Update 9/1/19: The new bill payment due date and transfer rules are now in place.
American Express is sending out a list of changes to the Membership Rewards program; you’ll see these on your upcoming credit card statements. We wrote yesterday about the biggest change which gives 4x rewards on the Gold card at international restaurants. There are a bunch of other changes, some of them a bit interesting. Here’s the list of seven changes (in my own words) with my commentary in the bullet points below.
- Effective immediately, employee cards can not have their own Membership Rewards account; their rewards will have to pool with the primary cardholder.
- I never even knew this was a thing.
- This is presumably only the case for OPEN small business cards. Corporate cards can probably still have the points go to the employee.
- Starting June 6, the Gold card gets 4x internationally.
- Starting June 6, the Blue for Students Card will no longer earn Membership Rewards Points.
- (shrugs)
- Starting September 1, Effective September 1, 2019, you must pay your bill by the payment due date (instead of the closing date of the next billing period). If you don’t, you’ll forfeit any Membership Rewards Points earned that period.
- I vaguely recall reading something about how on Amex business cards you don’t really need to pay by the payment due date. Anyway, it seems starting September you do. I think most of us pay by the due date anyway, so no big deal.
- The more surprising thing to me is that non-payment results in forfeiting the points. I don’t recall ever seeing that late payments forfeiting point. Something seems odd here.
- Starting September 1, in order to link an authorized user’s frequent flyer account to the primary cardholder’s Membership Rewards account, the authorized user card will need to wait 90 days from issuance.
- Sounds like they are fighting the selling of miles. Apparently, some people just add their acquaintance/buyer as an authorized user in order to facilitate the sale. Starting September that will be much more difficult due to the 90 day wait. This is a real negative change which affects even people who are not selling miles – be sure to always have your cards set up for transfers well in advance.
- Starting September 28, Membership Rewards accounts held by employee cards which are held separately from the primary cardholder will be discontinued. Going forward, all points earned will pool together with the primary cardholders points earnings.
- See (1), above.
- Starting October 31, Amex is deleting mention of employee cards having separate Membership Rewards earnings.
- See (1) and (6), above.
Thanks again goes to Travelwithgrant for tipping us off to these. You can view full images of the Membership Rewards program changes in Grant’s post here. Here’s the quick view:
View Comments (42)
"Starting September 1, Effective September 1, 2019, you must pay your bill by the payment due date (instead of the closing date of the next billing period). If you don’t, you’ll forfeit any Membership Rewards Points earned that period."
This might also convince people to pay their annual fee, if they don't AmEx might forfeit points earned that month since the annual fee appears on the statement with a payment associated to a due date.
Forfeiting points was a thing on the Platinum card if you didn’t pay on time. Now I guess it is included for the Gold Card. It does make sense especially as these are charge cards
so it's a charge card thing? credit card is not included? according to https://www.americanexpress.com/us/customer-service/faq.membership-rewards-points-forfeiture.html, you only have to pay minimum payment on CC.
For #4, is it minimum payment or the total payment?
I will be affected by #1, as I'm only a lowly employee in a small firm that has a business account. Any ideas on strategies to not have all my spending points go to someone else?
Are you paying the bill with your own personal funds? If not, they're not actually _your_ points, are they?
Got an email today saying boxed.com was being added as one of the $10 per month credits
For #5, does the AU FF accounts need to be linked for 90 days before transferring, or does just the AU need to be added to your account for 90 days, and then you could transfer to their FF accounts on the fly?
My understanding is the latter.
Thx for at least including point 3 about Blue for student's not earning MR's anymore. Still had one from way back (oldest account on my credit report, sock drawered). Just changed it over to an AMEX everyday. Wouldn't have spotted this without you mentioning it. So thanks again!
Number 5 really sucks, as I've added accounts on the fly, specially during bonus times. Now I'm going to have to preemptively add all in case i want to transfer to them
Well that sucks about the Blue for Students card. I have had that card for 14 years....
I received a notice they were converting mine to a regular Blue account, don't know if everyone can expect it
confirmed!! got the same notice
@chucksithe @will I see on my last statement it says "Effective June 6, 2019, the name of your card will change to Blue from American Express"
I spoke to a chat rep. According to them, the card name is changing and NOTHING else. It will still earn MR. So when they say Blue for Students wont earn MR anymore, that is probably because there is no such card anymore after June 5th
Can confirm that late payments have forfeited points for awhile though you can pay a fee to have them reinstated. It applies to at least some cobranded cards too. I missed a Hilton payment last year and forfeited 44k points (and then paid ~$35 to reinstate them).