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Last week I wrote about how I received some potentially very interesting information from an Amex telephone agent in relation to upgrading my Amex Gold to a Platinum card. The upshot was that the agent claimed Gold cardholders who have the new credit version of the card rather than the old charge card version, are eligible for the full 30,000 (35,000 if referred) Membership Rewards Points welcome bonus, because you can’t actually upgrade from a Gold credit card to Platinum charge card (upgrading a Gold charge card to a Platinum charge card has a 20,000 Points bonus).
I was sceptical about this, because it used to be the case that you wouldn’t get a Membership Rewards welcome bonus on a new card, if you held a Membership Rewards earning card or had one in the last 6 months. The agent seemed very confident though and was happy to double check the info, so I was willing to give it a spin in my role as InsideFlyer’s resident guinea pig.
I hit the minimum spend threshold about 5 days ago and the Points for that spend appeared on my account – but there was no sign of the welcome bonus. Hmmmm…
In my experience, the welcome bonus Points are normally credited along with the Points for the spend that takes you over the threshold, so things weren’t looking great. I rang Amex, explained the situation and was told that the Points can actually take up to 28 days to credit, so there was nothing to worry about (yet). The agent wasn’t very convincing though, so I thought I’d get a second opinion using the online chat feature instead rather than waiting 28 days. The following is a direct quotation from that conversation:
“I can see that as per the terms of the welcome offer, you will not be eligible for the welcome offer if you have or had the Membership Rewards card in the past… I can see that you have a American Express® Preferred Rewards Gold Credit Card which is a membership rewards card”
Right.
Bottom line
At the moment, the situation is about as clear as mud, with the telephone agents seemingly having different info to the online support agents. I imagine I’ll actually end up with the Points myself this time (eventually), as the original call was recorded and the advice given was unequivocal, but that doesn’t help clear up what the actual official policy here is!
I’ll make some calls this week to try and get an official line, but please share your own data points in the comments for now.
Apologies for not being able to offer a definitive conclusion at this point, but I thought I’d best provide an update.
The normally excellent Amex customer services going a little awry here Troy!
😉
You will get your points eventually after making a claim as the agent informed you incorrectly. I would say also that as previous the same conditions apply.
Any more news on this? I initially enquired with their online chat who advised that I would not receive the welcome bonus for the reason that you mention. It was on the phone when I was finding out an update with the progress of my application that they said that I would be eligible.
Ha – the saga continues. In my own case, I’m still waiting to hear back from Amex (for about the 7th time), but connecting with them is difficult when flying about, since they got rid of the message centre. More generally, it seems that the new accounts team are (or at least were – I haven’t spoken to new accounts for a couple of weeks) working off different information to the rest of the customer service teams. Which team has the correct info, I have absolutely no idea – but what I can say is that trying to get the Points credited properly in practice has been a minor nightmare (even despite the fact the call was recorded and I noted the time/date/etc), so, at the very least make sure you get clear instruction from new accounts before applying and be prepared to fight for the points.
Any more news on this?
from Gold CC to Plat charge, is there link the same as Gold charge card? or need contact agent to upgrade or apply new Plat? if holding one Plat now, is referring self to get bonus alive till today?
Thanks,
Hey, I’ve just upgraded the PRG Charge Card > Platinum, but they didn’t give an immediate decision. Instead I got the ‘Thank you for submitting your request to upgrade to the The Platinum Card®’ email. How long does/will it take for them to upgrade the card? It’s still showing as gold on my online account. Is it actually possible to be declined an upgrade?