Reports have slowly rolled in this week about clawbacks happening from American Express. Thus far, I believe most of the reported clawbacks have been on purchases that were for amounts believed to be common gift card purchase totals or multiples thereof. While Amex has set some previous precedent on gift card purchase clawbacks, I hadn’t heard widespread reports of issues in quite some time. Unfortunately, it seems like those who have been using moderate to heavy gift card spend to meet bonus spend (whether welcome bonus spend or +5 referral bonus spend) may be losing points (though, to be clear, this isn’t happening to everyone).
According to Miles Earn and Burn and Miles Per Day, the clawbacks seem to be affecting those who made purchases in amounts that suggest buying $500 gift cards at some gas station and grocery chains (including in multiples of $50X.XX, but it is possibly mostly happening to those who also recently closed an Amex card (even if it wasn’t the card used for the purchases). Perhaps closing a card draws some attention to the account.
Personally, I’ve bought some gifts this year and not had any issues, but if you’ve been spending heavily on gift cards you may want to keep your eye out for an email explaining that they have clawed points back. I think there may be some amount of throwing out the baby with the bathwater here where purchases for things other than gift cards have been clawed back in limited instances when the totals seem to match common gift card totals.
Again, while Amex clawbacks aren’t unprecedented, they seemed to have not been widespread for quite some time. Unfortunately, it looks like purchases that seem to be gift cards may once again be on the radar. I always say that it isn’t worth risking a clawback when meeting welcome bonus spend (it’s not worth chancing that you might not get that 100K or 150K points welcome bonus if you have other ways to meet your spend), but I haven’t been aware of issues with moderate gift card purchases outside of spending bonus offers until now. It might be worth varying up your habits if you intend to purchase gift cards on Amex cards (or proceed with caution).
H/T: Doctor of Credit
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what about the OBC cards. I have 3 and have been buying VGC for years on all the cards, plus a couple of $$ like gum, cans of tuna and a Hershey bar. Doing it at drug stors and grocery chains. the cash keeps coming as of 7/24/23
Curious what people think / recommend regarding meeting minimum spend for bonus on Amex Delta card, miles posting to account, and then falling below minimum spend b/c of a return. Here’s what happened:
Thoughts on what I should / shouldn’t do?
I don’t know what card you opened, but let’s suppose the welcome bonus was 70,000 miles and you value those miles at 1.3c per mile. So that’s a $910 bonus. Even if someone here tells you that they think you’ll be find if you don’t replace that $800 in spend, do you want to bet $910 on someone’s opinion?
I’d just spend enough to meet the requirement without question.
For the record, this is why I’m always hesitant to meet minimum spend with purchases of stuff where there’s any chance of return. I’m not saying that I never buy “stuff” when working on minimum spend, just that I am usually prepared with both enough time (clearly you have plenty here!) and technique to meet the spend if I need to return said item.
To finish the thought I started about betting on someone’s opinion: the thing is, even if I were to tell you that Amex never claws back the bonus in that situation, the problem is that you won’t have a leg to stand on if they decide that they’re going to claw it back on you. You can’t say, “Hey, some dude on the Internet said it would be OK not to meet the spend and you wouldn’t claw it back”. Obviously that argument won’t fly — so I’d rather just do the spend so that you don’t have to be looking over your shoulder to make sure they haven’t clawed back the miles yet — or worse yet, you don’t even notice until the day you need to book a flight and you log in and find that you don’t have the miles to book it.
I think your risk is probably low, but given the ease of “fixing” it so you don’t have any risk, I’d replace the spend.
Thanks Nick, that’s what I was thinking, and you’re “some dude on the internet” whose opinion I value and trust! I’ll meet the spend again!
I got emails on both – my wife’s and my account. CC they mentioned in emails didn’t match CC which were hit by clawbacks.
I did downgrade my card (ED+) and cancelled wife’s ED+ card several months ago but those weren’t used for longer than a year.
