American Express Shutdowns: Everything You Need To Know About Shutdowns & Clawbacks

American Express shut my business account down for no reason, followed by my personal accounts. They claimed that my payment was due one month out from when they shut the personal accounts down. They had also just charged me both annual fees $550 + per card within 60 days of cancelling the cards. I had 350k + points and have been a card member since 2013 and have spent in excess of $5M on amex cards. What a great way to treat top customers.

Excellent updates here Mark. This is a great example of specific,in-depth content that makes MtM one of the top sites. Thanks

“People have still been reporting (August 2021) that they have issues sometimes having Bonvoy Business or Hilton Surpass increased earnings clawed back some months. It appears if you go above the $4-$5,000 threshold in a billing period that they may claw back points. Even though this is standard earning rates and not a part of a spending offer etc.”

Once the card you have got hit, that card is as good as DEAD on any non category bonus spend. Safest bet is to just close it.

Hey Mark years ago I had an Amex card went through a divorce and closed it for none payment. Will I be able to open another account?

Hey Mark, have you heard about any issues with grocery store spending on the surpass card (aside from the obvious disaster that took place over the summer during the COVID bonus period)?

How about sending bill pays to Amex to pay monthly bill?

“bonus points spending abuse”….
I am no where even close to you pro points and miles folks, but I do use my Gold card for groceries, when not getting 5x somewhere (Chase). Also use Gold for dining when I can. Do not use it for day to day stuff (1x). Am I a target for these clawbacks?

If I close an AMEX Delta credit card (for which I paid the annual fee when I opened it) at least a year and a day or so after I opened the card (in order to avoid the renewal annual fee), is it likely AMEX will claw back the welcome bonus? Any data points?

Post would actually be useful if you guys added a note about what got updated. Just saying “was updated on 10/31/2020” isn’t enough to figure what new information was added. Where’s the update history?! To me, the post looks exactly like what it was the last time I read it.

Opened my plat about a year ago, put all my 2020 travel on the card and earned the welcome bonus. BUT with Covid, most of my travel got cancelled and I managed to get refunded by the airlines. So far, they have not clawed back the bonus MR and my spend has been negligeble so hoping they don’t close me down. Do you think I should be worried?

I think I have done all of these with the exception of anything related to financial review.
I started cleaning up my act though as I realized a shutdown would actually suck and I kept getting the pop up.

These are typical “knee jerk reactions” to the current market conditions the same thing happened in the 2008/2010 recession with Amex as well as other issuers. If you have a business card and feeling the pain of Covid related payment issues call them. Here is what we all have worry about I have heard that some companies deeply effected by the virus are having their accounts shut down and one I know of actually had their account deemed uncollectible and written off by Amex. When I asked our attorney about this they said some lenders are purposely writing down accounts this year to take the loss and whatever they collect next year is pure profit. go figure. For me I have limited cc spend as much as possible and kept that to a select set of cards.

Amex closed / shut down all the accounts earlier this month citing in a letter that my FICO score of 735, no installment account, revolving accts have no balance, too many inquiries in the last 2 yrs.

The true facts are that, after receiving the notice, I pulled all my credit reports wherein it show my FICO score is between 760-775 reported by 3 agencies, not Amex’s 735; only 4 or 5 inquiries since Sept. 2017, not Amex’s ‘too many inquiries in the last 2 yrs’, revolving balance shows almost $4k, not Amex’s no balance. Amex also took away all the existing 21k MR points, citing that pts had been forfeited despite Amex ‘s Rep via chat & in MR dept. stated that customer with closed accts has 30 days to redeem the points.

I feel the real reason for accts closure or relationship termination stemmed from a recent arbitration won few months ago whereby one of my Amex acct was wrongly denied a sign up bonus despite an written assurance via chat that the acct did qualify for the bonus.

As I do feel the inaccurate reasons provided by Amex was false & bias for all the accts closure & lost MR pts. I did already contact Amex Rep. by phone, chat, Amex Executive by email, but no change in decision. I’d appreciate any help from anyone for advice or suggestion on what I should do. Thanks in advance

There seems to be a new different kind of blacklist for people who Amex thinks abused the system.

I know one person who had his Amex account closed for alleged “abuse.” He was able to reapply a few months later with no issues. Oddly enough, this was not my experience.

