American Express Clawing Back Some 100,00 Platinum Bonuses (MS Related)

Update: People are being told this is for returned merchandise, even when they haven’t returned any. No idea what’s going on.

What’s Happening?

There are some reports of people who signed up for the American Express Platinum bonus when it was 100,000 (that also had their points frozen) having their points clawed back. It seems that most people who’ve had their points taken back engaged in some sort of manufactured spending and American Express claims they failed to meet the minimum spend requirement.

amex platinum

Image via flofloflo2 on /r/churning

American Express Terms

American Express clearly excludes some purchases from counting towards the minimum spend. The fine print states:

he following charges do NOT count towards the Threshold Amount: fees or interest charges; balance transfers; cash advances; purchases of travelers checks; purchases or reloading of prepaid cards; or purchases of other cash equivalents.

Data Points

Let’s take a look at the data points to see if manufactured spending is what triggered this point adjustment or not:

Had points clawed back

  • Engaged in MS: 1, 2, 3
  • American Express claimed it was from returned merchandise: 1
  • Didn’t engage in MS

Didn’t have points clawed back

  • Engaged in MS: 1, 2, 3
  • Didn’t engage in MS: 1

Our Verdict

This is kind of interesting from American Express, first they froze the points then they waited until after the three month minimum spend period was over before clawing back the points. It’s not 100% clear if manufactured spending was the cause of this or not and whether there is any chance of the points being readded to the account, at this stage it doesn’t look good.

The other question is will American Express be cracking down on this type of spend across the board? Or is this just a once off to show that they were unhappy with this link going public? There is also a data point on Flyertalk about American Express not considering the different varieties of the Platinum card separate products. Share your data points in the comments.

Hat tip to /r/churning 

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Charles
Charles (@guest_367011)
March 8, 2017 22:06

Hey Doc – not sure where the best place to post this question is… I use Paypal to pay my rent (currently with a linked bank account) each month. I want to use a credit card going forward to meet a few minimum spend requirements.

My question is which of these approaches has the least risk to raise any alarm bells with the cc issuers (mainly Chase, Amex, Citi)? With each card, I would also have more traditional cc purchases as well and no other “MS.”

1) Buy MyCash cards at CVS in ~$500 and ~$1000 purchases for $2,500 each month?
2) Use the cc directly through PayPal to fund the payment?

I know that both could technically be viewed as cash-like transactions. Is either one a safer bet for the banks?

I also know there are risks with MyCash cards – however, we have secure messages with Paypal customer service saying that this use is ok.

I also know that the MyCash route is about $50 less each month, but I’m more focused on making sure I take the best approach to keep the bonus points!

Thanks for all you do!

Anonian
Anonian (@guest_337719)
January 12, 2017 03:26

Amex refroze my points (I applied for the 1st Platinum offer in 2016 so around May). I got my 100K points like everyone else, but they were frozen for like 3 months. Everything sorted out since I didn’t MS and I was able to transfer my points to Plenti. Nearly 4 months later, they froze my points again (from normal spending) because I tried to transfer them to Plenti. The representatives have been very rude from the beginning and only 2 have been friendly. They had some error code that the retentions department read off and it was a generic error pertaining to using and earning points in a suspicious manner so Im presuming it has to do with the RAT team. I will be canceling my membership once my airline credit posts.

Anonian
Anonian (@guest_337721)
January 12, 2017 03:27

I should clarify that I was able to transfer my 100K points out. They refroze my normal-spend points so around 10K or so.

TimmyD
TimmyD (@guest_311913)
November 3, 2016 15:21

Any data points of claw backs for cards other than Platinum?

wanderingnubian
wanderingnubian (@guest_297753)
September 22, 2016 12:26

One more thing, we had both engaged in some light MS – about 1K of the MS was met with online gift card purchases. The rest via normal spend.

wanderingnubian
wanderingnubian (@guest_297752)
September 22, 2016 12:24

My husband I both signed up for the 100K MR platinum card, and both had our MRs frozen. Briefly unfrozen and then frozen again. I didn’t communicate with Amex at all (mainly was just too busy) and was hoping this would resolve on its own. The points were never clawed back, always appeared in our accounts, just couldn’t transfer them. Today on a whim tried both of our accounts – UNFROZEN! I’m so relieved. Have promptly transferred our entire MR balance to airlines just in case.

Hoang
Hoang (@guest_297778)
September 22, 2016 14:37

I don’t trust them and they may put negative on the account

Jim
Jim (@guest_296105)
September 16, 2016 23:15

As another DP, I got a letter stating they noticed “an effort to obtain and use points in a manner that is not appropriate.” 100k points were removed, even though spending was over $3k including returns.

Chatted first, they agreed I qualified and said to call Rewards line. Rewards said the letter was poorly worded, but the bottom line was that I had the card before and canceled it in 2011. After 6 months they apparently just noticed this and did the points deduction. They transferred me to customer service, who said there are no exceptions and I could open a formal complaint but there isn’t any reversal happening. Went ahead and did it.

