A few days back, I wrote about whether the Amex Platinum Card is really worth the massive $895 fee. If you look for an answer, you’ll see that the card often polarizes opinions. There are people who love the card while others dismiss it as an expensive coupon book. On this blog, I always advocate that if you’re looking to cancel a card, it never hurts to ask for a retention offer. Credit card issuers like to offer incentives to keep the business of many of their most loyal customers. Sometimes it never hurts to ask, who knows, you may just get a sweet deal that goes a long way in helping offset that huge annual fee.
Unique Retention Offer on the Amex Platinum Card
Usually what happens is that card issuers offer customers a statement credit or points as a retention bonus. In most cases, card issuers attach a spend requirement to it. However, as per this Reddit post, this user was offered a retention bonus to use Membership Rewards points at a ‘bonus’ rate to ‘pay’ for the annual fee. In this particular case, this user was still being charged the old $695 annual fee. The Amex rep offered that this person could use 69,500 Membership Rewards points to pay for the annual fee.
Bear in mind that you can already use your Amex Membership Rewards points to wipe off charges on your statement. However, the ratio is an abysmal 0.6 cents per point. In essence, to pay for a $600 charge, you’ll need to use 100,000 Membership Rewards points. With this offer, Amex was making the ratio 1 cent per point, which is a massive jump from the standard 0.6 cents per point ratio.
I wanted to share my recent AMEX Platinum retention chat experience since it might help others who are planning to ask for an offer soon. I have been an AMEX member since 2005 and my total spend this year was around $53K on a single Platinum Card. I used a good amount of the available benefits this year including Uber, Uber One, Oura Ring, Hotel, Resy, and Lululemon credits as well as Membership Rewards earning.
I contacted AMEX through chat and asked if there were any retention offers available. The rep gave a long breakdown of the benefits I had used and the value of my Membership Rewards, then offered a “special redemption rate” to apply points toward the annual fee. The offer was to use 69,500 MR points to cover the $695 fee at an elevated rate of 1,000 points = $10.00. There were no alternate offers available. I decided to keep my points and declined.
Pro tip: Before my chat with AMEX, I used AI to scrape this sub for useful pointers on how to request a retention offer and also used AI to help formulate my replies to stay on point. I am also pretty sure AMEX uses AI now in these chats, so it felt like AI talking to AI.
I hope this helps others who are considering a retention request before the end of the year.
The Pundit’s Mantra
I’ve been in the miles and points space for over a decade and have enjoyed my share of retention offers. However, never have I been targeted for an offer like this one. Usually, I’ve received offers that are tied to a spend requirement. Every now and then, I just get lucky and get a bonus without having to spend anything.
Early next year, I’ll get to test the waters myself as my annual fee on the Amex Platinum Card is about to be billed in January. Since I currently have the Charles Schwab version of the Amex Platinum Card, I can ‘cash out’ at a rate of 1.1 cents per point, which is way better than the 0.6 cents per point rate that Amex offers to pay for charges posted to your statement.
Have you tried getting a retention offer on the Amex Platinum Card recently? What was your experience like? Tell us in the comments section.
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Credit Card Offers
American Express Business Credit Cards
- Earn 200,000 Membership Rewards points with the Business Platinum Card
- Earn 150,000 Membership Rewards and enjoy a 0% intro APR on the Business Gold Card
Chase Sapphire Cards
- Earn 125,000 bonus points with the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card
- Earn 200,000 bonus points with the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card for Business
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