American Express Desperate To Keep Platinum Customers, Offering High Retention Bonuses (50,000 Points)

When you’re annual fee is due soon (or if it’s already posted, Read: Annual fee rules for each card issuer) we recommend calling retention to see if the card issuer will offer any sort of bonus for not cancelling the card. American Express recently increased the annual fee to $550 on the Personal Platinum card, in addition they have increased the standard sign up bonus on their Platinum cards and offered lucrative upgrade offers on both the Personal Platinum & Business Platinum cards.

If you’re an existing cardholder and have the annual fee due soon on the personal Platinum card, the retention specialist (or whatever they call themselves) will let you know that you’ll only be charged an annual fee of $450. Keep in mind that will happen regardless of whether you called retention or not, the rules for that are as follows:

  • Existing cardholders that have their annual fee due before August 31st, 2017 will get billed $450 for this year
  • Existing cardholders that have their annual fee due on or after September 1st, 2017 will be billed $550

Retention specialists have been offering extremely generous retention bonuses though. Some datapoints from this reddit thread & my readers on Twitter:

  • 50,000 points: 1, 2
  • 30,000 points: 1, 2, 3, 4
  • $300: 1, 2
  • $200 or 10,000 points: 1
  • 5,000 points + 15,000 points after $3,000 in spend within 3 months: 1
  • 20,000 points after $3,000 in spend: 1, 2
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Kyle
Kyle (@guest_1079036)
October 25, 2020 18:07

Wanted to add a Platinum DP I haven’t seen so far. We called a couple of times and were met with very unhelpful retention agents. Called the night of the 30th day and advised we were likely going to cancel and received a $500 statement credit for the year. I’ll take that offer hands down.

Edward
Edward (@guest_841899)
November 14, 2019 11:57

Gold DP:
3rd year, spent around 28k within last 12 months
called and they offered me nothing… said they offered me something last year, not this time

ok, closed all 4 cards then

Bill
Bill (@guest_815240)
September 26, 2019 17:20

Just called retention, was immediately offered $500 or 50k MR points. Accepted the $500 to keep the account open another year.

Monthly spend around $5k

Mike
Mike (@guest_704126)
January 10, 2019 20:21

Just Called, and they offer me 20,000 points after $3,000 in spend within 90 days. Will call and see can I get 30K points. (Do not think they will offer me 50K). Update anyone?

Richard
Richard (@guest_607829)
June 21, 2018 14:07

Other DPs:

Ascend: $50 after $1,000 in 3 months; OR 10k Honors points after $2,000 in 3 months.

SPG: $75 after $2,000 in 3 months

Richard
Richard (@guest_607828)
June 21, 2018 14:06

DP: Opened card on 5/11/16. Renewal fee just hit. Called today.
Offer: 30k points after $4,000 spend within 3 months.

Jimbo
Jimbo (@guest_542874)
December 28, 2017 15:48

The annual fee on my personal Platinum posted mid December. Called Retention directly with the number posted in the Flyertalk wiki thread. I was offered 30k MR or $300 statement credit with no spend required on either offer. I took the points.

Hoang
Hoang (@guest_489548)
October 7, 2017 15:00

I called AMEX yesterday asking for retention bonus with my Platinum business since the due coming up soon. I was told the due is coming on 10/21 and I have 30 days to cancel. He only offered me $100 statement credit or 10K points. I said no thank you.

I will call again when the due posted. Should I?

bugle
bugle (@guest_459873)
August 16, 2017 17:03

Have a ~ 1 year Platinum Personal card (100K bonus) up for renewal soon. Not significant spend over the required bonus amount. Called retention directly, was told not eligible for any retention bonuses, since I have a newer account and was getting value from Offers, Uber, and Incidentals credit. Not so desperate after all it seems!

Thomas
Thomas (@guest_420631)
June 14, 2017 13:42

Just called and got offered $150 statement credit or I can pay the af with 45,000 points(happens to be how much points I have left in MR) after three different reps. I instantly transferred the points to SPG since I was pretty dead set on canceling my card unless I can get 30,000 retention points and canceled my card. It was my first renewal and my spend was 15K YTD.