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How I Ended Up With 10,000 Bonus AMEX Membership Rewards Points After a Quick Phone Call

  • Meghan Hunter

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    Update: One or more card offers in this post are no longer available. Check our Hot Deals for the latest offers.

    The annual fee on my Business Platinum® Card from American Express is due this month.  So, I decided to call American Express to see if they’d offer me any sort of retention deal (they won’t offer them via chat).

    To my surprise, the call was relatively painless!  And I ended up with a decent stash of bonus AMEX Membership Rewards points for just a few minutes of my time.

    I’ve made calls like this before, so I knew what to expect.  But for those of you who’ve never asked for a retention offer before, I’ll share the details of how my conversation with the AMEX phone representative went.  So you can hopefully have success asking for a retention offer when the time comes!

    Thanks to AMEX Membership Rewards Points Bonuses Like This One, I Was Able to Visit My Sister in Santa Barbara 3 Times Last Year!

    AMEX Membership Rewards Points Retention Bonus Success

    I started by calling the number on the back of my Business Platinum® Card from American Express and mentioned to the phone representative that my annual fee was due (See Rates and Fees).  The first rep transferred me to another rep who was supposedly part of the team that dealt with this sort of stuff.

    I kindly let the woman know that I was on the fence about keeping the card for another year.  But I also noted that I had put quite a bit of spending on it, including a number of large ($10,000+) business expenses.  That’s because I wanted to call attention to the fact that I was a good customer for American Express.  They make money from merchant fees each time I swipe my card!

    In addition to that, I mentioned I was a little frustrated that I was never targeted for the spending bonuses I always hear about – offers like spend $2,000 and get 5,000 bonus AMEX Membership Rewards points.

    After looking at my account history, the rep thanked me for being a longtime American Express customer and offered me an instant 5,000 AMEX Membership Rewards points plus an additional 5,000 bonus points after spending $2,500 on purchases with my Business Platinum® Card from American Express within 90 days of accepting the offer.

    I’d say that was a success!  And I just happen to have a big expense coming up that will help me meet that minimum spending requirement to earn the bonus points.

    I’d Love to Use the Bonus AMEX Membership Rewards Points I Earned With This Retention Call Towards Free Tickets to Hawaii – Wouldn’t That Be Nice?

    10,000 AMEX Membership Rewards points are worth at least $100 in travel, and potentially more if I end up moving them to an AMEX transfer partner like Delta or British Airways (which is what I’ll likely do).

    Asking for a retention offer is one way to earn bonus points without having to apply for new travel credit cards.  It doesn’t always work, but in my opinion, it’s always worth a try!

    Have you ever gotten a retention offer?  If so, what card was it for?  Share your experience in the comments!

    For the rates and fees of The Business Platinum Card From American Express, please click here.  
    Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)