Consumer complaint received 2022-12-31
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: FL
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Other problem

Complaint:
I booked XXXX round trip flights through American Express XXXX on XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX. At the time we were making other flight bookings to get the travel dates that worked best for us while trying to get a lower price. I was booking some flights for a trip to XXXX and my wife was doing this as well. It wasn't until we got close to the trip, on XX/XX/XXXX, that I got a notification about the particular trip that I am writing about. It was at this point that I became aware that we hadn't cancelled that booking within the original XXXX hour window from the original booking date because I never received the ticket confirmation. I realized that it was sent to my old company email address which I had been using until XX/XX/XXXX when I sold the company. I forgot to update Amex with a new email address, so I never received the confirmation. I reached out to American Express about the cancellation policy and was told that we could cancel and that there would be an airline credit that could be used according to the airlines policy. The total for all XXXX tickets is {$6600.00}. When I went into my American Express XXXX account, it showed total credits of {$6600.00}, of which {$1300.00} per ticket for XXXX of my family members and {$1200.00} for my youngest child that was valid through XX/XX/XXXX, which was XXXX years from the original date of purchase. 

In XXXX of XXXX I went to try to use the credits and found out from American Express that they were no longer valid and that I only had 1 year from the original date of purchase. It was at this point that I was told by American Express that the only thing I could do it reach out to the airline to see if they would extend the period of use of the credit. I did reach out to them, and after about XXXX weeks, I received an email from XXXX XXXX that they would not extend the time for which we could use the credit. It was then that I reached out to American Express to see if they would do anything since it was still showing on their travel website that the credit was good until XX/XX/XXXX. Through multiple conversations and emails, which included photos of their website showing the expiration date of the credit of XX/XX/XXXX, they said that they would give me a {$500.00} XXXX  credit back on my credit card. 

I understand that American Express is beholden to the airline credit policy, but someone at American Express messed up and put the wrong expiration date in their website. If they would have had the correct date, I would have known that I needed to use the credits earlier and made a booking to use them up. We wouldn't want to let {$6600.00} be wasted, so it was important that Amex had the correct expiration date on their website for the credits. 

In the end, I took the {$500.00} credit from Amex on XX/XX/XXXX, because that is all they would do. even after I talked with supervisors and explained the situation and how we got to where we were. It didn't matter. I'm not saying that it is all of their fault. I should have updated my email address. They should have put the correct expiration date in their website so that I could have planned accordingly. It would have been nice if they met me half way and offered to give me a credit of {$3300.00}.

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief