Tag Archives: American Express

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Great First Experience Calling American Express Platinum Concierge for Restaurant Reservations

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your Memorial Day Weekend is going well.  I have the American Express Business Platinum Charge Card and some of the card benefits get a lot of attention: Centurion Lounge access, Priority Pass membership, $200 airline reimbursement annually, Global Entry fee reimbursement, and the 50% Pay with Points rebate on flights.

Surprisingly, there are several other less talked about benefits of the American Express Business Platinum Charge Card too.  One such benefit that I just used for the first time was the American Express Business Platinum Charge Card Concierge (I believe the various versions of the American Express Platinum Charge Card also have this benefit).  I wanted to make a dinner reservation for a special occasion and I wasn’t having any luck with OpenTable (unless I wanted a 5pm or 10pm reservation – no thank you!).  I decided to call the Concierge (1-800-492-8468) and see if they could help me out.  If you have a personal American Express Platinum Charge Card, just call the number on the back of your card and you can navigate to the Concierge Department.

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ICYMI: Travel News Roundup for Friday, May 26, 2017

Hi everyone! Sorry I missed an update last week – I was in New York City for the weekend and was a little swamped. Here’s all the news that caught my eye over the past two weeks:

Airlines + Miles

Aeromexico is starting new flights from Mexico City to Seattle and Portland, and adding new Mexican destinations from Atlanta and Los Angeles. [Travel Codex]

Alaska Airlines added Helsinki-based Finnair as a Mileage Plan partner. [Alaska Airlines]

I bought one of the first tickets on Alaska Airlines’ new service from San Francisco to Mexico City, scheduled to begin August 8. [Travel with Grant]

American Airlines now offers a full refund within 24 hours of purchase if a flight is booked at least 2 days before departure (previously it was 7 days). [Travel Codex]

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Amazing Retention Offer on my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card

Buenos dias everyone. The annual fee posted on my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card on April 26, and since I hate making phone calls, I waited until the very last minute to call about canceling the card. American Express will only refund your annual fee if you cancel or downgrade within 30 days of when the annual fee posts to your card.

Once I finally resigned myself to getting on the phone, I told the representative that I wanted to speak with someone about closing my account because of the recent changes to the Membership Rewards Pay with Points rebate. She mentioned the fact that the card now earns 5 points per dollar spent on amextravel.com, then placed me on hold for several minutes and then handed me off to someone from their OPEN Membership Consulting team.

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Best Credit Card for Restaurants: US Bank Cash Plus or FlexPerks Gold AMEX?

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you are having a great weekend. I am currently in Miami on my way back home to San Francisco after my week-long vacation to Saint Kitts and Nevis and my stay at the Marriott Saint Kitts Beach Club timeshare property (2 trip reports coming later this week, or next week, or never – let’s see if I can get these posted before I forget). Enough about me, let’s talk about credit card rewards.

A long time ago, my go to credit card for all restaurant purchases was my beloved Citi Forward Credit Card. I used to earn 5x Citi Thank You Points for all restaurant purchases, from fast food to fine dining. Unfortunately, Citi changed the card earnings on restaurant purchases from 5x to 2x, so I looked for a suitable replacement. The obvious choice was Chase Sapphire Preferred with 2x on restaurants, then along came the Chase Sapphire Reserve with 3x on restaurants. I tried to apply for the Chase Sapphire Reserve (twice!), and got declined (twice!) due to 5/24.  I don’t have any other Chase credit cards that I want to convert / product change to a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve either.  With those sad facts, my search for a suitable restaurant credit card continued.

I was pretty happy using my US Bank Cash Plus Credit Card for restaurant purchases – earning 2% cash back at restaurants and 5% cash back at fast food restaurants.  That was good enough for a few months until I got an email from US Bank that changed everything…

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2,000 Membership Reward Points Post Quickly for AT&T Small Business Wireless AMEX Offer

Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  A few days ago, there was a great AMEX Offer that came out from AT&T Small Business Wireless where you could earn 2,000 Membership Reward Points for making a qualifying purchase of $200 or more.  To make the AMEX Offer even better, you could use that AMEX Offer up to 3 times per enrolled card and get up to 6,000 Membership Reward Points.  Frequent Miler and Doctor of Credit were the first I saw to cover the AMEX Offer.  Even though the AMEX Offer was only targeted to American Express business cards and supposed to be for business wireless purchases, I decided to see what would happen when I made a $200 payment to my AT&T Wireless account (I do use AT&T service for my blog).  If you are interested, here are the full AMEX Offer terms:

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