BAPP 2-41 Voucher conundrum with AMEX
 

Hi people,

I upgraded my (Free) ba branded amex to the premium one last December. As you all know, if you upgrade the previous spend counts towards the 2-4-1 voucher. Just before my membership year expired, I checked my progress and on the up it showed that I had made the required spend to get the 2-4-1. Hooray

Actually not.

I never received the voucher and then when I enquired with amex they said that a refund was issued from a merchant (I was never notified) and therefore the voucher was not triggered. Obviously that did not reflect straight away on my statement and I didn't carry on spendind on the BAPP (moved my spend to another card) as I thought I had enough for the voucher.

I did submit a complaint through the floor supervisor but I am not very optimistic

Any thoughts?

I've found Amex to be very helpful in the past, although I've not had a similar problem so can't comment on that. I have been able to extend a voucher due to illness, but Amex were unable to make that decision on their own without referring it to BA. So I wonder if this is another issue where BA have to be involved? And it would be interesting to know who you contacted at Amex and how, as I've had inaccurate information from their chat line. I find talking to someone on the phone is often more helpful when discussing complex issues.

There have been threads on here where people wanted to delay the voucher start date and discussed whether a refund would mean they'd be able to delay hitting the target. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can help with this.

Surely you would actually want to hang t the first spend amount on the premium card as your voucher would have a two year expiration date rather than one?

The spend carries over from one card to the other when upgrading.

So you spent the money on the fee free card - and then upgraded to the Premium product trying to get the voucher to immediately trigger at the lower spend threshold? I'm not judging you, and I realise a lot of people do this but I doubt Amex particularly like people using that little "exploit". If they realise that is what you appear to have done, then I doubt they'll be sympathetic to be honest. Do you know how far off the threshold you actually were, taking in to account this refund?

The OP knows that I think. What they are saying is they believed they had spent £10K on the basic free BA card - then upgraded, expecting the [two year] Voucher to immediately trigger - however a refund actually meant they hadn't spent £10k and so the voucher was not issued. And now the card anniversary has passed.

I think the refund was 18 pounds and that's what brought me under the threshold

Majority of the spent was on the free card but I did spend quite a bit on the premium one.

You are right not to be optimistic. As I posted in Dec, I stopped my spending when my statement said £202 to go, and it did say this was calculated 6 days earlier. Various agants agreed that I had spent only £147 since the "6 days earlier" date yet my voucher was triggered the same day as my statement. Formal complaint to Amex got a very abrupt reply that I had actually spent £10017 and that the statement did not include pending amounts. Neither does it warn you that it may not include pending amounts. I now have a voucher that expires 6 weeks before I need to use it. I asked Amex to issue another voucher with a later date and I promised not to use the earlier one (since apparently they can't be withdrawn ). Flat no, not the usual sorry but no. Amex customer service used to be so good, not now it seems.

Empathy - I cancelled my Amex Platinum last week as for all the marketing chat about travel insurance they were of no use to me.

At the end of the day thy are sitting on top of an insurance company and they will do anything not to pay out.

Shame

Not trying to be difficult but I’m not entirely sure what you think Amex have done wrong? How did you phrase your complaint?

I am sympathetic with the OP’s plight (losing a voucher is not fun), but leaving a margin of error of less than 18 pounds is taking a big risk for nothing. To maximize the usefulness of my vouchers, I try to trigger the vouchers in the last few days of the year, but make sure that I exceed the minimum amount by at least $500.

The statement said I had £202 to go, calculated 6 days earlier. In that 6 days I had spent £147 and then stopped spending. 3 differernt agents agreed I had not reached the 10k threshold. I complained that the statement was incorrect or misleading. Amex investigated and said I had overspent by £17, apparently by pending spends. There is no mention of "does not include pending" on the statement, also when I got the statement it was impossible to verify what might have been pending 6 days before statement date. If 3 agents cannot see how i reached the threshold, how am I expected to know "pending" was to blame. And, how to know in the future?
I gave Amex a solution that would have cost them nothing, they bluntly said voucher could not be re-issued (I knew that & didn't ask for that). It has cost them a 2001 customer's goodwill and quite possibly loyalty.

Agreed. But we are always in India at the end of my card year, & in remote India it is really impossible to use Amex. So I need to get close to 10k, & spend the remainder at H'row on my way out. I treid to change my card year month but that cannot be done. Might not go again, as we were burgled in UK (plus have no voucher now for 2022!).

It's interesting that the voucher triggers on pendings as those transactions could easily clear/cancel down. I guess this is Amex trying to be nice and works for most people but if you're trying to time the trigger I can understand why it would be frustrating!

The voucher does NOT trigger on "pending" transactions. I have had this confirmed with Amex in the past - and with my own experience. The transaction must be billed to your card statement and the transaction itself must be dated on or before your anniversary date. In fact, the voucher itself doesn't actually trigger until around 2 days after the fully billed transaction taking you >£10k shows in your recent transactions although that delay doesn't stop you getting the voucher as long as the transaction itself is dated within you anniversary year. But again, it is not triggered by pending transactions.

As you rightly point out, pending transactions are merely merchant authorisation requests and not actual charges/spend. They only become eligible spend for the voucher when they are fully submitted by the merchant and arrive on your account.