you should go ahead nd file a complaint today. As my annual fees come due I will be closing all of my amex cards except my SPG account. And they wonder why their profits are down.

http://www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint/

Did you make your complaint public or if you didn't can you PM me what you sent CFPB to get this resolved?

Interested as well - My wife is coming up on 7-8 wks on the freeze and I'm preparing for the worst

Mia - thanks for the link.

If I am reading the information over there correctly, they are not going to do much of anything for me from a standard retention perspective. Unless there is something with my situation about which I am unaware, I would actually put myself into a separate category of people getting treated very poorly by Amex within a couple weeks of the renewal date.

The airline fee reimbursement feature already reduces the annual fee from $450 to $250. A typical retention offer for personal Platinum is $200 or 20,000 points. What more would you expect?

I just listed the dates of application, the source of the offer, the date the bonus posted, the date that it was frozen, the promise of a 4 - 8 week resolution, the repeated attempts to seek resolution via phone call and secure messages, and the fact that the 4 - 8 week time frame was well past. Amex is required by law to respond within 30 days with a proposed resolution. If you don't agree with their proposed resolution then you can appeal through the same process.

I suppose that I am caught between not knowing what to expect and expecting "too much." The point of my original question was whether the inconvenience that I am experiencing as a result of the MR points being frozen is something that Amex would take into account. I do/did expect that losing access to the MR points at the same time as the renewal deadline would make my situation less typical and perhaps increase what Amex would do for me.

did amex notify you that your points are frozen? Or did you find out yourself without transferring any points?

I found out only when a points transfer to delta failed, and I got the "account is currently being reviewed to make sure all eligible purchases meet qualifying criteria" message.

The message does not seem to fit any reality with the account. One representative indicated that the hold began several weeks ago, the day on which Amex gave me a 15,000 point bonus to sign up for the extended pay option. There were no purchases tied to that bonus.

That same day, I started a dispute over a couple months of gym membership charges because my gym closed four months earlier, but kept up the monthly billing. The disputed amount is no more than a couple hundred dollars. They have not suggested that was the trigger.