Amex Platinum Charge retention offer

[Heisenberg37]

Please share your experiences of retention offer for the platinum card.
What do they provide MR points or Taj vouchers?

 

[SSV]

That's what I said man those who are high spenders won't close this card and those who are low spenders who can't extract max value from this Amex really don't bother about them and Nope Amex won't go downhill for one reason, Amex customer are high spenders it has very few cards (compared to other banks) in India but the volume of transaction is so high that many other banks like RBL, etc. who have high numbers of cards issued but volume of transaction is very low, Amex is still highly profitable in India.

Quality over quantity is what you are saying. !!
Good 👍

 

[kameshee17]

I was just offered Taj vouchers worth 20k, the customer rep told me that this is the only option they have in the system and they cannot change it. I asked if I can get points of the same value and she said even that is not possible as they dont have that option in the system.

Now the question is what should I do? I see some good offers with reward xcelarator and I have been accumulating points for a visit to Bali/Mauritius next year for Marriot. I travel for 20-40 days a year for work (paid by company) and there the hotel memberships have been helpful to accumulate points and get some free perks. My usage is around 10 lakhs per year on Plat charge (with the rest on Infinia/Magnus) due to Amex acceptance issues offline.

 

[Zacobite]

I was just offered Taj vouchers worth 20k, the customer rep told me that this is the only option they have in the system and they cannot change it. I asked if I can get points of the same value and she said even that is not possible as they dont have that option in the system.

Now the question is what should I do? I see some good offers with reward xcelarator and I have been accumulating points for a visit to Bali/Mauritius next year for Marriot. I travel for 20-40 days a year for work (paid by company) and there the hotel memberships have been helpful to accumulate points and get some free perks. My usage is around 10 lakhs per year on Plat charge (with the rest on Infinia/Magnus) due to Amex acceptance issues offline.

take it.. if u travel and can use the benefits

 

[Pack_of_Cards]

Quality over quantity is what you are saying. !!
Good 👍

Yes Sir exactly 👍

 

[anirban.choudhuryanirban.choudhury is verified member.]

I was just offered Taj vouchers worth 20k, the customer rep told me that this is the only option they have in the system and they cannot change it. I asked if I can get points of the same value and she said even that is not possible as they dont have that option in the system.

Now the question is what should I do? I see some good offers with reward xcelarator and I have been accumulating points for a visit to Bali/Mauritius next year for Marriot. I travel for 20-40 days a year for work (paid by company) and there the hotel memberships have been helpful to accumulate points and get some free perks. My usage is around 10 lakhs per year on Plat charge (with the rest on Infinia/Magnus) due to Amex acceptance issues offline.

Cancel and reapply after couple of months
Take a GC till then and accumulate 5x on gyftr.
Once you plan a trip opt again and get the 100k MR or take any upgrade offer for plat charge.

 

[GBajaj]

Cancel and reapply after couple of months
Take a GC till then and accumulate 5x on gyftr.
Once you plan a trip opt again and get the 100k MR or take any upgrade offer for plat charge.

Will Amex offer 100K MR or joining benefits more than once to a customer? Won't everyone cancel their card ever year and then reapply after a few months (if that is the cooling off period)?

 

[anirban.choudhuryanirban.choudhury is verified member.]

Will Amex offer 100K MR or joining benefits more than once to a customer? Won't everyone cancel their card ever year and then reapply after a few months (if that is the cooling off period)?

Afaik there is no cooling period concept in Amex.
Most of the plat charge owners I know have been doing this to get the welcome benefits

 

[GBajaj]

Afaik there is no cooling period concept in Amex.
Most of the plat charge owners I know have been doing this to get the welcome benefits

Will double check this.

 

[shashankrt]

That's what I said man those who are high spenders won't close this card and those who are low spenders who can't extract max value from this Amex really don't bother about them and Nope Amex won't go downhill for one reason, Amex customer are high spenders it has very few cards (compared to other banks) in India but the volume of transaction is so high that many other banks like RBL, etc. who have high numbers of cards issued but volume of transaction is very low, Amex is still highly profitable in India.

