Word Of Caution For Mercedes Benz Platinum Cardholders
I wanted to share a word of caution from reader Dave in yesterdays Mercedes Benz post. As most of you know the American Express Mercedes Benz Platinum card is being transitioned into a regular Platinum card in a few days. In the paperwork they sent out to cardholders Amex said you could get a prorated refund if you canceled by January 10th because of the product change. I wondered if this was aimed more at people that have had this card a long time versus most of us who signed up last minute. It appears that is the case.
Data Point
Reader Dave shared that his points were clawed back when he closed his account in December even though the terms in the Amex letter made it seem otherwise. American Express has been cracking down on people closing accounts more and more and that is why we have said to wait till the annual fee posts to do anything. They have also put people into pop up purgatory for closing too many accounts.
So it seems closing your account on January 10th could cause some issues for some people. Especially anyone who has never had a vanilla Platinum before. Because once the change happens that may exclude them for ever getting a welcome offer for the card.
I don’t know what the best play is here. Should those people quickly apply for a regular Platinum? Or should they close down the card and risk the chance of a points clawback? Each person needs to make that decision depending on their own situation. If you decide that you want to grab the regular Platinum card before the change over be sure to see if you are targeted for the 100K offer. Otherwise it may be best to play the referral game.
Conclusion
For me personally I was going to close the card to get some money back but I will keep my wife’s card open now. I will have her try for a retention offer when the annual fee comes up and if she doesn’t get one I will have her downgrade to the Gold card. She has already had the Gold card and the Platinum card so this seems like the best play for us.
I just wanted to make sure to get this info out there in case you didn’t see the comment yesterday.
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I’m going to ride it out and see what happens. I have MB and my spouse has additional card. I applied for vanilla plat in Nov for the 75k bonus. For 3 months I have been enjoying double perks on everything Saks, Airline credits, Uber. I expect if I do nothing my MB card will just cancel since I already have the Vanilla and I expect my Spouse card will convert to the Vanilla Plat. It would be really great if I get an offer to add additional card members to my Vanilia plat before the MB goes away. I did receive an email today for 5k bonus with $250 spend for additional card on my Hilton account.
They have sent out AU offers in the past for the Plat cards so it is possible you get it for one of your cards. I have always resisted those because of the high fees for Plat AU’s
You can just add free gold card AU & still get the AU bonuses. I just did this not even a week ago, points post no problems.
Ah yes forgot about the Gold cards – good tip!
Why would the MB auto-cancel? It’ll be converted to a vanilla plat & you will have two.
I hope so, if that is true it will be great for me as I can continue to collect double monthly perks. I just assume the MB would cancel as it’s not possible to have 2 duplicate active cards. I tried in past to apply for duplicate cards but it’s has alway been denied.
Shouldn’t be an issue if I’ve had the MB Platinum card for over 3 years right? Was planning to drop it for now as there is a lot over overlap on benfits with the Aspire and CSR. Was going to wait awhile to get the standard Platinum but I’ve never had the bonus on it and would like to still be eligible for it.
No there shouldn’t be a clawback if you have had it over one year.
I have had cards that have had huge devaluations like the SPG card. Completely different terms than when we signed up for the card. They still want the full fees!
It is a little dishonest imo to clawback after you discontinue the product but this is the new normal unfortunately.
[…] Amex has said you could get a prorated refund if you canceled your Mercedes Benz Platinum card by January 10th because of the product change. But that doesn’t seem to be a good idea. Read more here. […]
[…] January 8th, 2019: Miles to Memories shares a data point of somebody closing their account and having the Membership Rewards points […]
What a timely post! I was going to cancel it yesterday but thought about it and was going to do it tomorrow. Now, I see this post, and not going to do it now. At the most, I could get back 2-3 months worth of fees, but still not worth getting the 60k clawed back.
Yup same thinking here – not worth the risk. I wanted to get it out ASAP for anyone who was considering doing it. I think I am just gonna leave Amex alone for a some time while they figure their “rules” out.
Did an online chat and canceled my MB Plat. I applied for the card a day or two before it was pulled (April ’18?). Explained that I had the card specifically for the MB benefits and with those benefits going away, I would prefer to cancel my MB card. Told agent that Amex wouldn’t be losing my business, I’ll simply put charges on my other Amex cards.
Amex changed to the card, I didn’t so why would card member be penalized? I haven’t closed an Amex in a while.
They added terms to their cards a little while back that they can essentially punish people who close their cards within the first year. I think they are looking at any possible way to cut costs. You would think those types of decisions would be made logically on a case per case basis but they don’t always do that it seems.
hey mark, not only acct closing but also multiple opening at the same time; lol, amex just informed a fam member that multiple opening is considered a misuse & another excuse for them get away with or deny welcome bonus
any rate, will help fam member to follow up with amex til the end & see what happens
They are going over the top right now. If you have the pop up in place and it doesn’t show up you should be good but they are not even paying attention to that any more. They have become the wild wild west and the least reliable issuer out there almost over night.
They’ll probably clawback your 60k sign up bonus