Amex recently sent out this lucrative offer for Platinum charge card holders few weeks ago and the good thing about this offer is that its valid till 31st Dec 2021. So you’ve a whole year to make sue of it.
Offer Details
| Offer | Spend Rs.1,00,000 or more with Platinum Travel & Lifestyle Services and enjoy Taj vouchers worth Rs.30,000 |
| Offer period | Valid until 18 June 2021 for travel and stays until 31 December 2021 |
| T&C | One travel booking (not useful fr multi trips) |
| Fulfilment | Within 60 days of the completion of the entire journey |
With 30% return on spend, it’s definitely a nice offer and is in par with the HDFC super premium cards that gives 33% back as points. Further, the offer is valid for travel till Dec 2021 which is great.
But well, I hardly do revenue stay as they’re taken care by points almost all the time since past couple of years. I’m sure same is the case with most CardExpert’s here.
So this offer is of no use to most of us!
But two of my friends are getting married. So I thought of letting them use this offer through supplementary card to book their honeymoon trips.
But unfortunately their honeymoon spends too are below 1L and if it crosses 1L, it will be in multiple trips, which is not allowed with this offer.
What it means is: the expected spend doesn’t suit most people for a single domestic travel.
Final Thoughts
This offer is basically a replacement for the international travel spend offer which Amex used to have on Plat & centurion for a while.
While it’s a good offer when it comes to return on spend, the spend requirement is quite high. I feel 50,000 INR could have been reasonable (for plat charge users), but 1L is too much for domestic.
You wont be able to spend that much unless you fly with family to Andaman or intend to stay in palaces.
Of-course there will be some takers for this offer, but I’m sure that number would be too low.
What’s your thoughts on this Amex Travel offer? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
One more catch here is that you have to spend the money through their Platinum Travel & Lifestyle Services where I am not sure whether you would get back the money in case you have to cancel the trip. Sounds a bit unrealistic because AMEX is known for their reliability. But I am telling from my personal experience. I am a Platinum Charge Card holder for two years and Amex Platinum travel car holder for 5+ years. I booked domestic air tickets for my family last year through AMEX. The flight got cancelled during lockdown and Indigo issued me a credit shell. Everything was fine until 10 days ago when I wanted to use my credit shell for my next booking. First I realized that the Credit has to be used through Amex Travel Services only as the earlier booking was through them. Then when I followed up they could not locate my trip!! I followed up Amex Platinum Charge CC almost everyday after that but they washed off their hands saying that domestic travel booking is not really owned by AMEX. My 15K + money is under water and the hope is slim that I will be able recover it as everytime a different CC person picks up a call and gives a different ETA and tells a different process. I have spent more than four-five hours cumulative in explaining issue to a customer care person and connecting to right person and another … If possible save yourself from a nightmare.
If you have any doubt, this story is genuine and I can share snapshot of my conversations with them over mail if you need a proof.
Attempted for a chargeback by any chance?
Thats a really good suggestion Siddharth. But unfortunately it’s almost a year old transaction and dispute is with AMEX itself, so I thought of taking that as the last resort. They have filed a complaint on themselves with an option to escalate this to banking ombudsman after a month. So I am waiting on the resolution. But one thing I learnt during this experience is that their customer service is not knowledgeable and except a few people nobody wants to show any ownership and is always eager to connect the call to another person.
Amex travel services uses cleartrip as their backend , if you have the old tickets, the trip id or the PNR should help them locate the cancelled booking, my experience was fairly smooth with them , i was able to rebook tickets from my earlier cancelled trip
Sad to see that they are not been much progress , i had booked tickets via their concierge on SQ , they were the first ones to call back and tell me that Singapore airlines has released a refund policy under which i was eligible for refund , got refund 3 months later … and i had a harrowing time convincing HDFC concierge that my wife’s ticket was also eligible for refund , i got my wife’s ticket points back 6months after starting conversations with hdfc and exchanging countless mails (which also includes sending them the airline’s website link bcoz tgey didnt want to take the effort of locating it)
I also suggest in case you have your old PNR , call indigo and ask them for a reference number with which you can nail the agent for providing you the shell
I provided AMEX every possible detail like the airlines PNR, trip ID for the booking, booking date, travel date, travellers details. But unfortunately they could not locate the trip ID in their system. They agree that the trip ID exists but cannot redeem my credit shell as there are no details in their system for the tripID. I was shocked to hear that airlines has refunded them back the money but neither they bother to intimate me nor can refund it immediately. Looks like the similar experience you had with HDFC.
pls check with indigo whether credit shell was cancelled and amount refunded??.99% chances of there that ur booking already refunded by indigo..same was t case for me
I made the booking through the currently defunct AMEX travel website and hence all the problem. I checked with Indigo and they confirmed that they have refunded the money back to the agent (Cleartrip / Amex travel portal) in this case. But when I asked the same to AMEX they denied it on the grounds that the PNR that I provided them does not correspond to any booking on their portal.
I had the same story but my experience was different. I had one booking made through Amex domestic travel website on SpiceJet. I used the SpiceJet vouchers in that booking too. Because of COVID-19, my travel was also cancelled. I called up the customer care and they also refused to help me straight. They and also refused to give back the convenience fee.
But the good thing is that I created an account on the SpiceJet website with the same details that I used in ticket booking and my credit shell was there itself in the SpiceJet account only for the amount that was paid to SpiceJet from Amex. Which I used for a booking in November without any problems. I don’t know about the Indigo, but maybe this can help. Try locating your credit shell on the Indigo website itself.
Thanks Shiv for sharing your experience. I actually tried that already to use my credit shell by directly booking through Indigo (Initially I did not remember that I booked this flight through AMEX so that is the first thing that I tried). But then I got an error that I cannot use the credit shell because it was booked through an agent. You are lucky that SpiceJet allowed it, nice! Then I tried through Cleartrip as AMEX travel uses that for flight booking. There also I saw similar error.
Did anybody got any retention offer on amex platinum travel card lately?
One of my friend was offered fee waiver on a total spend of 90k in 2 months for Platinum Travel Card. He canceled the card anyway.
The offer T&Cs are more relaxed and the awards more rewarding for centurion card holders. 50K voucher and it can be availed twice in a year. So 1L Taj Vouchers for 2K spends annually
Hi I have a query after reading your article.
This offer is 1 time per account or it’s valid for primary as well as supplimentary card holders separately for each of the supplimentary card holder? Asking this because you mentioned you’ll let 2 friends use this.
Thanks
I was hoping 1 out of 2 would use it. 🙂
It’s once per a/c for Plat, twice for Centurion as someone said.
American Express has begun giving limit enhancements again, effective 18/01/2021. But things aren’t the same any more, when they took your word. Now it is unlike the pre covid times where one got to know of an eligible higher credit limit over the phone itself. They now request you to submit financial documents, which is not so nice for someone who’s been with them for over 4 years now and that too with a spotless payment history and without a single penny paid in any financial, late, miscellaneous charges. Off late, I’ve started to feel that AMEX is no longer a niche credit card product. It feels like HDFC or AXIS now.
Shangri-la Jade on Platinum Charge is going away this March, which is quite disappointing. We’re not keeping the card to flash it in front of others. Even adter charging us 71K, they’re doing this. This is just blatant disregard of the customer.
Just received my plat travel card.
I applied through your referral, hope you got the points.
Thanks Sid
Sid, Source of the offer ? and is it user specific ? If not how to enrol ?