Zorak

I received mail from AMEX today regarding my DL Platinum AMEX. It says "We are adding language to clarify how oyu can receive a Miles Boost each year." As far as I can tell the most relevant changed portion is:

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You can only get two Miles Boost awards for each Card account. In addition, if you have more than one Platinum Card Account linked to the same SkyMiles account, you are eligible for only two Miles Boost awards each year.
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It's not clear to me whether that means if you have both the Personal and Business Platinum DL cards, whether you only get 2 total boosts.

Or is the situation they're referring to, one where you have two different Personal Plats?

Did Reserve card holders get a similar mail?

(Is this in fact a change or really just a clarification of existing policy? Not that it really matters to me, I wasn't going to put enough spend on for more than 2 boosts anyway)

jamesteroh

I hope this doesn't mean you can only get two=10K mileage boosts per year total if you have both a personal and business Delta Am Ex. If that's the case I'm cancelling my business Am Ex card since it goes in a drawer in early January as soon as I get my $50K spend on it

davetravels

This is of HUGE interest / concern to me!

I haven't gotten any eMails like that from Amex yet. I'd bet that I will.

If, indeed, one has a Platinum personal card, and a Platinum Business card, and can ONLY get 2 mileage boosts per year, instead of the 4 that we currently get, and EXPECT via paying the appropriate annual fees, that really S_X!!! <Sorry! I never use THAT word!>

I guess they can do whatever they want, but, how can they change the rules right in the middle of our program year?!?

Zorak

Just to clarify, this was old school, postal mail.

JayTeaBee

I saw a blog post here about this earlier today.

taxicabnumber

Rene has sources within Delta that most of us don't have, so his interpretation (max 60k MQMs) may well be the right one, but I don't see how the wording indicates that. To me, it seems that you're either now capped at 50k credit card MQMs (20k from any combination of personal/business Platinum, 30k from any combination of personal/business Reserve) or 100k (if personal and business are treated as separate products).

GatorBlues

How does one go about getting clarity on this? I have a personal reserve and a business reserve. I'm ditching one of them if I'm not eligible for both MQM bonuses on both cards. I may ditch Amex altogether if they in fact are changing the rules mid-year, after I've already spent about $40K on each card.

gooselee

There is another thread in the Amex forum about this with additional speculation. On my phone right now so no link, but might be worth a cross reference.

jerry a. laska

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...t-changes.html

RFDMinnesota

I'd bet good money against that. I highly doubt that "Renes Points" (Yes, both of them) have any *inside* source(s). I'm guessing the Diamond Line reps see the caller and think to themselves, "Oh, here we go..." and that's where the info comes from.

jamesteroh

If this is the case this is really unfair to people who have both a personal and business card and haven't met the threshold yet for the MQM bonus but put a lot of charges on the card anticipating to reach the spend by year end seeing they could have been putting the spend on a card with a lot better rewards return than sky peso's.

I'll call Am Ex in the morning and have them clarify it but if it's limited to 20K mqms per year if you have both a business and personal card I'm going to demand a full refund of my business card annual fee and not a prorate that was charged in March since that card will stay in a drawer until January 1 when I can start accumulating spend towards the MQM boost again. If I would have been told this in March when the fee hit I would have just cancelled the card.

If this is the case I may as well just upgrade my personal plat. to a reserve next year and cancel the business card seeing the changes they are making for diamonds with the skyclub. I chose the $200 delta voucher for my third choice gift, I figure that will offset the difference between the Plat and reserve cards

iflyalexair

Well, HMMMMM. This is certainly a potentially negative "change" for me. I have made it my pride and joy to collect 4 boosts per account per year. I start the year as platinum, get my two 10k MQMs, then upgrade to reserve and get those two 15k MQM boosts. Effectively, I can earn 100k MQM boosts per year without stepping foot on a plane.

After the initial heart attack came and went, I called Amex to get clarification on what this means. At least according to this agent, who took the time to speak it through with a supervisor, it appears as if nothing has changed.

According to her, the language of "You can only get two Miles Boost awards for each Card account" means that in a calendar year you can only earn two 10k MQM bumps. Meaning, that you can't get a third or fourth bonus if you keep the spend up. This language allegedly doesn't mean that if you get your platinum boosts and then upgrade to reserve that you will be ineligible to get the reserve boosts as well. I have one card that is at about 65k YTD spending. I'll upgrade that to reserve in probably a month, so it will be interesting to test this theory out.

As another data point, the agent said that the language of "In addition, if you have more than one Platinum Card Account linked to the same SkyMiles account, you are eligible for only two Miles Boost awards each year" also does not apply when you hold a personal platinum and a business platinum. It only bars people who hold two personal platinums. On my business platinum, I have already earned my two boosts. My personal platinum is about 7k in spend away from the second boost. I'll report back of whether or not that one posts when I get to that point.

gooselee

I actually had you in mind when I first saw this news.

What worries me is the first part I bolded above. I'm not sure whether Amex would consider an upgrade from Plat to Reserve as a new/separate Card account, or just an upgraded version of the same card account. The only evidence I have for this is that when I upgraded my personal Plat to Reserve, I kept the same card number when I log into the Amex website, clicking through the Reserve card still gives me access to all my account history/statements/etc. going back to its origin as a Plat card. Amex clearly knows the two are one and the same.

For the second bolded part, I would hope that that agents interpretation is correct. But again, I thought that name matching would generally prevent, for example, a husband and wife to each hold personal Plat accounts under their separate names/SSNs, but then link both accounts to a single SM#. The most likely scenario for two Amexes being linked to the same SM# is a personal + biz setup tied to the same individual.

I guess we'll see. Looking forward to hearing your experiences...you may be one of a few who knows this stuff well enough AND has an existing setup to be able to test it out!

mfdesquire

I am an attorney in the financial services industry. I used to be the principal credit card attorney at a major issuer.

I will lay large odds that nothing has changed. That is, if you have a Business card and a Personal card, you can get 2 mileage boosts each (4 total). If you have two personal cards, however, you can only get 2 total.

The reason I think this is the case is that AX's statement notice indicated this was a "clarification." What that generally means from a legal perspective is that they haven't always enforced this (i.e., people with two Plat Personal accounts have sometimes gotten 4 boosts in the past) but they are going to start enforcing it now.

If this were a change - i.e., if you have a personal card and get two boosts, getting a business card will do you no good in terms of additional boosts -- they would have labeled it a "change," not a "clarification." AX has excellent attorneys; they would get this right every time.

Just my two cents; I hope I'm right.

iflyalexair

My FT claim to fame is soon going to be but a distant memory. :-(

Yeah, I am very skeptical about the use of the word "account." What is stupid, of course, is that I could just open up a reserve account this year if I am barred with the "two boosts per account rule." I guess that would have me paying more annual fees since I don't get the prorate of having the platinum for some portion of the year. Although with the new choice benefits and lack of a complimentary sky club membership, I guess I could keep a card reserve full year, gain club access that way, and instead of selecting the club membership choice benefit, I can get miles or a voucher, worth equal value.

It sucks that this is being done overnight, with no warning and this early in the year. I have a work around with opening a new reserve account and getting at least 30k MQMs out of that, but it would have been nice to be able to have a little time to plan out the future strategy, especially for a program based on the calendar year. I don't need these boosts to maintain DM this year, but I have already planned future travel assuming I would have a nice roll over.

Does anyone have the language from the updated terms and conditions of the reserve card? It would be interesting to see if it has similar language regarding "if you have two reserve cards linked to one skymiles account, you can only earn two boosts."