Back in January, American Express dropped a bombshell on most people in the manufactured spending community by terminating most people’s ability to load money on to their Serve (and Bluebird) cards. Note that they did not SHUT DOWN the accounts, but instead restricted the ability to load money ONTO the card. Since that is what most people in the travel hacking world were using it for, it did essentially kill it for those people. Once nice feature was that at least the money that was already IN the Serve account was still accessible.
My Serve account escaped the shutdown
My account was one of the accounts that escaped the bloodbath. At the time, I did not know why my account was spared when the accounts of most people (80-90% by my estimation) were hamstrung. We looked for some patterns, but as far as I could tell, there was no real pattern that we could determine. The two factors that seemed most interesting to me was that I was not a HEAVY loader ($5,000 every month every time) and my account was fairly new (opened in November 2015).
Ongoing Serve and Bluebird shutdowns?
One question that remained unanswered at the time was whether the shutdowns were a one-time thing, or whether American Express would be continually shutting down people’s accounts. Now we can know at least one data point. Here’s some of the text from the email I just received (bolding mine)
We are writing to let you know that we have observed unusual usage patterns on your American Express Serve Account. Because of this, effective immediately, you will no longer be able to add money to your Account.1 We have made this change in accordance with Section 15.d of our Consumer User Agreement, which you can view here.
Please be aware that you still have full access to the funds on your Account and can withdraw them at any time. Any applicable monthly fees continue to apply.
Here’s a screen shot.
So that’s at least one data point to know that ongoing accounts ARE still being monitored, and Serve and Bluebird are probably just as dead as we all feared. I know some people had opened up new accounts after the January shutdown, and so it looks like if you’re trying to load money to Serve for MS, that looks like it will be unproductive.
Other folks are covering this as well – Frequent Miler, Travel with Grant, Doctor of Credit, and Miles to Memories
Anyone else get this email from American Express today?
This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them
User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.
Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Yep – me too just this morning – shut down my BB. Looks like Round 2!
I received this dreaded email today as well after surviving the January cuts. I didn’t change any of my previous usage pattern since last year and never withdrew funds, so I’m not sure what changed in their eyes. It may be one step closer to discontinuing the product.
Could be. It may be too that they have a few things that they are looking for and it takes a while to make sure we fit the “pattern”
From reading comments elsewhere, it looks like the net was cast much wider this time. Mostly very obvious cases were filtered out last time, now many people who do moderate loads and try to have some legitimate spend are also getting axed.
My guess is Amex will shut down the whole department by years end. In my talks with WM cashiers, they rarely if ever see people actually use this card (legitimate customers). Most prefer visa/MC type prepaids.
My only serve account is shut down this morning.
My Bluebird was shut down today… 🙁
I got my Serve card in November, loaded it with my SPG card online a few times and haven’t touched it since the turn of the year. Just got the email. WTF? I mean, the Wal-Mart near my house is useless, so it’s no big loss, but it seems like they’re just indiscriminately shutting folks down now.
This wave of shutdown is applied to those cards applied after Nov 2015. The cards applied after Jan 2016 would be safe.
Sorry to hear about your account. I think it is mostly when you opened Serve/Bluebird that determines who survives. They got me in January but my mom’s Serve account survived this time probably because it has only been open for a month.
Patti – it sure looks that way doesn’t it? I would expect my wife’s account to be shut down in a few months if we use it for MS
My sympathies Dan on your loss. Small consolation, at least now you won’t be sincerely fretting over survivor’s guilt. 😉
Noticed above you mentioned you knew of folks opening new BB/Serve accounts since Jan. By chance were they victims of the first culling who went back for more? (say after waiting a month?) Or were these new Bird flyers.? (serious question, as I’m tempted…. to try something)
fyi, you may have seen more obscure accounts from some (e.g. “club thrifty”) suggesting that they had (thus far) escaped the shut downs by not using their BB/Serve accounts to pay credit card bills (and thus avoided appearance of ms). (they did load with “gift” cards and paid mortgages, etc)
I don’t know anyone specifically / personally that did that, though I read in various forums that people were going to try opening up new accounts after theirs got shutdown in January. It doesn’t hurt to try and if you do, drop me a note with what happens!