Well about 4-5 years ago Amex did go downhill and they also got banned by RBI thanks to their arrogance of not complying with RBI guidelines.
Also if their volumes are so high then why are they behind new customer acquisition so aggressively? Current Amex strategy does not make any sense tbh!

 

[shashankrt]

I was just offered Taj vouchers worth 20k, the customer rep told me that this is the only option they have in the system and they cannot change it. I asked if I can get points of the same value and she said even that is not possible as they dont have that option in the system.

Now the question is what should I do? I see some good offers with reward xcelarator and I have been accumulating points for a visit to Bali/Mauritius next year for Marriot. I travel for 20-40 days a year for work (paid by company) and there the hotel memberships have been helpful to accumulate points and get some free perks. My usage is around 10 lakhs per year on Plat charge (with the rest on Infinia/Magnus) due to Amex acceptance issues offline.

Well I was in a similar situation and ended up renewing Amex due to my mistake (did not transfer points when Mariott offer was on and had to continue the card due to supplementary cards and almost 1.5L+ already accumulated points)
Also for me the hotel memberships have saved lot of pain as you get room upgrades for Hilton and Mariott. Also Amex benefits internationally are another factor.

You have 2 options:

1. Transfer all your points and close Amex.
2. Continue with Amex for a year with 20K vouchers. Recently amex has launched good offers.

Problem is Amex spends are really hard to justify if you have Magnus Burgundy or Infinia. Recently I was planning to use Amex in duty free however IDFC 15% off or Axis 10% off along with related points just did make sense to use Amex.

 

[shashankrt]

Quality over quantity is what you are saying. !!
Good 👍

Yes this is the only reason for keeping Amex especially chargebacks and other support. However HDFC infinia support is seriously catching up. Recently my infinia was used fraudulently (at onlyfans of all the place 😉 ). HDFC transaction monitoring called me (actual human call not robotic crap like Axis) at 4 AM. Just asked if transaction was genuine to which I said no.

Transaction reversed in few days (without me even calling them back), card blocked immediately after 4AM call and new card received in 2 days. Try to beat that Amex !! (Now not sure if this service quality is only for infinia or for other HDFC cards)

 

[gg123]

Yes this is the only reason for keeping Amex especially chargebacks and other support. However HDFC infinia support is seriously catching up. Recently my infinia was used fraudulently (at onlyfans of all the place 😉 ). HDFC transaction monitoring called me (actual human call not robotic crap like Axis) at 4 AM. Just asked if transaction was genuine to which I said no.

Transaction reversed in few days (without me even calling them back), card blocked immediately after 4AM call and new card received in 2 days. Try to beat that Amex !! (Now not sure if this service quality is only for infinia or for other HDFC cards)

Amex asks OTP even for international Transactions. where as other cards does not. so technically occurrence of fraudulent online transactions are slim to none.

And yes HDFC has same service and doesn't matter if it's infinia or basic millennia. Even ICICI has same service and no Bot calls.
My observation for ICICI is, if your forex transaction placed IP address is India you will not get any call.

 

[Nubar]

Got an offer of 10k Taj vouchers this time with a disclaimer that the retention options will go away starting next year.
Will cancel most likely.

 

[Pack_of_Cards]

Well about 4-5 years ago Amex did go downhill and they also got banned by RBI thanks to their arrogance of not complying with RBI guidelines.
Also if their volumes are so high then why are they behind new customer acquisition so aggressively? Current Amex strategy does not make any sense tbh!

Here is something to satiate your curiosity, this the RBI data for per credit card transaction I used the formulas to derive per card transaction which is second highest in the country, rest you are smart you can get insights from this data.

They got banned by RBI because of non compliance in failure to maintain servers inside India for Indian card holders, not because they were in loss.

RBI Link for BANKWISE ATM/POS/CARD STATISTICS - https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/ATMView.aspx?atmid=152

 

[Zacobite]

Got an offer of 10k Taj vouchers this time with a disclaimer that the retention options will go away starting next year.
Will cancel most likely.

