Amex Personal Platinum Retention Offer, Interesting Data Point
PDX Deals Guy recently called American Express when his Amex Personal Platinum card’s annual fee posted. I shared my wife’s Amex Platinum retention offer a few months ago and figured I would share his experience plus an interesting data point with you. I thought it would be beneficial to see his decision making process on whether or not to keep or cancel the card as well.
His Retention Offer
Once PDX Deals Guy’s $550 annual fee posted, remember to wait until your annual fee posts with Amex, he picked up the phone and gave them a call. He had the Mercedes Benz Platinum card that was moved over to the regular Platinum when it was discontinued. He wanted to see if American Express was willing to give him anything to keep his account open.
When he spoke with the retention department they offered the following offers:
- $200 statement credit after spending $3,000 within 3 months.
- 20,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $3,000 within 3 months. (The more valuable option)
My wife also received an offer of 20,000 MR points after $3,000 in spend. We decided to keep the card to pad our Membership Rewards balance and to keep my wife out of pop up purgatory.
PDX Deals Guy decided that neither offer was worth holding onto the card mainly because he has the Amex Business Platinum card and the perks overlap with the personal version. He also let me know that there was not a ton of spend put on the card over the last 12 months.
Interesting Data Point
PDX Deals Guy did confirm with me that he recently received a retention offer on his Business Platinum card too, only a few months earlier. This goes against recent data points where people are only receiving retention offers once every year or two across all cards. I wonder if they treat business and personal products separately for this rule in light of this data point. It is something to be aware of none the less.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes an offer that is good for one person doesn’t make sense for someone else. It appears that 20K Membership Rewards points is the most common offer for the American Express Personal Platinum card. I have heard of others getting 30,000 point offers as well but that seems to be less common.
It also appears that the one retention offer per year may only apply to personal cards. Or maybe the rule is per business account and per personal account. If you have some useful data points please share them in the comments section.
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Amex Plat Schwab – Just got off the phone, got 50,000 MR points without any spend….. I could’t believe it. Of course I took that on the spot. They also offered $500 as an alternative but 50K MR Points are definitely more valuable to me.
Wow that is awesome!
Another data point. I just called them again, and was offered either $300 credit or 30k Miles with $4000 spending within 90 days.
I received the retention offer last year – It was $300 credit. I put $16000 spend on that card. I have the card for 24 years.
Awesome John – interesting that you got it in back to back years too! I think your level of spend helps out some but still good to see that they are not hard and fast on every two year rule.
Hi Mark,
Bad news – The rep told me to call back for my decision whether to cancel or to accept the retention offer. I called them today to accept it, but they said the offer is no longer available. So at this point, I am prob just either going to cancel or downgrade it – not worth paying $550.
I’m just going to do it early July, so I get my Uber credit and Saks benefit before changing the account/cancel.
Do you know if I can downgrade to no annual fee? or it needs to be a charge card (green is the cheapest). Also, if I downgrade to gold, can I re-use the $100 airline credit even though I’ve used $200 this calendar year?
Please advise – Thanks!
They pulled that on my wife so I told her to call back and say you offered me this, I want this or else…and they gave it to her. I would try that.
Yes the green card is as low as you can go since it has to be a charge card.
I’ll give a call back again, maybe tomorrow or so. The chat gave me a direct number to that department at 1 (855) 857-7657. Will report back.
I will. Keeping my fingers crossed
I spent about 10K in the last 12 months.
That makes sense why you got an increased offer on the card. Let us know what they say on the Gold card.
Following up. I called to cancel my Gold AMEX and was offered 10K points for a $1500 spend over next 90 days. I decided to stay with the card for another year as the $100 airline credit, $120 food credit and 10K points covers the $250 annual fee.
Awesome – glad to hear someone was able to get multiple offers so close together. What kind of spend did you put on the Gold card the past year?
Less than $2K over the last 12 months.
Interesting…I was expecting more for getting the offer. I have come to the conclusion that there is no way to tell what Amex is doing lol
Just called AMEX earlier today to ‘cancel’ Platinum and received 30K points for $4K in spending. My Gold card annual fee ($250) is also due this week – what’s the chance AMEX will offer another incentive to stay with them?
I doubt they will give you a second one so close together but it is worth trying. All they can do is say no. The 30K offer is a solid one though. Did you have much spend on it?
20k MR for $3k spend in April of 2019
Thanks for the DP Rick!
If you cancel after the annual fee has poster, is it prorated?
You have 30 days to cancel. It is not prorated if you cancel past that. If you downgrade to another product it will be prorated.
You’re right. I had forgotten the flight protections aren’t as good as CSR.
Do people actually use the Amex Platinum card for more than airline charges? It just seems that the Gold and Blue Business are such better cards for everyday spending in terms of point earning potential. I have yet to get 5x hotels because I’ve found booking through Amex travel to be often times much more money than using other sites. Such a shame that such a pretty card sits in a drawer all year…I’m strange I know, but I actually find the heft and smooth feel of the card very satisfying in the hand.
I think some use it for large purchases for the extra insurance (like a fridge etc.) but for most of us, no. Even for flights it not having any type of trip insurance/delay insurance is a huge concern for a lot of people. I do know some people (not in the points game) that just use it for everything and think it is great…but they are why we get what we get 🙂
30k MR for 4K spend, put about 35k spend on the card last year. Took it.
That is a really good one
Yeah that is not a good offer. You should have downgraded to amex gold.