Have all your Amex Gold bonus spend been posting correctly? Mine haven’t been. So if you haven’t done so already, check your Amex Gold bonus activity.
The Amex Gold Card is THE card of 2018 and is one of my most used cards today. But being an update of an existing product, there were bound to be some issues. And, lately, those issues have been manifesting as incorrect points posting.
Bonus Points Inconcistencies
Stupidly, I hadn’t thought to check my points activity until reader Jeremy asked the question on my 2019 credit card strategy post. I figured, Amex has never had an error before, so everything should be ok, but I’ve never had a brand new card product with them before, either. So I went to check, and lo and behold, I’m being shorted quite a few points!
The worst infractions were Atelier Crenn (should’ve been 1,344 points) and The Rich Table (should’ve been 640 points). But there were other affected transactions scattered over the past three months too. In fact, Kona Coffee Purveyors shows two transactions in October that coded as 1x points, while another in December coded as 4x points. So, clearly, something is wrong with Amex’s system.
Addressing the Issue
Once I found out I’d been shorted, I jumped on a chat with Amex. I gave them a list of all the merchants that should have earned the bonus but didn’t, and the rep said he’d forward it off to the rewards department. So, for now, I need to sit tight until I hear back from them on the matter.
For what it’s worth, the rep did say that the issue is indeed because of the “new” product. Amex knows this is an issue too and is working on it, which is great. I only wish that they’d let cardholders know to keep tabs on their activity, though I understand why they’d keep quiet too.
Check Your Amex Gold Bonus Activity, Final Thoughts
By my (poor) math, I’m missing just under 2,900 points. That’s not a lot of points, but every little bit counts! So I’m crossing my fingers all of them do come my way in the near future and that the issue won’t repeating itself. For now, though, I’ll keep an extra close eye on my activity and will let Amex know immediately when there’s a discrepancy. And I’ll let you guys know how things turn out when I hear back from them.
So, have any of you experienced this issue as well?
There was a post about this by Nick Reyes a while ago. I’ve noticed it on my Gold too. I chatted with Amex about this, and got 4x points credited but it took a couple of weeks, and I received a phone call from Amex to let me know they would issue the points to my account. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fix that restaurant in their system, only for my account. Meaning that my spouse has to contact Amex separately for the same restaurant if he uses his Gold at that restaurant. I’m also noticing this problem with my new Amex Business Gold.
I have yet to hear back from them or see my missing points show up. I’ll probably give them a couple more weeks before I reach out to them again. But, I noticed that at least one of the merchants in questions is now earning 4x points as it should be.
Freq Miler did note this a few months ago and I had noticed this as well. I have the old Gold personal card and I noticed this almost from the get go (about ~1 year ago). Well established restaurants do post, but it seems like small or new places is a hit or miss. I also notices that some places that didn’t post a year back, are now posting. Actually, I found Nobu posting to be a surprise. In other words, nothing is guaranteed….
yes, keep your eye out ;-]
Interesting! I wonder why this is the case? Never had an issue with Chase cards! Or the EveryDay Preferred, though that card was quite a bit simpler.
Yeah it’s definitely annoying to have to keep doing this.
I know that as soon as I see the Square reader, I make sure to put away my Amex Gold card and use my CSR. It’s hard for those restaurants that don’t show you their system so you don’t know if they’re using Square.
Huh, never really noticed that correlation! I’ll need to try to better monitor that.