10k is bad.. reserve cards are getting 10k as per some threads.. you may have not used it much

 

[kameshee17]

Well I was in a similar situation and ended up renewing Amex due to my mistake (did not transfer points when Mariott offer was on and had to continue the card due to supplementary cards and almost 1.5L+ already accumulated points)
Also for me the hotel memberships have saved lot of pain as you get room upgrades for Hilton and Mariott. Also Amex benefits internationally are another factor.

You have 2 options:

1. Transfer all your points and close Amex.
2. Continue with Amex for a year with 20K vouchers. Recently amex has launched good offers.

Problem is Amex spends are really hard to justify if you have Magnus Burgundy or Infinia. Recently I was planning to use Amex in duty free however IDFC 15% off or Axis 10% off along with related points just did make sense to use Amex.

Have MRCC too, so wont loose the points even if I close plat. As arnibhan said, i can always get gold to get same value on gyftr (I always buy 25k amazon pay every month). The customer rep said 20k is the max they are offering for any one - so they are not keen on renewal bonus.

Would have closed plat but I really like the offers that have come up in the past couple of months and it is a catch 22 for me now. If they have the kaizen offer open, i would have renewed it for sure as I can get value out of it.

 

[Nubar]

Have MRCC too, so wont loose the points even if I close plat. As arnibhan said, i can always get gold to get same value on gyftr (I always buy 25k amazon pay every month). The customer rep said 20k is the max they are offering for any one - so they are not keen on renewal bonus.

Would have closed plat but I really like the offers that have come up in the past couple of months and it is a catch 22 for me now. If they have the kaizen offer open, i would have renewed it for sure as I can get value out of it.

What offers are your referring to? I feel they only have reduced over time since 2020.

 

[shashankrt]

Amex asks OTP even for international Transactions. where as other cards does not. so technically occurrence of fraudulent online transactions are slim to none.

And yes HDFC has same service and doesn't matter if it's infinia or basic millennia. Even ICICI has same service and no Bot calls.
My observation for ICICI is, if your forex transaction placed IP address is India you will not get any call.

Not necessarily. There are many countries where transactions go through without any OTP. I found HDFC transaction monitoring much better than even Amex TBH. Axis is crap - never experienced with ICICI

 

[shashankrt]

View attachment 43709
Here is something to satiate your curiosity, this the RBI data for per credit card transaction I used the formulas to derive per card transaction which is second highest in the country, rest you are smart you can get insights from this data.

They got banned by RBI because of non compliance in failure to maintain servers inside India for Indian card holders, not because they were in loss.

RBI Link for BANKWISE ATM/POS/CARD STATISTICS - https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/ATMView.aspx?atmid=152

Not sure what are you trying to imply from above? Yes Amex may have highest average per card however that means nothing as this includes their Black card holders which will spend in crores easily.

Also above data supports my point on confused Amex strategy even further. Amex is nowhere even close to tapping market share in India. Look at top 5 and amex is not even close to them. Even Indusind has more card spends than Amex. I hope you understand that Credit card is volume based business and overall spends matter. Even banks like AU and IDFC are catching up to Amex based on above data.

Also fyi.. Major chunk of Amex spends are from Amex Business cards and not personal cards as they also have significant travel business.

Also where did I mention they were banned due to loss by RBI?

 

[shashankrt]

Have MRCC too, so wont loose the points even if I close plat. As arnibhan said, i can always get gold to get same value on gyftr (I always buy 25k amazon pay every month). The customer rep said 20k is the max they are offering for any one - so they are not keen on renewal bonus.

Would have closed plat but I really like the offers that have come up in the past couple of months and it is a catch 22 for me now. If they have the kaizen offer open, i would have renewed it for sure as I can get value out of it.

What was Kaizen offer? And I renewed due to exact same scenario as yours. I will wait for this year. If I am unable to recover 70K through spend based rewards then bye bye Amex. Problem is PP with MB / Infinia and related offers just kicks Amex. Recently I did not even bother to use Amex for international lounges as PP use was much preferred.