However, I did hit USB GC purchases in a double amount than usually as I needed to pay some taxes (4-4.5k per Amex Gold CC) and those points were clawed back at the end of the month per the rep I contacted via chat.
Unfortunatelly, i cannot see anywhere that our points were really clawed back as there are no deductions visible on our points summaries.
We’ll see what will happen in July when I return back to $2k/month.
Since Amex gets the same interchange fee on gift card purchases, they have no legitimate interest in blocking points on gift card purchases. I’m not prepared to permit a credit card issuer to dictate my purchases. My family will be cancelling all our Amex cards.
There are increased costs due to high fraud.
You go ahead and do just that.
While I admire the conviction and this seems noble, it’s really idealistic and ultimately any bank can choose to stop doing business with anyone, unfortunately.
The cat’s out of the bag – banks track everything you do.
post images of all your cancellations.
The big question is about the terms and conditions from Amex. Much like the airline incidental $200 allowance for Platinum, does it specifically state in the terms that the welcome offers cannot be used for gift cards. If yes, then one would have difficulty arguing with a clawback. If not, then the customer has grounds to complain and would be right. It is also not worth being blacklisted or monitored with the program in addition to not obtaining the welcome bonus if the former.
The Terms and Conditions for the Platinum do state that gift cards do not count toward the bonus spend requirement. (Whether they mean to include third party retail gift cards is unclear.)
It then depends on how it is billed. It is much the same if a purchase of points is done through a third party (e.g. points.com) or directly.
A couple of years ago I signed a contract with Home Depot for some new windows. When the rose gold card had an extra 5 points back for home improvement stores I made some $1k payments. The points were awarded and then two months later the points were clawed back because they thought these purchases were suspicious. After much effort and time on the phone I convinced them I had not purchased a single gift card and I got the points back. It was a very frustrating experience.
[…] back发生（HT: DoC, FM）。受影响的人主要是购买 Gift Cards (GC) 金额 $505.95 […]
Always avoid 50X.XX. buy together with regular groceries.
I’ve been buying a moderate amount of GC’s lately, but almost all have been 3rd party (My favorite gas station, Amazon, etc). One time a couple months ago I bought a VGC, but less than $500 and always with normal grocery shopping. So far, no issues.
Same I don’t have issues mixing gc in, this I’m assuming is more directed at the people doing gift card runs at staples to meet the spend. They post all over online about it then throw a fit when it catches up.
Do they crawl back cashback? What if the cashback is already used? Should get sued for first giving it (should be blocking it before giving) and making customers think it’s allowed then taking it back.
I think to say that it shows you are not a fan of reading the terms and conditions.
Just checked and so far so good, we’ve been mixing in a lot of HAL and Carnival gift cards with regular grocery spend to pay for excursions and room upgrades alongside the “free” cruise offers. Crossing fingers nothing comes up. This was on BCP which was getting a nice 11% with the base +5% referral offer.
How would they even know? Do they get itemized transactions from grocery stores, or just your total charge?
after some research some of their corporate cards provide level 3 reciepts, which you can google. I think it’s mainly for Corporate cards, but no one is being clear if it’s for personal too.
As mentioned some stores have level 3 data, I’ve never looked into it in depth. I’m not too worried since these were all with other groceries and totals were all over the place (sometimes $300, sometimes two at once with $700 – $900 total). And no VGC which seem to draw more attention. Just a little nervous since it is the most I’ve done in gift cards on an offer.
Darn. I have +5 at grocery on my gold and have been adding gift cards to my regular shopping trips. So far no email from Amex.
How do you know if AMEX clawed back MR points? Do they send you an email, or is it on you to notice a negative transaction in the activity log? Also, what is the typical time lag between the charge and the clawback?
Read the Miles and Burn link. A lot of good info in there.
And AMEX will email you it seems.
As Daniel says, they have been sending an email. Sounds like the email has been after the June statement cuts.
Oh that’s fun. My June statement closes in 2 days.