Change in Membership Rewards Terms regarding Reinstated Accounts

Amex is putting in their Membership Rewards terms a small change to take effect on June 1, 2017.

It seems that as per current policy if your MR-earning card gets closed out and you get it reinstated within one year, the points are reinstated. Beginning in June that will no longer be the case, and points will be forfeited.

[ReadWhich Card Issuers Will Reopen a Closed Credit Card?]

Screen Shot 2017-03-01 at 11.13.26 PM

This won’t affect most people who close an account by mistake and then reopen it, since Amex puts all MR points in one pot, and so long as one card is open all the points are fine. However, it will still affect someone who only has one MR-earning card. And it will affect someone who got their Amex accounts shut down and subsequently got them reinstated.

Hat tip to thundervsokuni on  r/churning

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Abey
Abey (@guest_363180)
March 2, 2017 15:18

IN OTHER NEWS:

You can now transfer Citi TY Premier/Prestige points to Jet Blue with a 50% bonus!
So 1,000 TY points to 1,200 Jet Blue miles.
Offer expires 4/30.
(Jet blue miles (at a fixed rate) are worth around 1.8
Prestige points booked through citi for AA flights are worth around 1.3, so i think its not a bad deal).

CtownBin
CtownBin (@guest_363211)
March 2, 2017 16:17

There is some variance (not a lot) in JetBlue flights depending on the flight, but I’m pretty sure it’s nowhere near 1.8- IME it hovers around 1.4. Big difference.

Abey
Abey (@guest_363219)
March 2, 2017 16:30

$566 round trip flight for 31,300 points equals 1.8 value.

Lea
Lea (@guest_363169)
March 2, 2017 15:01

What if I have a negative amount of MR in my account, and I close the account. Will those be forfited too? I have -100k ;(

kt
kt (@guest_363233)
March 2, 2017 16:55

they clawed back your MR too?

Lea
Lea (@guest_363238)
March 2, 2017 17:03
  kt

Yes :(, my MR points were clawed back (Platinum Personal), shortly after I transferred the points out.

Credit
Credit (@guest_363155)
March 2, 2017 14:42

How do I generate the referral link on spg Amex? I talked to csr, she said I can only refer by email address because I don’t have the offer in my Amex offers. Is that right?

Raul
Raul (@guest_363152)
March 2, 2017 14:38

That’s what I thought when I saw that they are raising the annual fee on personal platinum cards. Im finding more merchants rejecting their cards due to fees. Don’t know what these guys are thinking. Not to mention losing accounts like Costco.

Rich
Rich (@guest_363161)
March 2, 2017 14:50

Highly doubt the uber and raise in annual fee for the plat will change any people’s mind on whether they keep the card after the first year. You either have the $$$ or you don’t to keep it and this small change is just raising their profit margin.

Lantean
Lantean (@guest_363143)
March 2, 2017 14:17

“And it will affect someone who got their Amex accounts shut down and subsequently got them reinstated.”

this part is insane. Amex is making terrible changes that will push away customers.
to sum it up, it seems like they are trying to exit the credit card business.

Credit
Credit (@guest_363153)
March 2, 2017 14:40

I don’t think they will miss the churners. Why care about customers that won’t be profitable.

Mser
Mser (@guest_363202)
March 2, 2017 16:00

Huh? Amex is very lenient with shutdowns. You really have to try to be shutdown. Even abuse of the no-limit OBC only resulted in card closure and you were able to reapply. All other issuers would close all accounts and ban you.

The baffling thing was Amex was allowing points to be reinstated after card closure – what sort of lunacy was that?

Lantean
Lantean (@guest_363208)
March 2, 2017 16:12

my point was that what if someone got their account closed, disputed the action and Amex admitted a mistake and reinstated the account?

points lost? that’s pretty crazy if you ask me…

GW
GW (@guest_364178)
March 4, 2017 18:38

If this happened and it was just an honest mistake they would probably make you whole. This change is for the people that Mser was describing.