A lot of people signed up for the Mercedes Benz Platinum card from American Express when it had an increased sign up bonus of 75,000 points. In fact so many people applied that American Express haven’t been able to keep up with demand. Specifically they do not have enough of the Mercedes-Benz Platinum cards, this has been causing significant delays with a lot of people still not receiving their card.
[Read: What to do with the $100 Mercedes-Benz Gift Certificate from Amex Platinum Card]
According to this reddit post, American Express plans to do the following:
- Give users an additional 18 days to meet their minimum spend requirement (I assume the specific number of days is dependent on how long your card has actually been delayed)
- Give a standardized compensation of some description
Users that have called in to complain have been receiving compensation already, but now they plan to give some sort of standardized compensation I expect this to no longer be the case. It’s probably still worth giving them a call, especially if you’ve needed the card to make specific purchases. Here are some data points on the compensation people have been receiving (calling almost always gets better results than chatting):
This isn’t a great look for American Express. This card comes with a massive annual fee of $475, you’d expect delivery to be expedited as standard. Having to wait multiple weeks for a card with that high of an annual fee simply isn’t acceptable. Another issue has been the fact that American Express has been consistently updating new cardholders saying that their cards will arrive on a certain date and then changing those dates as soon as they have been & gone. Personally, I wouldn’t keep accepting applications for a premium card that you don’t have cardstock for.
Let’s hope American Express fixes these problems for all new cardholders that had their cards delayed with generous compensation and extension of the minimum spend requirement.
