LAX

I think the intention for Amex is for people NOT to use it. The less people use the reimbursement, the more it goes to Amex's bottom line. As far as pissing people off by clawing back the credits, may be Amex is targeting those that it is losing money on. If the card holders are not profitable, does Amex really care that they are pissed off?

LAX

mia

I understand this interpretation, but I disagree. American Express pioneered this benefit. Chase and Citi imitated it. It's typical that the imitators had to try to differentiate themselves by making their reimbursements bigger and easier. If American Express were to match them, there would be another round of changes. Good for consumers in the short run, but unsustainable, and the reimbursements would vanish. Chase and Citi have made their reimbursements too easy to use - they are indistinguishable from a price reduction. American Express' benefit requires planning to use. Marketers call this "engagement", and increasing engagement with the brand is what they are paid to do.

Clawing back reimbursements does not increase engagement, but clawing back a FEW reimbursements and using bloggers to publicize it can be a good way to put people on notice that practice will be more closely aligned with policy.

ijgordon

Well, nobody said the marketers need to be in charge of all the benefits!

I believe when Amex pioneered this benefit it was because of the loss of Admiral's Club privileges (which followed not long after the loss of Continental Presidents' Clubs after the UA merger), so the idea was you could use the credit to partly fund another club membership (and at the time it probably covered a good % of the membership). But they also broadened it to include other ancillary fees like checked bags, seating fees, and snacks on board. And then of course Chase/Citi imitated and one-upped them, and for whatever reason Amex didn't respond on that specific item.

mia

Correct, and the benefit can still be used that way for the airlines which operate lounges: AA, AS, DL and UA.

Tanic

And HA which has 5 lounges.

QuoVadi

Has anyone had their Amex $200 reimbursement clawed back for the refund of a flight that was cancelled under Delta's new coronavirus waiver? Our son's school trip was cancelled (because the school is shutting down) -- the flights were purchased on March 1st for travel next week, which falls within the fee-free cancellation guidelines. I had purchased these flights using a gift card and Amex, with Amex reimbursing me part of the fare. If Delta refunds my purchase to the Amex card, will Amex claw back $200? I also used 2019 Amex credits in December 2019 towards the purchase of tickets for an elderly family member for mid-March -- she has been forbidden by her doctor to travel, and the flight does fall within the new cancellation waiver -- will I lode those credits?

libralibra

Delta is not refunding anything according to this. The best you can do is book a new flight for this year (option 3) https://www.delta.com/us/en/advisori...tes#marchapril

Gasolin

Sometimes, I think you are an AMEX employee dedicated to evangelizing the brand, mia !!! But great piece of opinion. I think it's spot on.

arshi007

Do we know if the clawbacks have been in the cases of "obvious" transactions, i.e transactions where folks have bought tickets only to trigger credits (on pet fee, luggage charges etc) and then cancelled the tickets in 24 hours. In such cases the actual transaction, amex credit and the refund will all post within the same billing cycle (or atleast just a few days apart) and so it would be somewhat obvious that it was just to trigger the credit. That's different from folks who had legimate transactions that triggered a credit but then due to various reasons (like this coronavirus) had to cancel it at a later time.

Some data points on "clawback types" would be useful

ijgordon

Not correct. If Delta cancels the flight, you should be entitled to a refund to original form of payment. From your link, "In the event your selected flight is canceled by Delta, we will contact you with additional information." They will presumably try to re-accommodate or re-schedule you, but they will also refund you if that's your preference.

That said, I don't have a ton of sympathy for people having credits clawed back that were in violation of the terms of the program in the first place. There would normally be little to no reason for a "legitimate" reimbursement to be refunded. Only one I can really think of is an extra legroom seat that is refunded because you couldn't be accommodated due to flight change or something. *Maybe* a checked bag fee if the airline loses/delays your bag. But that would happen in the same or next statement, not months later, so you would have time to re-use the credit.

Yeah, I don't think we have a single data point...

OPAcolt

Exactly, at this is probably the outcome we want - DL to issue an eCredit rather than a refund to the CC used to purchase the non-GC portion of the ticket. Refunding back to the CC may trigger the clawback.

This is contingent on the pax cancelling the ticket before DL cancels the flight. If the flight is cancelled, I believe they would refund back to the CC.

miadukes

Due to plane changes we have had two sets os MCE seats refunded to two different cards after the credit was already credited. I too am worried that they will think it was done intentionally and would have called in to see what to do but with the whole Covid thing, the phones are packed and I don't need to be one more person tying them up. I would hope they are a bit more reasonable since some of these were obviously not done intentionally to trigger credit and get redund but yes I am in the back of my mind worried that amex will do something against me for something I had no control over and did not do on purpose.

co.miller89

I am in a similar situation. Flight refunded back to original payment method. I asked a rep what would happen to the credit, and he said it would be reversed in two weeks and be re-usable, but I seriously doubt that.

gengar

Again, see post 24, although it hasn't been updated further:

There was another post earlier where it was mentioned that DPs from other websites suggest the clawbacks were all or mostly E+ refunds.

Carq

With all the flight cancelations due to Covid19, people would rather receive a full refund on credit card than a voucher for future use. But for those who used the Amex credit for tickets, they would be the few that would welcome the voucher over a refund.