{"id":8163,"date":"2023-08-25T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=8163"},"modified":"2023-08-25T08:56:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T14:56:58","slug":"american-express-rewards-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/25\/american-express-rewards-update\/","title":{"rendered":"American Express Rewards Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>American Express&#8217;s Rewards Abuse Team (RAT) is a lot an economic recession &#8211; they show up every few years and chip away at your game, piece by piece. And just like a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2023\/08\/24\/recession-indicator-us-economy-downturn\" class=\"ek-link\">potential recession in the American Economy<\/a>, they&#8217;ve decided that 2023 is a great year for a resurgence after taking a multi-year hiatus. Hooray I guess?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s what they&#8217;re up to now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Clawbacks<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Clawbacks of Membership Rewards points <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?s=clawback\" class=\"ek-link\">started in earnest in June<\/a>, and continue to happen weekly on Tuesday nights or Wednesday mornings. When clawbacks happen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>They clawback obvious manufactured spend at several merchants<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They focus on cards that had a statement close in the prior week<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They don&#8217;t usually get everything, just a few targeted charges<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You&#8217;ll get an email letting you know that they&#8217;ve removed points from your account, and they&#8217;ll probably reference the wrong card because of course they do<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Membership Rewards team can tell you exactly which transactions caused the clawbacks<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We haven&#8217;t seen clawbacks on co-branded cards yet, and for the most part not on sign-up bonuses either. Currently it appears that AmEx is guessing about what you&#8217;re buying and not getting any actual transaction data and as a result you can throw them off with a little creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Blocking Earnings at Retailers<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Some retailers like <a href=\"https:\/\/mastercardgiftcard.com\/\" class=\"ek-link\">MasterCardGiftCard.com<\/a> are no longer earning points for purchases, and spend isn&#8217;t counting toward sign-up bonuses either. That said, this is an improvement from <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/28\/an-american-express-development-cash-advances-on-merchants\/\" class=\"ek-link\">late 2022 when these stores were showing up as cash advances<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tightening Application Rules<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Some Platinum cards famously side-skirted certain limits. With <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/18\/weekend-triple-10\/\" class=\"ek-link\">last week&#8217;s Platinum changes<\/a>, most or all of those angles seem to have dried up. That said, remember that American Express almost never pulls a credit report for existing account holders so I don&#8217;t see a downside to trying a few things if you&#8217;re so inclined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tightening Financial Review Stanards<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>If you were involved in a fitness club that took an unfortunate turn of events and you had significant chargebacks on your account, you&#8217;ve probably been sent into something that&#8217;s like financial review purgatory. In this version of hell your account is suspended, 30 days later the suspension is lifted (probably by an automated process), and then a day later you&#8217;re suspended again (also probably by an automated process). I can&#8217;t imagine it&#8217;ll last forever but so far I&#8217;m sure it feels like it. (Side note, never forget <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/04\/weekend-wisdom-the-sneak-attack-strike-back\/\" class=\"ek-link\">The Sneak Attack Strike Back<\/a>, but with American Express it&#8217;ll probably take at least a year&#8217;s closure for a financial review to drop off of your accounts.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Everything Changes<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Everything&#8217;s always changing in churning and manufactured spend, and this is no different. To thrive, be nimble and adjust to the new landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a nice weekend!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-editorskit-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cb.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8165\" style=\"width:420px\" width=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cb.jpeg 422w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cb-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/cb-150x150.jpeg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 422px) 100vw, 422px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">The Rewards Abuse Team&#8217;s official office mug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Express&#8217;s Rewards Abuse Team (RAT) is a lot an economic recession &#8211; they show up every few years and chip away at your game,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-status"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8166,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8163\/revisions\/8166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}