When rumors were circulating about changes to American Express, blogger Monkey Miles found a trademark that had been applied for by American Express for Tier One. People had hopes that this would be a new card from American Express based on the rumors at the type, but it turned out that American Express did the following:
- Increased the sign up bonus to 100,000 points on the Business Platinum card
- Added a 5x category for airfare on the Personal Platinum
- Added a 1.5x earning rate on the Business Platinum on purchases over $5,000
- Gave the Business Platinum 2¢ per point flight redemption
So, What is Tier One?
American Express just posted this job for “Senior Manager – Mid-Market Loyalty & Product Expansion Strategy“.
Job Description
The Customer Relationship Marketing team’s mission is to deepen engagement and drive incremental value for our Business and Corporate Card Members. The team focuses on inspiring spend among Card Members.
This position is a terrific opportunity to drive measurable loyalty among GCP’s highest spending customers by delivering high-touch marketing and servicing treatments through a loyalty program called Tier One. We are looking for a dynamic, customer-focused collaborator to help drive the strategy for this program forward by developing a best in class marketing plan and managing the evolution of our servicing strategy. This position is ideal for someone who is excited about delivering premium experiences and benefits to Managed Mid-Market customers in order to drive loyalty and tangible business results.
As you can see Tier One is a loyalty program that is designed to ‘inspire’ spend among their business and corporate cardholders. American Express already offer their OPEN Savings program for small business owners, so I suspect this will be targeted towards medium to large businesses and also corporate cardholders.
Tier one is a joke.
This shows up as a benefit of my Open Charge card, taken from my benefits section on americanexpress.com:
Tier Oneâ„ is a loyalty program for certain businesses in the United States that spend $5 million or more a year in eligible purchases on their American Express OPEN and/or Corporate Card(s) and are selected by American Express to participate in the program. To be selected to participate in the Tier One Program, businesses must have a Charge Card account, be within the middle market customer segment defined by American Express, and meet additional criteria set forth in the Tier One Program Terms. Benefits of the program are designed to streamline and enhance the business’s experience with American Express.‡
5x travel points is a nice perk to have. AmEx is a very interesting company when you compare it to the other CC companies- AmEx is far more profitable because they control money through the whole transaction, unlike the banks who use Visa/MC. AmEx also has higher credit clientele which makes it easier to command higher rates from vendors. Thanks for this rundown on the Tier 1 program.
Amex needs to simplify if they want Plat to be top of wallet card. Target high spenders – more you spend, better the bonus, just like airline status. Maybe 1x up to $10K. 1.5x to $25K. 2% thereafter on everything. Raise the AF if necessary – people don’t really care about AF if it gives decent value and allows you to simplify your life by not carrying multiple cards. I really wonder why AMEX is so clueless. You’d be perfect for the job.
Yeah, I’m sure they’re itching to give heavy MSers more perks to abuse 🙂
AMEX is stuck, they don’t have all the lower and middle class consumers paying fees and tons of interest to subsidize everyone else, and the very high end is turning into savvy gamers and MSers who won’t fall for any tricks and are nearly impossible to profit from without high fees.
If I would be Amex I would capitalize on my travel agency business and look for synergies there – the 2 ct. for airline tickets is a good start; add some great hotel redemptions and what other travel; maybe throw in a 10% off all travel booked through Amex for some elite card members with good fees; also at that point they should be capable of creating a no-fee 2% card;
They dropped the ball with Costco. I would totally have sucked it up and figured out a way to give people a way to pay there with Amex. Maybe have some (free) auto-reloadable visa card or overnight them costco git cards.
Lastly, I would investigate how to be more like a bank. Have some sort of cash management tied to the credit card; collect deposits; use them to subsidize the card fee or perks. Not sure about the numbers for the private banking platinums but maybe jettison that and start some AmericanExpress Banq for wealth management and such…
Amex you are welcome. (and make sure to send a 100K Platinum offer my way)
What you’re proposing costs money. All of these reward programs and perks are like a game of shells. As long as majority of customers are too dumb to maximize it, or pay a lot of fees/interest in the process, the bank comes out ahead. That’s why Chase spams me almost daily encouraging to redeem my UR points for gift cards.
AMEX took the snobby road a while ago and only catered to the wealthy or corporate crowd, didn’t want to deal with low end consumer who pay interest charges, etc. Now they’re trying to keep the ever-dwindling customer base who are also very educated about the best reward options.
If you offer some corporate big wig 10% off on all travel, he will take you to the cleaners with that. The interchange fees alone won’t cover it and those types rarely pay interest.
Spot on! The beginning, middle, and towards the demise of AMEX as a brand that is (was) worth a S*#T……..AMEX is now cancelling long time “members” who are “power users” and who are not profitable to AMEX as you so perfectly stated above.
I know, I was a 30 year “member”, Centurion Card holder and spent 100 million last year, they cancelled me for no reason, never late, never paid %.
You spent 100 million last year?wtf
AMEX plat is a card to HAVE, but not to USE. Simply, it provides lots of nice beenfits like top notch domestic lounges, and hotel status, but the points redemption is mediocre and can’t come close to CSR or Prestige. As I don’t travel domestic much, I will take thebonus sign on and cancel accordingly because it just doesn’t make sense to keep after the first year
amex used to be really good. But it starts to be downhill from the divorce with costco..
especially recently amex deducted the sign-on points with some meaningless reason, which hurts its reputation.
I guess amex