Question: I recently found an American Express Business Gold Rewards credit card deal that promised that if I applied and spent $1,000 by a certain date, I would have enough points for a domestic airline ticket.
Not wanting to be fooled by fine print, I engaged in a lengthy online chat with a representative to clarify this deal. I was promised there would be no blackout dates or restrictions. I specifically asked about a flight I wanted to book from Salt Lake City to Dallas, and was told that I could apply 5,000 points from a purchase and 20,000 points from the $1,000 to have enough for the ticket.
Now that I have accrued the points and attempted to redeem them for my “free” ticket, I’m being told that my points will be converted to $250 to be applied toward the purchase price of a ticket. A ticket costs $350.
I have spent a number of hours on the phone with American Express trying to get them to honor the statements of their representative. They have told me there is no way to track down the individual with whom I had the initial chat, no way to honor the promise and no way to speak with a supervisor.
I applied for this card specifically to get the points for a ticket and completed the process in reliance on the statements furnished by American Express. Shouldn’t it be held accountable for the information its representatives give customers? — Kim Bouck, Salt Lake City
Answer: If you have the transcript of the online chat, this should be an open-and-shut case. American Express owes you an airline ticket.
You were correct to be skeptical of this “free” ticket offer. In my experience, these promotions — indeed, the loyalty programs as a whole — benefit the companies offering them far more than they help customers.
Consider what happened to you. In exchange for this ticket, American Express required that you apply for a card and spend money. Lots of money. Now who is that helping? You?
Likewise, airline loyalty programs dangle “free” tickets and other perks in front of their frequent fliers. But in exchange, they not only demand your loyalty, they also require you to do stupid things, like make so-called “mileage runs” designed to reach one of their generally meaningless elite levels.
Of course, American Express can offer any program it wants to, as long as it’s legal. It can make its own rules. But when it represents the promotion to you in writing, as an online chat, it better be prepared to stand behind the offer. That didn’t happen.
I’m disappointed, but not surprised, by your case. I’ve worked with many travelers who complain that American Express is difficult to reach and does not allow grievances to be escalated to a supervisor. I think you might have had more luck by putting it in writing. Here’s how to submit your comment on its site.
When all else fails, you can always find the name of an executive and copy that person on your appeal. The naming convention for e-mails at American Express is firstname.middleinitial.lastname@aexp.com
Keeping the instant messages between you and American Express was brilliant. I contacted the company on your behalf and included your correspondence with the representative.
American Express issued another 15,000 miles to your account, which will more than cover your flight to Dallas.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I would like to know which airlines “demand your loyalty” or “require …mileage runs” ?
The various elite levels are far from “meaningless” for most of those who reach them.
However, if you had gone after the increasingly decreasing availability of “award” tickets you would probably get few complaints, even though that issues has been done to death..
I have nothing but the greatest respect for Chris. Unfortunately, he’s out to lunch on this one. Loyalty programs can be a great addition to the traveler who manages his/her loyalty program well.
First, lets dispense with this loyalty nonsense. The term loyalty is a marketing term. Whoever doesn’t understand that needs to take Marketing 101. On the corporate side, a loyalty program is a way of incentivizing profitable customers to divert a greater share of their business towards to the corporation. On the consumer side, it’s a means of maximizing the return on the investment of your travel dollars.
When they’re in sync, it works well. When it not in sync, they work badly. The problem comes in when people fails to do a cost benefit analysis and end up spending time and/or money unwisely.
Chris would consider a mileage run to be an airline created waste of money. Well, consider my first mileage run. I took a little mini-vacation to Chicago that I might otherwise not have taken. Total cost:$500.00. That mileage run put me over the top to Executive Platinum. The result was that for the next year, I complimentary upgrades on all American Airlines domestic flights,($5000) complete waiver of all bookingj fees, $50 discount on the Admirals Club, and best of all, 4 international round trip upgrades which allowed my family of 4 to go to Paris in Business Class for $400 each. I figure that $500 saved me about $10,000.00 over the next year.
I would consider that a great return on my investment.
Similarly a couple years ago, I did a mattress run to qualify as platinum with Marriott. I found the cheapest Marriott in the Bay area and spend 2 nights (actually) I messed up the sheets then went home. As plat, when I went to Europe they comped my entire family breakfast. 6 nights, 4 breakfasts, $30, for a total savings of $720. Far less then the mattress run.
And the examples would continue. The point is that from the consumer side, the loyalty program should be managed like any other asset to ensure a proper return on the investment. Mileage or mattress runs only make sense if the benefit outweighs costs.
A properly managed loyalty program can enhance your travel experiences substantially. Unfortunately, as Kim discovered, a badly managed on does the opposite. My personal experience is that the worst award is the free ticket award. Its almost never worth it. The ticket is highly restricted and you have to jump through too many hoops. She’d generally be better off getting a cash rewards card. At 1.5% she’d have the $375 to buy a ticket for cash or do whatever else she wanted to do.
I agree with Carver; when the programs work right, the benefits are worth the “mileage runs”. As a Diamond VIP with Hilton, I get exceptional service and they sometimes forgive my mistakes. For example, I spent 150k points to give my family members some free rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn (3 rooms, 2 nights each). Unfortunately, I zoned out on the dates that they were supposed to arrive (*completely* my mistake) and they arrived at the front counter with no hotel rooms. I immediately called the Diamond Desk, and they changed the dates and waived the “you’re going to pay 1 night for each no-show” fee. That instance alone saved me about $600. As a MVP Gold member with Alaska Airlines, the $150 change fee is completely waived – although I will pay the difference in fare. I think I made about 12 changes last year, so that’s another $1,800 saved.
Almost every travel site or writer states that you should join an airline loyalty program – only because they do treat their elite level passengers better than the general public. I support this theory. However, I’ve never been a fan of credit card loyalty programs because it just seems like the benefits are far outweighed by the disadvantages.
@DN
My experiences mirror yours. I’ve been doing the loyalty program thing since the mid-90s. To date, I have paid exactly 1 no-show fee. In every case, its been waived, even weeks later when I got my credit card statement and realized the charge. This is even as a mid-tiered elite in Priority Club.
HMM… Aren’t these calls recorded for “training purposes” and for our protection ? I am sure if it was the other way around American Express would know what time that call was made
@Tim
The key word in the “training purposes” recording is that the call MAY be monitored and recorded. I worked in a call center myself, and only about 15-20% of my calls were monitored.
Wait – so the ticket was $350, but Kim had to spend $1,000 with AmEx to get the “free” ticket… Is there something I’m not getting? Wouldn’t it have been better to just buy the ticket than give AmEx $650 more than the cost of the ticket??
It sounds like there was some confusion here. AMEX appears to have given the customer 25,000 Membership Rewards (MR) points, which are enough points for an economy “saver” ticket anywhere in the continental United States when transferred from MR to MR’s participating airline transfer partners (e.g., Continental, Delta, Air Canada). Rather than transferring the points to a partner airline and redeeming an award ticket, the customer appears to have tried to use the points directly with American Express through a somewhat new program where your points are worth one cent each towards the purchase of a plane ticket. MR likes to push this option since they pay airlines more than one cent per point for miles, but it’s usually a bad deal for the customer since you can get a far higher value for airline miles, particularly if you’re redeeming for first or business class tickets.