Consumer complaint received 2023-12-28
Product: Credit card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Advertising and marketing, including promotional offers — Confusing or misleading advertising about the credit card
Company: AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY (CA)

In XX/XX/, I had gotten approved for the American Express Delta Card. I had been receiving countless advertisements in email getting me to apply. I finally gave in. I have a good FICO standing and I've never taken advantage of Amex 's promotional offers so i thought why not, surely i would be approved and if not, they would let me know. When i applied online, all i recall was a note asking me if i give approval to submit my SSN info and let Amex run my credit check. I said yes. 
I get an email that i was approved for my card so naturally I assumed that also meant that the promotional offer of 75K points with Delta would be a part of this approval. 
I later even went the extent of cancelling a charge and charging it on my Amex to meet the requirements ( spend X amount in 3 months ) I had gone through quite a bit of trouble to do this. After 6 weeks or so, I called Amex customer service asking about the ETA of my miles/points. They told me that it will be coming soon. I subsequently followed up a few more times and i was told the same, that it was coming soon, that it could take up to 12 weeks. So i waited patiently. I had no reason to doubt i was getting it because even their own customer service did not see that i was not approved. Then finally after 12 weeks had passed, i called again, they escalated the matter only to find out that i was not approved. This was after 5+ attempts and someone during that time could have told me. 
I was trying to find answers but no one wanted to give me any info until a manager in XXXX XXXX told me that it was because I had applied for the blue cash card when they had a {$200.00} cash promotion ( which i didn't even meet so i didn't get that cash ). I asked why that would be an issue? It was a card that I didn't receive promotion on, it was a card that was a few years ago, it was an entirely different card. I later expressed that they're offering this marketing promotion which naturally attract ppl to apply and there's no secret that ppl would want this bonus. Wasn't the whole point of it to get ppl to apply? If i wasn't approved, then they should have sent an email stating it very clearly that i was not approved for the bonus/promotion. But there was NONE of that. I got a misleading " you've been approved ''. It's shady advertisement. For a company as large as Amex, i was shocked that they couldn't honor this promotion given the situation. I had met the spend within the time and I've never had the card, I'm in good Fico standing. If they look at the cost benefit of just offering a promotion that they were going to give away anyway to keep a customer happy was the least thing they could have done. But i spoke to countless folks at Amex, i was not able to speak to anyone who was in the right dept. I kept getting routed to someone who had no authority over anything. I was in a loop that was not productive and it was a frustrating process. I even ran into a supervisor that was RUDE and cynical and unhelpful. Because of this, I cancelled my Amex Delta card, i even moved some of my savings out of Amex Savings. I was deeply disappointed by the service at Amex, thoroughly disappointed that one of the largest financial institutions would be so stingy and unfair.