Amex Platinum Uber Credit Issue
American Express has been giving out Membership Rewards right and left for about a year now. Whether it be authorized user offers, no lifetime language offers or upgrade offers the points have been there for the taking. Late last year my wife was the recipient of such offers, including an Amex Platinum upgrade offer for her Amex Gold card. The offer was pretty lucrative, with a 100,000 point bonus, a $150 credit and 5X earning on grocery and dining on up to $25,000 in spend. Along with all of that, she would get all of the perks the American Express Platinum card has to offer, even the new ones. That is easily one of, in not the, best offer we have ever gotten. It wasn’t completely flawless though. We did run into a small problem along the way, there was an Amex Platinum Uber credit issue. To be fair, it was mostly user error on my part.
American Express Platinum Uber Credit
One of the better perks of the Amex Platinum card is the Uber credit. As a cardholder you receive $15 a month in Uber credit and a bonus $20 credit in December. That equates to $200 a year in Uber credits (($15 X 12) + $20). All you need to do to trigger this credit is add your Amex Platinum to your Uber account.
If you have two household members that Amex cards with Uber credits you can add both cards to the same log in to stack credits. This works the same if you have multiple cards with the credits yourself, like a Gold and Platinum card.
By upgrading from Gold to Platinum my wife would get an increase of $5 a month (from $10 to $15), and $20 in December. I was looking forward to the bump as a nice side benefit of the upgrade to the Platinum card.
Amex Platinum Uber Credit Issue After Upgrade
My wife accepted the upgrade offer in December. I figured this was perfect timing because of the extra $20 bump in December. We received her normal Amex Gold $10 credit on December 1st. She accepted the upgrade a few weeks later. I was hopeful that the $20 bonus for now having a Platinum card would post a few days after accepting the offer. It looked like that did happen but then it disappeared. I was a little perplexed by that but then others reported similar things happening on their account so I figured it was a part of that bug.
The month came and went and I figured the timing of the upgrade did me in. Surely the credit would be $15 come January 1st. Nope, the same $10 posted on our account. I decided to reach out to Amex when it happened once again in February and find out what was going on. After some back and forth they were stumped and then it hit me. I had not added the new Platinum card number to my log in.
Uber Credit Error…More Like User Error
For some reason I had been under the assumption that the card would be updated to a Platinum card in the Uber app. But, when we did the upgrade the expiration date and security codes on the card had changed too. Uber had no way to know that the card was now a Platinum card. Because of that the app still registered the old account added to the profile as a Gold card.
So I needed to add the new Platinum card’s detail to my Uber account to trigger the monthly credit. Once it was added I was given the proper $15 Uber credit. If you add your newly upgraded card, without touching the old Gold card, you may be surprised by what happens.
I asked the chat rep if they were willing to make me whole on the missed December credits since I had assumed the card would update in the Uber app. The chat agent was willing and gave me a $25 statement credit for what I missed the previous month. So at least my dumb error didn’t cost me anything.
Final Thoughts
If you upgrade an Amex Gold to Amex Platinum learn from my mistake. You don’t want to have the same Amex Platinum Uber credit issue that I had. Uber’s app will not be able to register the upgrade of the card. The card will never change on their end and will still be registered as a Gold card. You will need to add your new Platinum card’s info into the app once you get it. If you fail to do so you will continue to get the lower credit amount. Those missed credits can add up quickly so make sure to get it done as soon as you get your newly minted American Express Platinum card in the mail.
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The Uber credit is pretty useless for a lot of us. It would be better if it was a lump sum for the year as most months I never need a Uber and I do not use UBER Eats, either, so what the heck else is it good for? I wish you could cash out unused offers for points or something.
I downgraded to the green and am still receiving my platinum credits :).
Nice!
so the exact opposite happened to me. I’m getting both the gold and the platinum credit monthly now after upgrading. The only thing I did in the uber app was update the expiration date and security code. Interesting.
That is interesting