Uber Makes Tricky Change to Amex Platinum Credits
One of the most valuable enhancement to the Amex Platinum card is $200 worth of Uber credits annually. As a Platinum Member, you receive $15 in Uber credits for U.S. rides each month plus a bonus $20 in December, plus Uber VIP where available.
Until now the process of using these credit has been fairly easy. Every time you paid for a ride, the credits were automatically applied first and then you paid the rest of the trip which your preferred payment method.
Changes to Amex Platinum Uber Credits
Now the process has changed for the worse, and there was no announcement by Uber. Credit are no longer applied automatically and if you weren’t aware you might let credits expire.
Sometime earlier this month the $15 in Amex credits started being applied to your Uber Cash balance instead. You need to manually select Uber Cash as your payment method in order to use the credits. If there’s a remaining balance for your trip, after Uber Cash is applied, you have to add credits or select a card to cover just the remaining amount.
If you do not select Uber Cash as your form of payment, then your Amex credit could go unused and expire at the end of the month.
Conclusion
TPG reports that this change was made to consolidate credits into one place in app and to help Uber passengers avoid applying their Amex credits to business trips. That part is somewhat positive, even though it has never really been an issue for me. But the fact that there was no announced about the change and that you have to manually apply these credits, is a negative move.
At least you have two more days to use up your October credits if you weren’t aware of this change.
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What happens if you loaded an Uber gift card $50 and your amex credits have not yet been used. So if you have $65 in Uber cash, will the app apply amex credits first or will it use up the gift card credits? Does it know how to differentiate??
I just discovered I was not being credited on Amex for Uber rides. After some research I saw that Uber changed the procedure for applying the credit. It used to be that you just rode, no extra steps. I called Amex Platinum and they refunded me the lost credits from the time the policy changed. Apparently Uber alerted no one and Amex was swamped with complaints about this.
When you’re waiting in the dark and it’s raining, you don’t notice new payment steps on your phone. I’m happy about Amex’ handling of this. It’s February 1 and they didn’t say any deadline had passed.
Echo the comments here – my $35 of Dec Amex credits lapsed even though i took a $57 ride in December. The new process does not use credits (Uber cash) if there is not enough cash to cover the entire ride. The logical thing would be to charge the credit card for any shortfall but that would be customer friendly, won’t it. Instead you have to first refill the Uber cash balance before ordering the ride – how convenient?
Demonstrates their unethical reputation, I bet this change is going to reduce the usage of the credit significantly and reduce Uber’s costs. I hope Amex realizes that their benefit is being diluted by Uber’s practices.
To top it all, Uber has terrible customer service, they made a change without informing card holders appropriately and refuse to take any responsibility for their actions.
It looks like a better alternative would be to switch to the Amex business platinum, get a $100 reduction in fee and forego the $200 Uber credit.
Biz Platinum also has the 1.5 cents per MR cash flights option which makes it the better overall card in my opinion. But the price has recently gone up with them adding Uber like benefits that will be useless to many.
https://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/changes-and-higher-fee-for-business-platinum-card/
Same issue last night, fake price surging my trip went from its usual $40 to around $90 and there was no one waiting for rides.
I then selected Uber credits which I have $70 worth but since it doesn’t cover the full cost Uber charged the full amount to my credit card.
Contacted Uber and they aren’t budging on their stance
Same for me. I’ve made a habit of screening my balance before every use now. They okay way too baby shenanigans. They need only pay it to Amex if people actually ‘use’ the credit.
It gets even worse. I had a remaining Amex balance as well as other Uber credits last night. Uber defaulted to using the other (non-expiring) credits, and there’s no way to control the sequencing. As a result, my monthly Amex credits simply expired. With no way of controlling which credit is applied (only that credits are applied), the consumer gets screwed.
Uber has the worst customer service ever! They said that they will issue a refund then charge me the amount less $15 but they never did. When i followed up they said no they won’t issue a refund. WTH? I’m sticking with Lyft from
now on except when I’m using my $15 uber cash
How are you guys even contacting Uber CS? I went thorugh the “help” and am sitting at 17 hours with no response. Is there an actual phone number or e-mail?
Emailed several times through “help”. Several responses came within the hour, one took several hours, and the last email no response for a day now.
Just noticed this earlier today that a trip from the weekend was charged in its entirety to credit card. The pathetic Uber Customer Service is refusing to apply the $15 Uber Cash to the trip and partially refund the credit card charges. Hello Lyft.
Call Amex Platinum customer service instead of calling Uber, and they should issue you a credit. After all, it’s an Amex benefit, and people were not notified (as far as I know) that the way to apply the credit had changed. They credited my account, with no hesitation whatsoever.
Amex won’t do anything unless you charged the trip to your platinum. They’ll claim it’s an Uber benefit and while they’d issue a credit had you charged the trip to your Amex, their hands are tied if you didn’t. I told them “why would I charge the trip to my Amex when other travel cards give a bonus with uber?” HUCA 4x finally worked for me and they finally issued me the credit. My time is worth more than that, but sometimes it’s the principle.
I had over $100 refunded to me by Amex the other day because of not getting my Uber credits over several months. The Amex agent said that going forward that I should see the Uber credits in my Uber cash. I didn’t have any. On a hunch I checked a previous phone that no longer had cell service and my Uber app showed $15 in Uber cash. When I changed phones I forgot the email account associated with Uber and used a different one but my Amex Platinum was still associated with the old phone’s email. I deleted Amex as the payment option on the old phone. We’ll see what happens next month.
There’s a bug in Uber where you can’t delete payment options, so I’d check to see if it’s actually been deleted. They’ve been “fixing” it for over a year now….
Uber customer service is horrendous. I was given wrong advice “specifically since specific credits I was given wouldn’t expire”, but they did expire. I submitted customer service complaint and included their previous email with bad advice. Their response was oops sorry. Talking to 800 number was not any better.
Completely useless. I am going to delete uber once I cancel my platinum. Using uber is like blacks voting for white supremacists. Something what that black ugly dude married to that fat ugly nude would do.
The real bug lies with attempting to delete an plat from Uber app…
I’m curious if Amex Platinum is going to make some changes to the benefits. In particular the Gold elite status with SPG (Marriott). I believe with the new elite status sYstem, the gold status benefit with the Platinum doesn’t provide any value. Now, it seems that Uber is trying to play games with the card holders credits. Can Amex provide the $200 credit in transportation categories ? Such as , parking , tolls and any form of mobil transportation. Example, Uber, Lyft ,a taxi , Ezpass or tolls!!!Let the $15 monthly credit be applied to these categories with the December bonus still intact.
I am going to check out gold status in SE Asia. I have low expectations. This makes it difficult to justify the Platinum Business card in year 2.
PS Travel protections are not up to the standard set by competing cards.
I guess another positive from this is the ability to pay the balance with a different card such as the Sapphire Reserve or even the Uber Card to maximize value.