Consumer complaint received 2024-02-28
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Didn't receive advertised or promotional terms
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY (NM)

To whom it may concern : I signed up for the Amex XXXX XXXX card on XX/XX/XXXX. The welcome bonus for the card required spending {$10000.00} over 3 months to receive a bonus of XXXX Membership Rewards points. I confirmed via Amex XXXX that the due date to complete the spending requirement was by end of day XX/XX/XXXX. I completed this spending requirement but did not receive the welcome bonus. 

When I contacted Amex via XXXX regarding the bonus, the agent stated that IRS tax payments do not count. This is the specific message sent by the chat agent : " I appreciate your patience. 
I've checked your account and see that as a welcome bonus offer, you can earn XXXX Membership Rewards points after {$10000.00} or more eligible purchases are made on the card within the first 3 months of XXXX XXXX. 
Please note that Eligible purchases are purchases for goods and services minus returns and other credits. 
Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, balance transfers, cash advances, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, or purchases of other cash equivalents. 
I can see that you've a charge made to US TREASURY TAX PAYMENT which is not an eligible charge for welcome bonus. '' However, I have done research and the tax payment DOES count for welcome bonus spending as it is NOT a cash equivalent, it is a bill. The chat agent would not help me anymore so I called in a few days later to speak to a phone agent. 

The phone agent gave me completely different information ; they claimed that the tax payment DID count but the problem was a payment I made to a contractor ( XXXX XXXX XXXX ) which was processed via XXXX. This was a purchase of Goods & Services, it was payment for construction of a block wall. The payment was made on XX/XX/XXXX for the amount of {$4500.00} to XXXX XXXX XXXX. 

This agent also could not help me any further so I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor said they could see that the payment via XXXX was for Goods & Services- they could see that it was not a person-to-person payment ( which incurs no fees ). In fact, when you pay via XXXX for Goods & Services there is a XXXX % fee which was around {$130.00} and the supervisor acknowledged that they could see that level of transaction data. They then claimed that this payment to a business for Goods & Services did not count for the welcome bonus spending, even though it was clearly a purchase. 

I went over the Terms of Service for the XXXX XXXX  card and there is no mention in any of the contract that I received from Amex which states that payments made for Goods & Services do not count towards the welcome bonus ; on the contrary, as the chat agent stated, the only transactions which do not count are for cash equivalents. As this is clearly not a cash equivalent this is a payment for XXXX XXXX XXXX, which the phone supervisor acknowledged, then this payment should count towards the spending requirement for the welcome bonus.