Tag: amex

New Credit Card Benefits

First we have new monthly dining credits and wireless credits for American Express cards Marriot, Hilton and Delta. Please use this link for more information.

For the month of February, Chase is giving you 5% back per dollar on gas with all freedom cards up to $150 in 5% back. This includes the Chase Freedom, Freedom Flex, and Freedom unlimited. Remember you can transfer these points to the Sapphire cards to use them as travel points. The only thing you need to do is to fill out your info on this link.

The Agreement I Made With Amex To Restore My Wife’s Bonus Points

Awhile back my wife was offered an upgrade from American Express for her Everyday Card to the Everyday Preferred Card. The offer was to switch to the Everyday Preferred card and spend $2,000 in 3 months to receive 25,000 points. The Everyday card has no annual fee, but the Everyday Preferred Card comes with a $95 annual fee.

Last month the yearly fee posted and since we don’t really use this card, I had her downgrade back to the no fee card. A couple weeks later I noticed that 25,000 points went missing from her account. At first I couldn’t understand why, but after a little digging, I figured out that she didn’t keep the Preferred card open at least twelve months. American Express has a rule in the fine print that you need to keep a card open 12 months before canceling or downgrading or they take back their points. They do this to try and stop people from gaming the system. This is not a big deal because when the yearly fee posts, it has been 12 months since you opened a new card. You have 30 days to get the annual fee back after it posts to your account. I forgot this was not a new credit card account and that we had upgraded. I remembered they charged us a pro-rated annual fee when she upgraded and the yearly fee would come in under 12 months since her anniversary date was only 6 months from the product change.

I called American Express this weekend and asked them if we upgraded back to the Preferred card would we be able to regain the points back. This wasn’t just about the points. I wanted her to stay in good standing with American Express and it was my mistake. They told us that they could do that, but we would have to spend $2,000 in 3 months again to get the 25,000 points back. Also we would have to keep the Preferred version of the card open for the next twelve months. I was okay with these terms because I made the mistake and broke the contract.

American Express has always been good to me and I believe they have the best customer service in the industry. It never hurts to call credit card companies and ask for something. They are not the cable companies.

How I Had My Amex Gold Card Fee Waived

Today my American Express Gold card $250 annual fee posted.  However, the card only costs $30 a year to me. The card offers $100 toward airline credit and the $120 toward food each year.

Anytime my annual fee posts to a credit card account, I call the credit card company’s retention line. I sometimes say I am looking to cancel because the annual fee posted, but lately I have been just asking if there is a retention offer on my account. I believe credit card companies software have offers on certain accounts by how much spending you did in a year. I seem to always get an offer on cards I use regularly. The cards that I hardly use don’t usually have any retention offer and I ended up canceling. There is also a chance you may not get an offer if you only had the card open for one year. I guess it depends on the company.

The Gold card is my go-to card because of 4 points on groceries and restaurants and I was definitely not planning to cancel it. When I called Amex, I just asked if there were any retention offers on my account. He played the game back at me and asked, “what don’t you like about the card?”. I replied, “The fee was raised last year because of the food credit and I don’t really care for that”. Honestly, I would prefer they just drop the annual fee down by $120 and not have the food credit, but it isn’t that big of deal. He then spoke about all the other great things about the card and I just sat and waited. When he was done talking about the card, he told me that there was a retention offer for me and I could either have 15,000 points or $100 credit after spending $2,000 in 3 months. Most people consider Amex points worth 1.8 cents each. Since I use all my Amex points on business class or first-class long-haul flights, I consider it worth a lot more. Even at 1.8 cents a point, that makes 15,000 points worth $270. Therefore, I obviously took the points.

Even if you have no plans to cancel a card, it is always good to try for a retention offer when your credit card annual fee posts. On $95 fee credit cards, they will sometimes just waive the fee.