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Travel With Grant reports there are changes coming to how you earn AMEX Membership Rewards points with AMEX Platinum charge cards starting January 1, 2017.
These changes will NOT affect folks who pay their monthly statement in full and on-time.
I’ll explain what’s going to change!
What’s the Deal With Upcoming AMEX Changes?
Link: Travel With Grant AMEX Changes
American Express offers several types of charge cards. These cards have no pre-set spending limit, but you have to pay the balance in full each month.
Effective January 1, 2017, Travel With Grant indicates the upcoming changes to the AMEX Platinum charge cards include:
- Lose all AMEX Membership Rewards points earned during the billing period if your statement is not paid in full on the due date
- Lose AMEX Membership Rewards points for returned purchases
- Negative AMEX Membership Rewards point balances will be offset with future earned points
- Increasing fees (from $37 to $38) for late and returned payments
Previously, AMEX allowed folks to get points back for late payments if they paid a $35 fee. But this option seems to be going away.
These changes may impact other AMEX charge cards like The Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN. I recommend reading your upcoming AMEX statements to see if the updates will affect your cards.
Folks who pay the statement amount each due date will NOT be impacted.
That’s why I always recommend paying your monthly balance in full on all cards. Because if you carry a balance, the benefits of the points will be offset by interest and late charges.
Bottom Line
Effective January 1, 2017, you will lose AMEX Membership Rewards points earned on AMEX Platinum charge cards if you do not pay the monthly statement in full by the due date.
And you’ll no longer be able to pay a fee to reinstate points after a late payment.
Other AMEX charge cards may be impacted as well. Please let me know if you see changes on your statements!
But what is the actual due date? The please pay by date, or the date the next statement cuts?
@Anthony Mattas – It is the pay by date.
@asdfasfd How do you figure? You can only get one AMEX product bonus per lifetime.
chase 5/24 is worse than anything amex does
at least you can still qualify for an amex promo from time to time.
LOL Amex.
That’s total BS. Just another way for AMEX to “serve” their “valuable” customer. So if you signed up based on a 100k offer, spent the minimum spend, but something went wrong with the first payment (doesn’t happen often, but it DOES happen) they would not issue the points? They are already getting a late fee from you (in theory), what excuse do they have for not issuing the points?? This just seems like another one of their idiotic policies that is allowing Chase to run circles around them.