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There is nothing I like more than receiving free money. And since I equate airline miles and hotel points with money (though of course some are worth more than others…), getting free miles and points!
I use Award Wallet to track my miles and points balances, and the other day, I noticed that my wife had 50,000 extra American Express Membership Rewards. I was confused to know where those had come from.
One of her first cards that she had signed up for was a targeted offer for 50,000 Membership Rewards point when spending $1,000 in the first 3 months. This was about a year ago and I was not as good at tracking my spending, and I missed the deadline (by ONE DAY!).
So I did not receive the bonus. I tried for months to talk with American Express to try and get it. I thought that there was somewhat of a valid argument, depending on the definition of the date that we received the bonus. This was somewhat complicated by the fact that the card was in Carolyn’s name, so I was limited to chatting. I would actually get the chat representative to agree with me that the bonus was deserved, but then somehow it would be overruled. There may actually have been a phone call with me talking in falsetto pretending to be her 😀
The disagreement
So to me it boiled down to when my account started. I applied for the card on June 14 but didn’t actually get an approval notice until June 15, and didn’t actually receive the card until a week or so later. I completed my $1000 in spending on September 15, but my argument was how could my 3 months to spend on the card start until I actually received the card? It was kind of a weak argument but I thought it was worth a shot.
In the end, like I said, despite multiple chats and a few calls, I never was able to get the points.
I gave it my best shot, because I’ve had pretty good success with companies giving in “just this once” on things like this. But in the end, I just chalked it up to a rookie mistake for not meeting the (very minimal) spending requirements earlier. In the end, it shouldn’t have even come down to the definition of 3 months.
One year later
So one year later, as we were going through our cards and figuring out which ones we wanted to pay the annual fees on, I logged into Award Wallet, only to find:
Wait, what? Indeed, when I logged on to the American Express account, the 50,000 points had posted. I assume those are the original points, but I am not sure why it took a year to post. Maybe it was something involving her anniversary, or maybe it took months and months to be reviewed by senior management.
In any case, I am not complaining, nor am I violating the #1 rule of travel hacking (DO. NOT. CALL. EVER)
Since I value Membership Rewards points at nearly 2c each, this was like nearly a surprise $1000 – so to say I was pleased would be quite the understatement!
What about you? Have you ever gotten a bonus you weren’t expecting?
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Wow. That’s incredible! Really happy that worked out for you! Kudos to Amex for making the right decision as well!
I also believe it isn’t fair not to know when your 90 days starts and ends. I was not approved instantly so I found out about two weeks later. I was told three different dates and then was told that it could not be revealed to me. I waited about a week, and ask through a secure message and now I have it on record. Why does the dates have to be such a secret?
Totally agree. It should be in bold print on your My Account page!