American Express, Business Platinum & The Mysterious Case Of The Waived Annual Fee

What’s Happening?

At the start of October we shared a post by Travelling The World stating that they signed up for the American Express Business Platinum Card and when they received their card member agreement it showed that the annual fee was waived for the first year.

amex-business-platinum

They recently received their first statement from American Express and the annual fee of $450 didn’t post yet either. At first I just thought this was an isolated case, but there are now lots of reports from this reddit thread stating that their card member agreement also shows a waived annual fee for the first year. Keep in mind that the American Express Business Platinum is currently offering a sign up bonus of 100,000 points (if you use a referral link, the person’s link you use will also receive 25,000 points, update: These links might not trigger the $0 AF first year terms and conditions).

What Will Happen?

This is obviously not intention, all of the sign up pages currently show an annual fee of $450 (and no mention of it being waived the first year). If you sign up for this card, you should be 100% expecting to pay and be happy to pay the $450 annual fee. I assume American Express will send out some sort of correction letter regarding this, the other alternative is they will look for reasons to deny people the 100,000 point bonus.

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13 Comments
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AmexBGRCSR
AmexBGRCSR (@guest_308946)
October 25, 2016 01:21

will try to get to bottom of this and stop it from happening.

Chris
Chris (@guest_309080)
October 25, 2016 12:52

Are you a really a Rep? If so, just curious, is it part of your job duties (or others at your company) to look for forums like this and report things?

AmexBGRCSR
AmexBGRCSR (@guest_309594)
October 27, 2016 02:01

Funny. I have kick started the investigation and identified the cause. A new system on how the applications are processed is being implemented which caused the issue. All CM’s would be identified and appropriate mailing would be sent

PM
PM (@guest_308879)
October 24, 2016 19:57

I have another DP. I upgraded my Biz Gold to Biz Plat (got a promo 50K points for 10K spending) and I was charged AF $150. I reached out to CSR (what a stupid idea) and asked about it and got an answer that next time in ~12 months my AF will be $450 but this time it`s $150 only.

CtownBin
CtownBin (@guest_308924)
October 24, 2016 22:24
  PM

The reason it was $150 only is probably because you were paying the difference between the Gold and Plat, since you upgraded- and, you were only paying a prorated amount until the end of your cardmember year. For example- say you upgraded 6 months into your cardmember year. The Gold is $175 and the Plat is $450, so difference of almost $300. They can’t charge you the whole Plat fee, since you already paid the Gold fee. So they charge you the difference of about $300. But, since there is only half a year remaining that you will actually get to enjoy the Plat, they prorate you and charge you half. That’s how you’d get $150.

PM
PM (@guest_308992)
October 25, 2016 08:02

Not sure about that. My Biz Gold was 8 months old and first year AF was waived.

Dcatast
Dcatast (@guest_308870)
October 24, 2016 19:39

I do not think there is a single data point on someone applying with a referral who also received the $0 first year in the agreement letter. May be a good thing to mention. (Maybe there is more data out that overturns what I saw last night.)

Andrew
Andrew (@guest_309022)
October 25, 2016 10:04

its about 50/50 chance, just like if you were to use the public link based on many DPs:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11gXQhyPpe6BdfhYCkZU5jzRfNw8FRtXPByjxIoBvNNk/edit

It seems there a higher percentage of people who got it waived by using chrome incognito

banananon
banananon (@guest_308912)
October 24, 2016 21:42

According to reddit DPs, 3/7 from referrals were waived.

banananon
banananon (@guest_308913)
October 24, 2016 21:43

my bad, 4/7.

Andrew
Andrew (@guest_309020)
October 25, 2016 10:01

wrong, its about 50/50 chance, just like if you were to use the public link based on many DPs:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11gXQhyPpe6BdfhYCkZU5jzRfNw8FRtXPByjxIoBvNNk/edit