American Express Business Platinum 120,000 Points + 10x At Office Supply, Wireless & More ($7,500 Limit)

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• I just had a weird experience with AMEX on membership rewards points.. I booked a flight via amex travel and paid most of it with my points (say ticket was $2000.. I used $1900 worth of credit). One would think that 1) my points goes to zero (because I used it all toward the purchase) and 2) I would earn points on the difference that I paid for (on $100 multiplied by 5 as the purchase was made on amex travel)... Instead, they put me into a negative rewards credit balance. Their math was I used $1900 worth of the credit then since $1900 is posted as a "credit" in my account, this created another negative adjustment of 1,900. and since I used points (even partially to offset the cost of the flight), I would not earn any points on dollars that I have spent...
  How does this make any sense? So basically if you use points, not only you get penalized by not earning any points on the purchase, even if you actually paid for the difference, you also get penalized again by having adjustment for the portion that I paid with points? I kept explaining that if they are going to put the negative adjustment on $1900, then they should also honor points for $2000 purchase so that they net to $100... I talked to 3 different membership rewards reps... somehow this is not a common sense to them..

  Anyone else experienced an issue like this with AMEX?

  • Did you try to use an airline that is your “selected” airline to be able to use 35% of points back? At least looking in AmEx Travel it doesn’t seem to account for the 35% when showing amount of points needed….

• Any tips on how to get out of the Amex pop-up jail quickly? I want a new card asap as I have some large spending coming in early-April.

• This offer HAS lifetime language.

• I see the offer but I don't spend $15k in a single card and I have no place that sells VGCs and no way to liquidate VGCs anyway.

  • Just buy a fully refundable airline ticket with Delta or United for 15k. Then return it once the points post. That's what I do.

    • Isn't this RATbat for an Amex clawback?

  • Plus Amex doesn’t like gift cards anyway

• I am assuming Amex won't give you the 10X points for buying Visa / Mastercards at Staples or OD.

  • I once had AMEX claw back rewards on a single purchase of $1,000 (two $500 Visa Gift Cards). I know it's only a single data point, but I'd be very gunshy to do it, especially during a SUB.

    • @guest_1559958 was the purchase from a store that reports L3 data to AmEx? Was the total exactly $1,000 plus gift card fees or did you have a filler item?

      • It was a local grocery store, unsure about L3 data. No, the total wasn't exact. I mixed in about $30 worth of actual groceries. Somehow they knew (so I'm guessing they did get L3 data).

        • Thanks so much for sharing the additional information. It does sound like there must have been L3 data transmitted. FWIW, I've never bought more than a single $500 gift card in one transaction, but I doubt that is in any way related, as most people don't spend $500 in a single trip to the grocery store.

  • Have there been reports of Amex not giving points for VGC? I suppose if there are eyes on the account it could be worrisome if there is too much MS purchases. I'll add a note. https://www.doctorofcredit.com/is-it-safe-to-manufacture-spend-to-meet-the-signup-bonus-spend-requirement/

    • I think it depends on whether the store provides L3 data to AmEx. I bought about $3k of grocery store gift cards towards my Biz Plat SUB few months ago and did receive bonus just fine, but the specific grocery store chain (regional) does NOT provide L3 data to AmEx.

• Here is my experience with this card, *which neither P1 or P2 had before*:

  We called in and got the offer for 170K+10K points sent to us by E-mail (with Lifetime language).
  If we logged in before applying, we got the message "Currently our system is not responding".

  If we applied w/o logging in, we both got the message "Based on your history with American Express... ... you are not eligible for this welcome offer".

  We tried the previous 15K+10K link w/o Lifetime Language, which forced us to log in. We then got the message "This offer is no longer available".

  We considered applying with BSN EIN instead of SSN for the still available 170K + 10K offer, hoping that this may avoid the history message. However, that option is not available for Sole Prop (only for Partnerships & Corporations).

  Did anyone try to apply as partnership and enter the EIN even though the company is Sole Prop? The sales rep stated that they usually don't ask for documentation. I am just concerned about any later ramifications if approved.....?

  • Sounds like you are in popup jail

  • That's weird, I just got approved for a 2nd NLL business w/sole prop 170k + 10k offer last week. Previous one was in Nov. Never heard of it being sole prop or not

    • Care to share the link of this offer with NLL? The highest NLL sub I know of is 150K

• I don’t normally believe in Amex RAT traps, but now I am starting to think they are real… 45,000 points isn’t worth it anyway.

• You scared me with 187,5000 bonus points

• I see that the NLL terms is there?? So can't apply if already got itin the past?

• They're really pushing biz plat. I've been legit spammed by this card, like they threw the NLL out the window with this one.

  • Same here. I already have three and they still send me both mailers and emails offering me more Biz Plats.

• Oh interesting. Yeah, it looks to me like a normal offer, just since this is the post-landing page I didn't know if it was maybe somehow targeted or otherwise not a standard offer, so it's good to know that you found it with organic search.