weirdfish

No, as you are paying by Paypal it won't recognise it as an overseas transaction. Unfortunately, Amex doesn't think any Paypal transaction is overseas.

Raffles

Well, if this isn't now the offer of the year I don't know what is!

The card fee is currently reduced to £70 for the first year, yet the Quidco cashback remains at £60!

So, £10 net cost for 20,000 BA Miles!

However, a new clause has appeared:

3. 20,000 Membership Rewards bonus points will be awarded to your account once you have been approved and you have spent and charged £1,000 within the first three months of Cardmembership. Please note that these bonus points will appear on your fifth statement. Existing Cardmembers enrolled into the Membership Rewards Programme will not be eligible for the 20,000 bonus points.

This seems to imply that existing Plat or corporate card holders can't apply, as they will already have an MR account.

stifle

I wonder if it applies to Membership Rewards Express. Or to foreign cards.

jbfield

Any deadline on this that you're aware of?
I'm waiting on some double points to be retro-credited before cancelling the account.

Would be good to open it up once again at that price.

I also note that the date on which they make the annual fee is slightly later (hence the £70 and no points until the 5th statement):

britbronco22

Does it say anywhere in the T&C's about how long you need to leave between cancelling a card and reapplying to be elligible for the bonus?

Blueboys999

A word of warning for those who intend to cancel this card before renewal.

2 weeks ago I rang to cancel a month in advance of my renewal date. I got the hard sell to keep with it but no offer other than a new Platinum Cashback credit card. They sent the new card application but I called them to say I didn't want it.

This morning my Gold account is still showing on the website and I HAVE BEEN CHARGED THE £95 RENEWAL FEE FOR NEXT YEAR!! I called Amex to see what was going on and was told that the file record shows that I asked that the card be renewed - which is the exact opposite of what happened. The agent said she "couldn't comment" on what her colleague had falsely entered following my cancellation call.

My advice for anybody cancelling over the phone would be to follow it up with written confirmation or to ask for them to do so.

They really are a bloody shambles.

_nate

I called up to cancel and was told I didn't need to leave 30 days: the card could be cancelled at any time but the 30 days was just to ensure nothing got charged to the first statement in the next year.

If this is true (if...) then I have wasted some MR points by transferring the surplus to Nectar after I'd used up all my blocks of 500 points. Anyway, am going to cancel this week, after 30 days but still well within the current statement period. They also said I should not cancel until 5 days had elapsed after a transfer, but the transfers do not seem to take as long as this.

weirdfish

My card seems to still be live although I have cancelled it and the CS guy confirms that he can see the cancellation request, and like Blueboys999 the membership fee has suddenly appeared. I have one transaction crediting my account for the remainder of last years fee followed today by a debit for this years

I'm currently awaiting a call back from the CS guy as the screwed it up department don't start till 8am. I have to say though that the guy I've been dealing with so far has been very good.

I would say though that people that are attempting to take a bite out of the same apple by cancelling cards and reapplying are brave souls. In the course of cancelling the Gold card it was evident that Amex remembers pretty much everything you do on all your cards and they aint stupid.

During the hardsell phone call the CS agent instantly quoted the exact amount of spend I'd put through Amex across all cards and what miles or points had been awarded when and for what, although that info wasn't so readily available when I was chasing missing points

d3vski

I have got the gold card with the old offer of spend £500 in first three months to get 20K. I have had the card for 1.5 months and the 20K was deposited in my account along with the transaction that took me past the £500 mark. ^

marcusr

Any payments through my UK Paypal account that is charged in something other than sterling comes through as an overseas transaction in my MR statement and gets the double points bonus. The transaction in my paypal account shows the original currency and the conversion rate / sterling price.

weirdfish

Didn't with mine, but it's not the first inconsistency we've seen with the allocation of MR's on the Gold card. The 3x points on anything bought from Tesco for the last 4 months more than made up for it for me.

floorhead

My anniversary date is May 7 yet the £95 annual fee came through today. I called to complain that it shouldn't have been charged until May 7. They are reversing the charge and it won't come through until May 7, by which point I will have cancelled the card.

I think they are expecting a bunch of cancellations and are brining forward the annual charge in the hope that people will just pay it and thus keep the card for another year. There is no reason for this charge to appear a month early.

JamieT

A word of warning - I still haven't got my Quidco cashback from last April (despite claim validation in July) and Quidco seem content to do nothing to chase it on my behalf, so I wouldn't rush into this offer on the basis cashback will come through readily.

weirdfish

Wise words. I think you need to go into the promotion on the basis that you will pay 95quid. Anything else is a bonus.

Quidco is another thing that is inconsistent. I don't use it at all anymore as I had nothing but agro on every transaction, including the Gold card, but for others it just works.

timezonehopper

Exactly the same thing has happened to me - anniversary date 7th May, charged £95 yesterday.