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American Express has modified the terms and conditions of its Delta, Hilton and Starwood co-brand credit cards. The amendment adds an up to 12 weeks clause for rewards posting to your account and is effective November 1, 2017.
Why Has American Express Done This?
American Express has not given a reason why they have brought in the changes. Although speculation points this in the direction that it gives them a little more time to review and inspect spending patterns, to make sure there is no abuse of meeting spend requirements.
Scary Precedent
This has the potential to set a scary precedent; if after some time AMEX thinks that whatever goals they had were successful, there is the chance they may decide to extend the 3-month wait clause to all their cards, and perhaps take it even further where they award points on a delayed basis each month. This would be a severe blow especially if you are trying to rack up some points quickly for a particular redemption.
Overall
Delaying points by up to 12 weeks is a significant announcement — especially if you're looking to rack up points for a short-term award quickly. Only time will tell how this situation develops but hopefully there won’t be more negative changes.
Source: Doctor Of Credit
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This was probably put into place because people were abusing the system.
Now is it 12wks from the time you qual for the bonus or the 3mons? For cards only after you sign up after Nov 1st, right? Clearly something has been happening where they believe they need to do something to prevent abuse of the bonuses. I find companies are putting out rules only after say they start getting a lot of fraud for things and then they’ll require extra steps in such and such matter. We will just never know what occurred. I wonder if something in your credit look will trigger this rather than across the board?
up to 12 weeks after each statement closes the points earned from that statement will post. At this point, we can’t tell if they’re trying to just prevent fraud on signup bonuses or on all spend.
I just got the notice in my SPG Amex statement yesterday. Hopefully it doesn’t actually take 12 weeks from now on for points to post.
Hope it doesn’t typically act like this or it would indeed be a devaluation.
Hoping nobody follows and that its a CYA clause not something they plan on actually enforcing.
Not much logic behind this move.
I wonder if people were redeeming points then, in some order, having charges reversed (for example, returning or cancelling purchases, perhaps those made with point or mile offers) and cancelling the card, leaving a negative point balance, It seems that the one point or mile per dollar for most purchases wouldn’t justify this. I wonder if there is a delay in posting the sign up bonus points/miles also.
How annoying! Hopefully it won’t actually take that long and they are just taking precautions against people complaining.
as you said, a possible scary precedent is being set.
wow 12 weeks??
Amex is pushing customers away. What a bad sign
As long as they offer a great sign up bonus, I’m not concerned.
Also makes Amex less useful as means to keep Hilton points from expiring.
They’re probably just looking to get past the return window of most stores. Still, it’s disappointing that there will be a 3 month lag, makes it much harder for a last minute boost via spending.
Hmm this is scary indeed.
Hopefully we are just overreacting.
12 weeks is entirely too long. People earn rewards so they can use them!
Agreed. Added on to the 90 days to meet the spending requirements , another 12 weeks is a bit long.
Got in JUST before this change. Thank goodness..
There is no “got in before under the wire on this one”; if you hold any of these cards, you’ll be receiving a notice of the changing terms in the mail, any time now.
I say that because I plan to sock drawer this card after the bonus.
The rule goes into effect on 11/1.. I will have my sign up bonus long before then, so for my particular situation I did get in before this change.
Had I signed up post 11/1, this would negatively impact me and my plans for use.
Hopefully other banks don’t follow the same path….
Hopefully this is just to give them extra time for very rare cases and in reality 99.9% will be the same as now.
12 weeks seems really long. If you were just signing up for the bonus, you’d still get this no matter what. Wonder if people were just returning a lot of stuff
Not that terrible. Besides, don’t really care for AMEX anymore considering their once per lifetime deal.
I look at this as a subtle devaluation by Amex!