Tag Archives: American Express Membership Rewards Points

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Changes to American Express Credit Card Terms (AMEX Send Account, Cash Advances, AU AF Refunds, Bye El Al & More)

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Updated 10/7/2020 at 12pm PT: El Al Israel Airlines just sent out this email to their members letting them know that their American Express Membership Rewards partnership is ending on December 31, 2020.  A screenshot of the email is included below.

Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  2 months ago, I wrote Changes to American Express Credit Card Terms (Bye Ameriprise, Third Party Purchases, Foreign Currency & Cash Advances).  Like clockwork, American Express likes to make regular monthly updates to their credit card terms.  I was reviewing my recent American Express credit card statements this morning and spotted a few changes that I thought you might like to know about.  Some of these changes raise some questions or do not provide exact answers, but I will do my best to decipher and interpret the changes.  If you have differing thoughts / opinions about how to interpret these changes, please let me know in the comments section.

To get started, I reviewed all the recent credit card statements on all my AMEX cards and decided to use screenshots from my American Express Gold Card since it covered all the changes.  Most of these changes affect several other AMEX cards.  Here is a brief overview of the upcoming changes (AMEX Send Account, cash advances & additional card annual membership fees), but I will go into more detail on subsequent screenshots.

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Changes to American Express Credit Card Terms (Bye Ameriprise, Third Party Purchases, Foreign Currency & Cash Advances)

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Good evening everyone.  Earlier this week, I reviewed my Wells Fargo credit card statements and spotted some changes to the terms.  I wrote about those changes here: Changes to Wells Fargo Credit Card Go Far Rewards Terms (eGC, Forfeiture at Death, Misuse / Gaming & ATM Limits).  For today’s post, I reviewed my recent American Express statements and compiled all the changes I saw on my cards.  Nothing super interesting stood out to me, but I did see mentions of Ameriprise, third party purchases, paying in foreign currency, cash advances, and a few other things.  Here is my attempt to provide some insight about these changes.  Just a heads up that American Express likes to repeat the same information in different places.  This first section covers Ameriprise cards, earning points with third party purchases, and the arbitration process.

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Contact American Express via Chat Regarding Missing $10 Dining Credit on AMEX Gold Card

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Good morning everyone.  Long story short, I contacted American Express via chat because I had an issue with the monthly $10 dining credit on my American Express Gold Card.  I was a procrastinator in June and used my AMEX Gold Card to make a Grubhub purchase on June 30 (to trigger the June $10 dining credit).  The purchase posted the following day on July 1 and the $10 dining credit posted to my account on July 4.  The next day on July 5, I made another Grubhub purchase (to trigger the July $10 dining credit).  I immediately received the “Great news! You just used your Amex Offer” email from American Express.  Fast forward to today and I was still waiting for the $10 dining credit to post to my account.  I reached out to American Express via their chat feature.  Here is my conversation with the AMEX Rep and my thoughts…

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Why I Redeemed 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back Feature

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I recently had a change of heart and decided to redeem 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back feature.  Chase introduced the Pay Yourself Back feature on May 31 and I wrote How to Redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards Points via Pay Yourself Back (1.5 Cents Per Point for Restaurants, Grocery Stores & Home Improvement).  Initially, I was not very excited about the new feature, since I convinced myself that I could use my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points in other ways and get more than 1.5 cents per point.

After realizing that I had no concrete travel plans remaining in 2020 (I recently cancelled trips to Boston & New York along with a big trip to Africa), I figured that my stash of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points would probably not be used much this year.  Before redeeming 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, I looked at Chase’s travel partners to see if there were any major reasons to keep my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.  Chase has 13 airline and hotel partners, but only has 4 exclusive partners (Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, IHG, and Hyatt), the remaining 9 travel partners are accessible with American Express Membership Rewards Points, Citi ThankYou Points, and Capital One Miles.

My wife and I have ~58,000 Southwest Airlines points and ~$150 in travel credit, so I would not need to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to Southwest Airlines.  I am not a huge fan of United Airlines and can usually book Star Alliance flights with other travel programs, plus I have ~$178 travel credit from a cancelled United flight.  IHG points are worth ~0.5 cents per point and I have ~222,000 IHG points in my account.  Last but not least, Hyatt is the only travel partner that stands out from the list.  I decided to save at least 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points just in case we stay at a Hyatt later this year).

I figured that normal spending on our Chase Ink Cash Credit Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card, and Chase Freedom Credit Card this year would replenish our Chase Ultimate Rewards Points balance by the end of 2020.

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Anatomy & Timeline of 2 Cancelled Air Canada Aeroplan Award Tickets

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  Long story short, I planned an awesome award trip to Africa (Victoria Falls, South Africa, and Madagascar) for August 2020, but due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, we decided to cancel the trip and try again next year.  I planned / booked this award trip in October 2019 and part of the award booking process involved transferring 77,000 American Express Membership Rewards Points to my Air Canada Aeroplan account.  I recently wrote about my Anatomy and Timeline of a Cancelled American Airlines Award Ticket, so I decided I would write something similar for my experience cancelling 2 Air Canada Aeroplan award tickets.

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