I just got my new American Express Gold card in the mail! It comes with a 75,000 point bonus after spending $10,000 in 4 months. This card will be used for one of my businesses and since that business makes a lot of purchases I’ll be able to easily hit the $10k mark. When signing up for bonuses you really have to know if you’ll be able to meet the minimum requirements, otherwise you have wasted your time, effort and bonus points for nothing.

I called American Express to confirm that I received the card and the lady over the phone was very nice and helpful. With the Gold card comes special treatment and much better customer service! American Express really does treat their business account holders well and that is one of the biggest reasons why I have stayed with them, besides all of the free rewards points I’ve earned over the years 🙂

While I was speaking with the rep. she told me that one of my cards that I got back in April 2011 was never set up with their Membership Rewards program. I flipped out for a second and my mind brought me back to the last call I made to American Express when I had to confirm that I received that card. The rep over the phone said everything was set up and they obviously knew I was earning rewards points from 2 other cards I had with them, so it was obvious I wanted this new card to ‘also’ earn rewards points. Apparently that card was never set up to earn rewards points and I never even knew it. Why would AMEX offer a card with rewards and then not automatically enroll you into their rewards program, or better yet, why would they not just put all their card holders into their rewards program. Ive been a member with American Express since early 2006 and have never had an issue like this. The rep over the phone knew I was extremely mad and I could tell I caught her off guard, all she could do was apologize. Never trust everything you are told over the phone from a credit card company. I’ve now learned to always double check my accounts and to make sure they are enrolled.

The card that was never set up for rewards had been used for one of my businesses extensively over the past 11 months and all I could do was think about all of the lost or missed rewards points. If you knew me you would know that I do everything possible to maximize my credit card rewards, so obviously this was not acceptable. Luckily I was transferred to the Membership rewards department and the lady I had been speaking with told them everything that was going on. I was told they were sorry for the inconvenience and that they had to look back through my records to add up all of the missed rewards points, and that they would be credited to me within 7-10 days.

After I got off the phone I went back and looked at the entire year of transactions and figured that I was missing out on roughly 105,000 rewards points. Now its a waiting game to see what they come up with, if its less than 105,000 points I’ll be giving them another call.

If you have American Express Credit Cards and don’t know if you are enrolled into their Membership Rewards program, use these steps to figure out if you are earning rewards points:

• Step 1 – Sign into your American Express account
• Step 2 – On the ‘Right’ side, you will see “Membership Rewards” and your Available Balance, click it.
• Step 3 – Click “View Points Summary”
• Step 4 – On the ‘Right’ side, you will see ‘Your Cards’, click it.
• Step 5 – Click ‘View Eligible Cards’.

If you find there are eligible card there, get them enrolled and then call AMEX to reimburse you for the missed points. When I was on the phone they said they would go back an entire ‘year’. I don’t know what there cut off is, but if you haven’t been earning rewards points, you should be able to get credited for most if not all of the points.

Below is a visual of the back-end of your AMEX reward account, where you can find out if your cards are enrolled or not. Also take note that not all American Express cards are eligible cards. For instance, my Delta SkyMiles AMEX card won’t earn me Membership Rewards, since I already earn Delta SkyMiles from using it.

Let me know if you have questions! Did you have to call AMEX and get rewards points added to your account like I did? Let us know if you were successful.