Anybody here watching this thread on r/churning:
https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/a73lf4/amex_bonus_denial_without_popup_datapoints/
There's also been a lot of discussion on this topic in various Daily Discussion threads too...
AMEX is crazy anymore...
- They have a popup that should tell you if you're not eligible for the bonus
- Sometimes that popup doesn't show up but they still deny people for the bonus
- Sometimes the popup will show up, people will put spend on their cards, the popup will go away, and they are still denied for the bonus
- Sometimes the popup will show up, people will put spend on their cards, the popup will go away, and they receive the bonus
- People aren't sure but it seems this isn't related to self-referring
- People have attempted to appeal to CFPB and it doesn't appear to have a positive result
- Some folks have chatted with AMEX and found out the bonus wasn't tied to their account before hitting the spend
- Others have chatted and been told the bonus details ONLY to be denied later anyways after hitting the spend
The results are VERY inconclusive. The only result you can conclude is that there's a new sheriff in town and that's the AMEX RAT. They will decide whether you get your bonus or not and they may or may not not inform you ahead of time that you will not get the bonus.
I'm not posting this to scare away folks from applying with AMEX. For newer folks who haven't "abused" AMEX yet...you're
probably fine. I honestly am not sure I'm ever going to get another AMEX card unless this pattern changes though. I would be SOOOO angry if I spent $3k or $5k on a crappy card (i.e. something with 1x MR pts) and then get denied the bonus. I'm very interested to hear others' thoughts on this situation (especially those that have been following it)
EDIT: here's some additional discussion from today's DD:
https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/a6yvzk/daily_discussion_thread_december_17_2018/ebzsx3w/