While I was doing some research on my account pages for the post about how to check your Amex Everyday Preferred bonus limits, I was on my Membership Rewards account summary page, and I noticed the following information about forfeited points.
Wait, what? Forfeited points?
Why American Express gives you forfeited points
Selecting the help text, you get the following message from American Express about forfeited points
If the amount due on any linked account is not paid in full within one month of the closing date of your Charge Card billing statement, points accrued in the program for that linked account for that month may be forfeited.
fds
The detail on my 11,436 forfeited points
So I checked on the details of my forfeited points
That’s from way back when my account was opened. One of the very first things that I generally do whenever I do a credit card churn or otherwise open up a new credit card is put the card on autopay, but if I’m dusting off my memory banks from a year and a half ago, I believe there was some sort of problem with the autopay – either it didn’t get set up right, or in some other way the payment didn’t get paid on time and apparently American Express forfeited those points (and I didn’t notice until now!). And of course since the card was new, I was putting a lot of spending on the card to meet the minimum spending requirements!
It’s actually a good thing that I noticed now, because forfeited points can only be reinstated if you do so within 24 months from when they were forfeited, and we’re coming up on that deadline!
To reinstate forfeited American Express Membership Rewards, you have to pay a $35 fee per month per card that has forfeited points. Looking at the balances, it probably does make sense to pay the $35 fee for the 11,346 points from July 2014, but probably not for the 90 forfeited American Express points
What do you think? Is it worth the $35 fee to reinstate the points? Have you ever had to deal with forfeited points?
FOLLOWUP: Getting (most of) my 11,436 forfeited Membership Rewards back!
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Wow. This is the first I’ve heard of this. Thanks for the post.
The EveryDay card isn’t a charge card?
I goofed on an Amex payment a few years ago and forfeited something like 9,000 points. At the time I paid the fee to restore the points because I the points put me just over the total I needed to transfer to Delta to complete an international award ticket. Was flying infrequently at the time so if I hadn’t had the immediate travel goal I probably would have let the points go away.
Yeah as far as I know Amex is the only company that takes such a hard line on it.
I understand why AMEX is so hard core at times but they have very unfriendly customer service on this front. They won’t give you the points right away until you make payments. They do everything they can to take points away. I’ve never been late paying AMEX but this sort of stuff just turns me off and I prefer to take my business to other products because of this sort of stuff.
Ask them to waive the fee as a one time courtesy while mentioning you are now on autopay and it will not happen again. Worked for me.
Yeah – I did – that’s my normal operating procedure. 🙂 I’ll have a followup in a day or two with how that went.
Don’t know how you missed that a bill for so dang much did not get paid! I bet you will be more careful in the future! I am glad you can get the points back though as that is what I would do. That is too many points to walk away from for $35.
Yeah – I can’t remember what happened either. I would have paid the $35 but thankfully I didn’t have to – see Getting (most of) my 11,436 forfeited Membership Rewards back!