American Express Membership Rewards Account Unfrozen
Last month a link surfaced offering a 100K bonus on the American Express Platinum card after $3K spend. I know many of you applied under that offer as did my wife as well. Unfortunately it seems the offer was not meant to be public (although it was publicly accessible) and Amex decided to freeze the Membership Rewards accounts of people who applied.
My wife’s account was frozen before she ever even made one purchase on her new Platinum card. This meant that she couldn’t transfer out any of her Membership Rewards points that were earned on other cards. Since we didn’t have an immediate use for the points, we decided to just let it slide and not contact American Express.
After a few weeks my wife did meet the minimum spend on the card completely through spending on Amazon. She had received a 3X Amazon offer, so it made sense to use that card for our Amazon purchases. We never purchased any gift cards or cash equivalents during the bonus period, since those are excluded from counting towards the bonus. We also spent over $4K instead of $3K just in case we have some returns. In other words, we don’t want to give American Express a reason to clawback the bonus.
A Bonus But Still Frozen
Shortly after meeting the minimum spend threshold, the 100K bonus posted to her account. Thinking that perhaps it was unfrozen, I tried to make a transfer and was denied. Her account was still “under investigation”. It was frustrating but once again we decided to wait it out. Thankfully that seems to have paid off.
Success
After seeing a couple of random tweets from people who discovered their accounts are now unfrozen, I checked my wife’s account. I decided to transfer 500 Membership Rewards points to Plenti as a test. Plenti isn’t the best program in the world, but with the current bonus you get 1.5 cents per point value which isn’t bad. The transfer was a success!
Conclusion
It seems that American Express has unfrozen many people’s accounts at once. If you applied under this offer then you might want to check to see if your ability to transfer points has returned. With that said, just because the account is unfrozen doesn’t mean Amex can’t/won’t try to come and take your points if you violate the terms. Make sure to meet the spend without gift cards and account for the potential of any returns. Good luck!
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Both wife and I had our accounts frozen before even receiving our cards following the November link leak. Both were locked on 12/20 and both unlocked on 12/21.
Will gift card spending result in the same freeze for the publicly available business Plat? It’s harder to meet the $15k organically otherwise.
Of course it will.
Similar to James above I was frozen in May briefly and then unfrozen I made multiple transfers until late August when I was frozen again and 48 hours later my points were clawed backed. Now MS was involved in my case. I am sure you will be fine in the long run since you didn’t MS but don’t be surprised if you get a refreeze at some point though I hope not as I really hope Amex is learning to handle this more effectively than they did last time.
Well… I wouldn’t say you’re out of the water yet. I applied in May under a similar circumstance (leaked 100k Platinum offer). My points were frozen, then unfrozen a month later. I used some of the points and then in October, they decided to deduct 100k from my account. If any MS is involved, I’d keep a lookout.
Likewise, Amex has been circumventing any response including legal action. Their legal team say it’s a MR problem and MR states it’s a legal issue and they have no ability to restore that many points. It’s a complete cluster f. Use your points soon before any potential claw back.