I have long suspected that Amex was about to shift away from lounge partnerships, back from when I was first invited to ‘test’ the Centurion Lounge in Las Vegas earlier this year I thought they might be seeking to reduce costs and increase control by operating their own lounges. Today American Express announced that they were officially ceasing lounge access for its Amex Platinum and Centurion customers who are visiting the American Airlines Admirals club.
Frankly I was already planning to cancel my Business Amex Platinum, despite it netting me a profit each year I was getting annoyed by the high fee, currently at $450 per year. However, each calendar year I also get a $200 airline credit which I use to buy AA giftcards for travel. I paid my annual fee in Novemeber, and was going to cancel in January after bagging $200 more.
But after my call today, I find myself a loyal customer of American Express again. Since they offered my $500 in ‘incidentals’ for American Airlines. The catch is that the spend must happen between March 22nd and December, so basically as soon as they don’t let me into AA lounges any more I get the credit. Which I can spend on an Admirals club membership, or other ‘incidental’ airline fees.
As far as I can gather you don’t actually need to have a valid AA ticket if you hold a full Admirals Club Membership (Costs $500) to access the lounge, which is different from the current offering where you can only access an Admirals club lounge if you are flying AA on that day and hold the Platinum card -so by buying the card I could be in better shape lounge wise.
I recommend all holders of the card call in and speak with the customer support, be polite and just say you ‘heard’ that this was going away and that you were upset by the change. That is all I did and they offered me $500 no questions asked.
If they should offer you $200 or any other amount just say your friend Matt got $500 and you find it surprising that you don’t get the same offer.
For data points, I never use my card, I am a really bad customer. I have one recurring charge for $27.88 monthly and that is it – so there is no way in hell that they are trying to keep me as a loyal customer. The only thing that might make the difference is that AA is my ‘airline partner of choice’ for the $200 annual fee credit, so I could hypothetically say this impacts me more than others… but that’s not much of an argument really.
Nick from PFDigest mentioned a friend of his was emailed a $200 offer, so my advice would be to be proactive and call in before an email arrives.
So, yes American Express, I am loyal and happy Customer, with $200 in giftcards this year, another $200 in January, and heck I might even just go and buy $500 more in March, just to see if they post as a qualifying purchase (they said they didn’t in the verbal terms and conditions, but nothing ventured, nothing gained). If not, I might buy an annual membership to the Admirals Club for free, and then I might keep the card a little bit longer….
Calling doesn’t work. It’s definitely targeted.
So what did you get? I’m a bad target and I got $500
I got the email for $200, but Customer Service didn’t know what I got nor would they offer me anything better. They said each person’s offer is different and varies. No one knows their basis for how they target.
I never I received an email and the support agent did see what I was offered- I acted before anything was sent.
Might be worth another try and don’t mention the $200 as if you haven’t seen the email and just ask what they plan to do about this devaluation in offer.
Hang up try again, but your call and who knows if it will work…
Got transferred to Supervisor. Told me card still offers Priority Pass & Centurion Lounges. (All of 2, whoopie). Each account is analyzed as to the particular offer it will receive. There is no rhyme or reason. I never got a 100k offer which friends receive weekly. Hard to understand their marketing dept. I spend a lot with Chase and you would figure it would be worth 100k to get me to move the spend over to Amex, but never got a 100k offer.
I got the $500 offer by email, but called to see if I could get something immediately and no dice. Rep just told me Amex would be contacting cardmembers individually.
Had no idea that you could use the $200 incidental credit to buy gift cards–brilliant. Wish I hadn’t wasted some of it already on in-flight snacks!
Thanks for the heads up about the lounge access. Now if they’d just open one up at SFO
Was offered 100.00 by calling in (no email yet) but I’ll wait a few days and try again.
I called in the same day you posted. The agent consulted with supervisor, but no offer, but did note my concerns and take my name and number for someone to call me. No return call to date, but did receive a generic email message today, noting the change and reminding me of the $200 Airline Fee Credit benefit. Yep, I will take that and next year’s credit and then cancel on 22 March… Unhappy, told them that and even called from an American Airlines Club while using the benefit. You must be a better negotiator (or complainer ;-)) than I am.
I do have some complaining skills 🙂 I will post about them in the future… I think in this case I got ‘lucky’ in that the agent I was speaking with may have just read out an internal memo that generally stated that people could be offered ‘up to $500’ but I had her annotate my account with the $500 offer.
My concern now though, is if I got it by error then it won’t be coded in, so Gift Cards are even less likely to auto trigger the credit, I guess I will have to cross that bridge when I get there.
Called just now and was offered an additional $100. Asked for a better offer, but they said it was the best they could offer.
Well, I’m glad you got that at least!