Hoang
Hoang (@guest_293500)
September 10, 2016 07:18

All:

I filed complaint with CFPB and got the response from AMEX in CFPB website and a letter by mail. I filed the dispute with AMEX and I think all of us should do the same, it may have enough people then FTC will look into this matter. Here are my reasons:

* Gift Card is not cash equivalent since you can not use it outside US, can’t not deposit to bank or investment, pay for electric utilities, not everyone accept it.

* Gift card and prepaid card are not the same. I attached the article from Bankrate below is the link:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/gift-cards-vs-prepaid-cards.aspx

* The way AMEX did to us is not in good faith since they waited until 3 months promotion period over and took it back without any notice and did not give any time to response or fulfill the requirements.

John
John (@guest_293504)
September 10, 2016 07:43

Hoang – how long after your CFPB did Amex respond? What was Amex response and did you get the points back?

Hoang
Hoang (@guest_293580)
September 10, 2016 16:15

John,

Less than 2 weeks and they said the $3000 purchases did not qualify under T&C but they did not list Gift card so I file dispute and my case is close and will post online also transfer to FTC to exam. I got both responses from mail and from CFPB website with PDF file. I argued as describe above. I truly if we have enough people to file we ma get some thing or at least AMEX should give us time to fulfill the requirements.

John
John (@guest_293588)
September 10, 2016 17:34

Thanks Hoang. I did receive a letter from AMEX last week mentioning something about T&C but no details. I called yesterday and the rep was confused since notes on my account mentioned something about return although I had no return. He filed a case and said they will call me in 2 days. If it is not positive I’ll also file with CFPB. Keep us posted how CFPB responds

Hoang
Hoang (@guest_293698)
September 11, 2016 09:05

Hi John,

Yes that’s what I got, it is very vague. They just listed the T&C and said my purchases were deem ineligible toward threshold amount. I did call before and chat with AMEX people, these people did not know what going on. On the chat the guy mentioned since the credit back my travel credit it makes my purchases below $3000 but when I mentioned the travel credit was indeed in additional to my $3000+ purchases, the guy and his supervisor agreed and gave the 800 number to call. The guy at reward center I called said the same thing he did not see anything wrong and opened the case and someone will call in 2-3 days but nobody called so I called back and tell them I will file CFPB if I do not hear from them then she told she sent my complaint to corporate and gave me case # and said they were very busy with these issues. After I filed to CFPB someone called and told us called back, I called back and they said nothing happen and I asked why they wanted me to call back she said she did not know, It is a mess at AMEX. After reading the letter and read PDF file in CFPB website I filed dispute right away since this is unfaithful practice and T&C did not spell out the Gift card. I encourage all of us who had problems filed with CPFB at least request they give us the chance to meet the requirement.

TravellerAtoZ
TravellerAtoZ (@guest_297461)
September 21, 2016 13:43

Hi John did you hear back? My wife just had 100K points clawed back and she had some returns in her activity (not enough to bring her below minimum spend).

Hoang
Hoang (@guest_292481)
September 7, 2016 07:30

I just wonder the AMEX T&C was changed lately? How you define cash equivalent? Since the GC can’t use as cash in other countries and some places only accept cash. You can’t not use it to buy a car, pay taxes….

John Jacob Jingle
John Jacob Jingle (@guest_292295)
September 6, 2016 17:09

I’ll add our data point: Yesterday tried to redeem 2,500ish points for a restaurant gift card (i know, bad redemption value) and the transaction was rejected with a number to call. called amex and they stated that due to a huge number of signups on the 100k/$3k they needed to go through all signups individually and ensure no fraud was committed.. they said until that happened with the account the entire membership rewards account would be frozen. When i logged into the account this morning the 100k points were gone and when i chatted with the amex rep online they stated due to closing the account they decided to reverse the points. We did NOT do any MS’ing and spent roughly $4k on the card. We cancelled the card about a 1.5 months later after the points posted to the account.

KB
KB (@guest_290572)
September 1, 2016 11:44

My wifes got clawed back saying it was due to returns which wasnt the case (yes I bought GC). We opened a case and a rep from Amex rewards called back today and said the card/case is under review and can take up to 5 months to complete? WTF does that mean? thanks

Hoang
Hoang (@guest_290644)
September 1, 2016 13:45
  KB

Should we file a lawsuit again AMEX?

John
John (@guest_290663)
September 1, 2016 14:43
  KB

Hi KB,

I had the same exact situation with Amex clawing back my points, also MSed on GCs too. Amex’s T&C unfortunately clearly state that purchases of “cash-like equivalents” (such as GCs) do not qualify towards the minimum spend, there’s nothing really we can do about it =\…

KB
KB (@guest_291149)
September 2, 2016 15:06

yes-I just wonder what the review comment was about though? Maybe they need more time to llok at what I purchased?? Maybe swamped I guess with cases? Either way, I cancelled card on 8-31 to get AF back 🙂