Last year all I did on my Amex card was MS. They cancelled the account citing “abuse.” I paid it off and reapplied this year, and was approved but the card was cancelled 8 hours later. Amex sent the same letter when they cancelled this year citing “abuse.”

When I called it to inquire, several staff members said I wasn’t on a blacklist because I paid it off and was approved. They were not sure if it was perhaps a glitch or other issue and said I was free to reapply again. I did not see any point of reapplying if they kept cancelling my card (not to mention that they pulled my credit when I applied, which is what they don’t do when you are on the blacklist).

Is this issue permanent and will apply to all new accounts I get or will Amex likely let it go after a few years or if I call in to the right department to explain? Is there a particular department or Vice President/director I should contact about this?

I no longer MS and want a second chance. Maybe they determined I wasn’t profitable and now just are going to blacklist me forever and are being mean by doing the hard pulls and giving me false hope of account approvals.

I only heard of one other person who had their accounts closed due to not going through with financial review, and a new account was immediately cancelled after they applied again. I do not know much else about their circumstances. Everyone else is either blacklisted (no hard pull) or not blacklisted and can get cards with no issues.

Was under FR by Amex Canada.
Send in the documents and was waiting for a response.
MS on prepaid giftcards.
Today, noticed on online banking that accounts were closed.
I still had MR points on there.
Are they gone?

They will likely let it go eventually – I wouldn’t stress too much about it. I’ve had cards closed by Amex multiple times over the past decade and after a few years I am able to get approved again.

Also forgot to ask what card(s) you were spending on?

American Express cancelled all of my accounts last year because of MS. The staff told me I was free to reapply and that as long as I did not “abuse” the process I should be good to go.

I reapplied last week and it was approved and 9 hours later they cancelled the card and sent the same email and letter from last year stating that I abused the system.

I called back and was told it could be a glitch but nevertheless was free to apply again. It was unclear to the representative why I was cancelled again.

If there was a blacklist they should not have pulled my credit or approved me for a card. I found out that they did pull my credit for this card.

Does somebody out there still hate me and find the account to cancel 8 hours after applying or is it likely that there is an endless loop on my profile cancelling all cards from last year? If so, will this issue ever go away? I no longer MS and want a second chance.

I do not see any point in applying again if they will keep cancelling.

do you think shut downs are forever? I know that chase is for 7 years but some people were able to reapply after 2

My accounts got shut down yesterday. I remembered that around 2 weeks ago, I received an email titled “American Express Account Status Review” but I didn’t reply anything. Do you think it caused all my account got canceled?

I have been with AMEX for 25 years and have used autopay as long as I can remember. I had 355,000 points and my credit (per their site) is excellent (785 FICO, 0 late payments, 1% credit utilization). On Friday I received a call that after 25 years I was dropped as a customer. I thought it was a bad prank until I signed in to confirm. Today I received a letter stating “the card was cancelled because it was not being used for it’s intended purpose”. My wife and I reviewed EVERY purchase the past year and it’s travel, groceries, gas, etc. etc. I’m at a total loss and really p*ssed after 25 years that I was cancelled with no explanation.

I had a financial review and they closed all of my accounts. I reapplied yesterday and they approved my application but then cancelled my card today citing previous unsatisfactory relationship.

Can I call to request reopening? Also, the agent on reconsideration told me that I am not on a blacklist because I paid off the accounts but now they just cancelled my card right after approval. I find this concerning because that account had no issues or activity on it; it was just opened and I have not even received it.

What should I do? Should I wait some time and reapply? I think Amex has a note flagging my account on my profile for previous closure.

My accounts/wifes and parents all got shut down today 🙁

as an update – Amex let me keep my MR (even the pending points were added to the account), but made me transfer them within 30 days. I will miss Amex Platinum and Amex offers though. But on the other hand – if they can shut you down for this with no explanation (no matter how hard I tried to find out “why?”, all they could say was “it was a business decision”), then perhaps it’s for the better (otherwise, I would be constantly worrying if I should or shouldn’t buy even a “legitimate” gift card for a friend’s birthday).
On the bright side – 3 points from Chase Reserve card on that 40K safari charge was not too bad.

well, here is another DP –
My Amex accounts were cancelled today with no other explanation but “we made this business decision”.

