Consumer complaint received 2020-01-02
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY
State: NY
Product: Credit card or prepaid card
Sub-product: General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems
Sub-issue: Problem with rewards from credit card

Complaint:
My wife and I have cards linked to the same Amercian Express Business Credit card account. My wife is the primary and I am the subordinate card. We were told sometime in the past -- maybe about one year or so ago that American Express was no longer going to allow subordinate card holders to have their own Rewards Membership Points and that all points would be gathered or accrued on the primary. We were further told that we would not loose any points and all points we had would transfer over. Since that time, we have been operating as usual and since we were under the impression we did not have to do anything we did not check our points until XX/XX/XXXX. We trusted American Express and that's when were going to use the points. When we logged on, we saw we only had points for XXXX in the Rewards account and there XXXX points missing that we had earned. When we clicked the points redemption history tab it said no points were redeemed. We could see the points we should have earned, when you checked the history but it wasn't totaled in the account. Nobody we talked to could understand or explain why and said they would file a complaint. We complained about it and got a letter a week later saying all we had to do was check rewards online for our points balance but no other information. This didn't resolve the issue at all and the points were still missing. So we called again on XX/XX/XXXX and complained again to try to escalate it. The person we spoke to said he can see what we see and it made no sense so they would escalate it. We have been waiting since then with no response, so I called today ( XX/XX/XXXX ) and complained again over the phone, that I have not heard anything and there were still no points awarded prior to XX/XX/XXXX. All we had now for points was from XX/XX/XXXX and now XX/XX/XXXX. We were put on hold for several times and in the end we were told that since we were accruing the points in " my subordinate account '' and we did not use them by XX/XX/XXXX we forfeited them. I asked how were were supposed to know this and they said we were issued information in the XXXX statement. When I went back and looked at this statement I saw there was a statement under the amount due saying check page 5 for changes to membership rewards. On page 5 there are 6 different notices and on the bottom one it says they will be cancelling existing additional membership rewards programs held by business card members and would have until XX/XX/XXXX to redeem points. So that's it. Even if I had caught this information on the statement I am now sure I would have questioned it since I had thought we were already operating under my wife 's rewards account. To be honest, I don't have proof I had a conversation with an American Express representative that said over the phone to me that we would not forfeit points. I don't even remember exactly when this conversation took place but I am sure it was long before this XXXX statement. But with regard to the XXXX statement -- I didn't catch this part of the statement. Instead I am constantly sent information from American Express about enrolling in this extra point program or that. A typical mailing will ask you to enroll in 2x or 3x points in a certain area like dining or office supplies or whatever. It's a lot of information and I find it to be overwhelming, the amount of information that would have to read in fine print to understand everything so I don't read them if I think it pertains to this. Page 5 of the XXXX statement I received that notifed me of the forfeiture starts out with exactly the same thing. It say 's Card members can earn 4X points on this and 3x points on that. So I didn't know I was going to loose over XXXX points. I have pleaded with American Express to reconsider and I was told there was no option to recoup this. I find this incredibly deceptive and bad business practice for a company to do this. We pay our bill on time every month. We have been a customer for over 20 years and we would like our points re-instated on my wife 's account like we were told would happen. I don't want to feel like I have been taken advantage of and I believe this is exactly what American Express has done by carefully executing an advertising scheme covering up an important disclosure that would prevent their customers from redeeming hundreds of thousands of points they should have to honor. We are asking for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help us get our points re-instated because we earned them and because American Express used this scheme to have customers like us forfeit their points to benefit their bottom line. Please let me know if you can help. Thanks.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation