AJ747M

Hi all,

I moved to Sweden the better part of a year ago and after finally having accrued enough miles on an overseas card to get me a RTW in business, I thought it might be time to stop eating 2% FX fees and get a local credit card

I'm looking at the SAS AMEX Premium, which currently has a three month fee waiver and 12,000 bonus points when using a referral link.

Is there any way to get the fee waiver extended for longer? I can see that previously the fee was waived for an entire year. I have an AMEX issued in another country which I've spent a fair amount on, so I'm wondering if showing my spend amounts on that card might help convince them to extend the waiver.

Any help is appreciated. Also happy to use any kind person's referral link, so I don't have to give a well-known anonymous vlogger more miles as I'm sure he/she has more than enough already

Thanks in advance!

fassy

nacho

No you can't extend it for longer, but you can re-apply every 15 months or so.

However they have a free AMEX SAS card, however that card doesn't have any kind of travel insurance (excess waiver for your home travel insurance), if your home insurance already have the add on then you don't really need it.

JR67

Sweden doesn't understand the importance of customers. Swedes think it is more important to get 150% profit off of one person than getting 10% profit off of 40,000 people.

fassy

Well, to be honest the fees for the AMEX is actually not that bad if you balance it against value for the 2-4-1 voucher and the insurance package. Or for the Elite card, 20k basic points, higher EuroBonus point earnings, insurance package and two 2-4-1 vouchers.

I happily pay my 350 kr/month for the Elite card just for the two 2-4-1 vouchers. And as a side note, the customer service at AMEX is just great. No wait times on the phone, always very helpful agents, not a single time they were not able to fix my issues.

While the SEB Master Card team.... well... as long as you just use the card and never have to talk to them fine. But if you got a problem make sure to bring some time and be prepared to train your frustration tolerance.

JR67

I actually have the opposite experience. I changed banks a while back and wasn't familiar with their web page. Didn't know there was a two-stage authorization for payments. So my bills were paid 4 days late. SAS Mastercard was cool with it and dropped all potential charges, but Amex were complete ***holes and charged me 2 months interest for being 4 days late. So.... YMMV.

highupinthesky

I agree that AMEX is quick to pick up the phone, but beyond that their customer service sucks. I have problems with the online access to transactions. I've been calling them multiple times over the last couple of months and every time the answer is they will ask the technical team to look into the problem, but I don't get a ticket number or any followup or any ETA on a fix. All they offer is I check to see whether it's fixed in a couple of days and otherwise call them again at which time the history repeat itself again.
I also have had issues with late payment from the company on my corporate AMEX card. What AMEX told me on the phone and what happened in reality were 2 very different stories.

For the SAS Mastercard I can write to them in the online portal and normally there is an answer within 24 hours. In 50% of the cases they don't misunderstand the issue and fix it first time.

fassy

Really? That's interesting.

Actually the SEB customer service USED TO BE quite good and fairly easy to get in touch with but this year it was really frustrating. Was on a trip and had to pay a couple of things, AMEX wasn't accepted and the MC was declined by the POS terminal all the time. It took me nearly two hours on the phone to get some agent at SEB, and then... they couldn't do sh**. No idea why the card was declined, should try again tomorrow. Great advise when you have to check out of a hotel, pay the cab, etc. Had to get downtown, draw cash from an ATM with the AMEX to pay - and nearly missed my flight back home because of that.

Tried to follow up with SEB a couple of times (every time a obscene long holding time, easily over an hour) but just got a shrug and "should work now". As I paid a couple of time since then, it seems to work. But then was declined last month again - for now obvious reason. And again, no reaction from the SEB team. Makes me feel extremely uneasy as I just have the MC as backup for the AMEX just in case a POS won't accept AMEX. Now, I'm also carrying my Hilton Visa... which I usually would avoid as they charge in EUR to my German bank account, which means I have to think transferring the funds over at the end of month.

On the other hand, I had to report fraud on my AMEX (someone charged more than $5k through booking.com to my card), used the travel insurance a couple of times, lost a card in East Asia which got replaced via express the next day or sometimes even used the concierge service for booking upscale restaurants which didn't want to give me a reservation when I called myself. Always, almost no wait time, super-helpful and friendly agent and got things solved to my full satisfaction with the first call..

entraider

I agree with fassy, the Amex Support is very helpful and quick.
We once traveled with train from Germany to Sweden. First train got delayed so that we missed all further connections. We got stuck in Malmö. Called Amex and had the money back for the hotel bill within a week.

AJ747M

Thank you for the info all. My first experiences with AMEX here haven't been perfect:
1. Applied for card then called to follow up about a week later. Was told my application was pending extra info. Asked whether I should have received an email prompting me to send this info and was told that yes an email should come through in a few days.
2. Sent info almost immediately after first call, then followed up a few days later again. Told that the card was approved on the day I sent my details. Again I asked whether I should have received an email with an update. Response was "our email system is broken down so no one is receiving emails at the moment".

So in both cases I had to proactively follow up on the status, which isn't ideal. However, was not on hold for more than five seconds in either case which is great. Interested to see how things go once I have the card!

highupinthesky

My issues with the online access to the transactions continues. Call again for the 5th time Monday this week and for the first time I was actually asked for more information on Tuesday. On Wednesday for the first time i got the feedback that they have no clue why on some days transaction shows up twice and on others transactions are missing.

They are fast at picking up the phone but I would rather they be slow at picking up the phone and dealing with the problem in a professional way the first time.