Questions and Answers

I signed up for the Amex SPG reward card during the 35,000 sign up bonus. i quickly spent enough to earn the initial 25,000 bonus, but still a month later it hasn’t posted. I’ve chatted with customer service several times, and they say there is a glitch in the sytem that was causing a delay. Two days ago they “escalated” the ticket to a higher tier support, and when I called today, they said another “glitch” had cancelled the ticket. Needless to say it is not comforting to hear a credit card company talk about glitch after glitch. To top it off, as part of their “help” they encouraged me to sign up for an additional bonus by getting an additional card. Is anyone else having trouble with the spending bonuses posting on Amex? Bonuses I earned on several chase cards posted right after the closing, with no problems at all. This is the first time I have gotten and amex card, and am wondering if this is par for the course with them.

It’s been awhile since I got a new Amex card but no, I’ve not had the issue you’re describing. Keep after them, politely, and keep us posted on how it plays out.

The update on this is that I am still waiting for a resolution. I was told by a customer service rep this morning via chat that this is a “known issue, and we have a dedicated department working on this issue” and that the issue should be resolved shortly, but he couldn’t say whether “shortly” was a day, a week or a month. On Monday I had talked with a CSR by phone and he assured me he would call back within 24 hours with further information, but I never heard back. Needless to say I am underwhelmed with their customer support, and also concerned that this is such a difficult issue for them to resolve. This is my first ever AMEX card, and I am certainly in no rush to get another at this point!

The delay in awarding bonus miles was finally resolved this morning, but it took posting on twitter to get the problem resolved. After another futile call with customer service, i found the amex and spg twitter handles, and made a post (nice, non-confrotational) expressing concerns that it was taking so long. i got a quick response from askamex basically regurgitating the “its a known issue we are working on it” info. I then retweeted that response to a few travel blogs like OMAAT, and was instantly contacted by a social media rep who initiated a private chat, took all the information, and asked for 48 hours to resolve the problem. She specifically told my my issue was being escalated because I had reached out on twitter. I checked my account this morning and the points had shown up, and shortly after i got a tweet from the social media rep letting me know the issue had been resolved. So if all else fails, post a polite, but appropriate tweet (not a rant like some others have popularized), and the chances are it will get their attention. Bottom line though, I now have 35,000 more points in my account!