Actually I received a voicemail from Amex a week ago (that said they are from Amex customer service and needed to talk to me) but I simply forgot to return the call.
Today I got this call again (should have probably let it go to voicemail!) and they informed me of cancelling all of my accounts (Amex Platinum, Hilton, Amex Blue business card, SPG business and personal).

I have been with Amex since 2010, no new cards in the past year (so it cannot be bonus-related), always pay in full, no late payments, income in the upper 6 figures, FICO in the lower 800s.

Sure, I did some MS here and there but nothing major (just don’t have time for it) and always mixed with organic spend. I used Amex offers only occasionally, never referred anyone for bonus or added AU.

The only thing I can think of is that I increased my SPG cards spend in the past two months, but well within my credit line. A few Simon Mall card purchases here and there (not even the max), 2 or 3 Giftcards.com purchases, but as I said – all mixed up with regular spend. I even planned to put a 40K charge from a safari company on my SPG card! (I have not, so it could not be the reason for shutdown). Well, it’ll go to Chase Reserve now, so maybe this one was for the better.
I had around 300,000 MR, none of them used in the past year and a half. At this point I don’t know what will happen to them. They gave me the number to call about my MR, but that office is till 4 pm and closed on weekends (this being Friday, I guess I’ll have to wait till Monday).

I was shut down without explanation (other than it being a internal business decision) a couple of months ago a few days after redeeming 600k points on United international flights for myself and 4 family members for which I would be eligible for 50% points refund due to the Amex biz plat. I have been with Amex for over 15 years, never manufacture spend (ALL my spend is a million percent legit both personal and business expenses), and I pay my bills in full every month 100% of the time. I called day after day multiple times a day and was talking to a brick wall and getting no info. I finally decided to write an email to corporate and also to file a claim with the BBB. Within 10 days ALL of my accounts were reopened and my MR points were reinstated (and I got the 50% points back shortly thereafter). I still do not know and was never told why I was shut down in the first place.

Nope. It is MR thing.

One more DP, all my accounts were shutdown this week. All existing MR transferred out, all OBC CBs were cashed out in the same day receiving Amex call. However, no AF refund per customer support. SPG points were credited to SPG account after statement closed later on. No luck for MR and other CB earned from the last statements.

I have some updates. I called Amex and essentially did not give explanations. I talked to 2 people from different departments and …just no explanation.. but I did get my MR transferred out to an Airline when they transferred the call to MR department. What I didn’t get is the $800 left on OBC. . The annual fee I payed will be prorated and either credited back or they will send me check… Its really hard to live without centurion.

Three data points make a trend? Please.

It’s a well-known fact that one of the individuals in Shutdown 1/2 have been less than forthcoming in their story and they’ve had issues with other aspects of human interaction within this space. An Amex shutdown is par for the course they’ve set themselves up for.

Any further ‘data points’ from such a limited scope of incomplete information reminds me of the hard-hitting journalism behind the likes of The National Enquirer or Star.

I got entire amex shut down this month. Amex shut down your accounts as they notify you that your entire amex account canceled.

I just do MS on my amex

Good luck, people. Amex enforced the T&C

What changes to OBC do you refer to?

Ugh, I was the guy commenting on the Ascend article about being very tempted to do some grocery store MS to earn 6x and the free weekend night. On one hand I know first-hand people that are absolutely going crazy on various amex cards with MS but then there are reports like this that give me serious pause.

Seems like it’s just a crap-shoot and the differentiating factor is just whether or not a human being happens to look at your account.

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

This may tick-off some…but Good!!

People who abuse the gift of CC bonuses should get repercussions. Hogs get fat, PIGS get slaughtered. I’m fat with miles & points, but never been slaughtered because I *use* the system and don’t *abuse* the system.

I’d still say that even though these reports show that banks are getting stricter, I still think that 90% of us won’t be affected. I love miles and points, and don’t do MS. I keep getting some really good offers from both Amex and Chase and put a lot of genuine spend every month. I’m guessing my profile would be quite similar to a lot of other people who love points and miles and play this game avidly. I guess we have to not panic – since there’s a clear line between MSing and doing actual fraud versus just getting the best sign up bonuses at the right time by playing by each bank’s rules.

Mark, how do you reconcile limiting AMEX to traditional spend with your recent endorsement of buying gift cards at grocery stores with Hilton Ascend?