One of the most frustrating things about American Express is they make you jump through hoops to claim the statement credits they post to your account. They usually have unclear rules about what qualifies, like with their airline fee reimbursement credit or by paying the credit in such a way that you have to use it up every month or lose it.
I’ve long felt that AMEX statement credits aren’t worth face value because of the difficulty in taking full advantage of them. Credits for UBER, incidental airline fees, or Saks’s Fifth Avenue all took extra work to use and it just wasn’t worth the trouble anymore.
So when I read that American Express was making some significant moves to keep their cards competitive in this new marketplace, I was hoping they’d be offering annual fee credits or increasing bonus categories. Nope, they went with their monthly credit scheme, hoping customers take advantage of these benefits as little as possible.
Here are the benefits that AMEX is providing monthly:
Personal Platinum Card
- $20 per month on select streaming services (May through December 2020)
- $20 per month on wireless telephone services (May through December 2020)
Business Platinum Card
- $20 per month on wireless telephone services (May through December 2020)
- $20 per month on U.S. purchases for shipping (May through December 2020)
Personal Green Card
- $10 per month on wireless telephone services (May through December 2020)
Wireless Service Credit
I don’t know about you, but I pay more than $20 on my wireless telephone service per month, even with T-Mobile cutting my bill by 50%. I currently pay this bill with my Chase Ink Preferred which provides up to $600 of insurance coverage as long as I keep paying the monthly bill with the card.
Is it worth a $10/$20 monthly credit to lose insurance coverage on both of our phones? I don’t think so.
Sure, I could just pay $20 of my bill with the AMEX but would that invalidate my coverage from Chase, which says I need to pay my monthly bill with the card? Do I want to take that chance to find out?
Shipping Credit
If you’re a business that does any shipping, the $20 per month credit seems like it could be easy to use. Otherwise, I guess you could just go and buy $20 in stamps from the USPS and put that money to some good use.
Streaming Service Credit
When it comes to the streaming service credit with the Platinum Cards, I don’t have one of those cards anymore. If I did, I’d be pretty upset. You see, I pre-paid for three years of Disney Plus, so I have no monthly charges. I pay for Spotify but that’s only $10 a month. Amazon Prime Video comes for free with my Prime membership. The only other way to take advantage of the benefit would be to sign up for a monthly plan with a new service.
And then I’m right back where I was with the AMEX monthly credits. I’d have to spend money I wasn’t planning on just to be able to take advantage of the credit.
I’m glad to see some of the other moves AMEX made with their cards, in particular with the higher end Marriott and Hilton products, which I’ll cover in another post.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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