AMEX won’t let me upgrade.

andyuk01

I think i understand  

You have the free version of the BA Amex and have spent over £10k on it within the year and now want to upgrade to the premium version, pay the £250 fee and receive the companion voucher now 

You don't want to close your current card down and apply for the premium version because that would reset the required spend to earn the companion voucher 

I can see why Amex have said no, if they allowed people to do what you want to do everyone would go for the free card and if they were going to spend more than £10k and could use the voucher upgrade to the premium, then downgrade and repeat annually 

lisyloo

andys15 said:

Emmia said:

andys15 said:

Sandtree said:

andys15 said:

Sandtree said:

andys15 said:

emmajones1976 said:

Their reason will likely be you dont meet their internal credit scoring, the logic behind it they certainly wont be divulging to customers even if the £10 an hour call centre staff knew it, which they wont.

That’s not the reason. I asked if it was an income or credit rating thing and was told no. ( my income is over £150k, I have no debt, no mortgage and never missed a payment with a lot of history of mortgage and debt closed in full). 

They just said I can’t have one.   Companies will tell you if you cannot have a loan etc due to credit scoring etc.  

They tell everyone the same thing, even if you have 100 fraud markers on CIFAS, its a polite way of telling you to go away 

Why would they be telling me to go away?  I already have a credit card with them. I have a £19k limit. I want to give them £250 to upgrade it, so why are they telling me to go away. 

andys15 said:

Companies will tell you if you have failed there credit checks. Internal or credit search.

Because the agent you are talking to isnt told the reason why you have been declined and so the company dont want you to have a long debate with their agent when the agent isnt empowered to do anything even if you present a compelling argument.

Hence the "go away" isnt from a whole relationship perspective but its a way to end the conversation and a stock answer is given to everyone (though it makes most people waste their time looking at their credit report etc which for many will not present any new information).

Decisions who to lend to are purely commercial and a decline to lend wouldnt ever need to be justified unless there is reasonable cause to believe its based on protected characteristics (sexual orientation, religion etc). 

I have an unlimited credit line with Amex (according to the marketing, in practice the highest single transaction they've said they'd approve is £75,000), they could give me a Centurion card which would given them a £3,000 initial fee plus an additional £1,800 fee per year but they arent going to entertain a long conversation with me as to why they wont even if I wanted to... that one is slightly different and everyone with a qualifying Platinum is instead simply told its invitation only but they will note your interest on the account. After that its about getting you off the call to keep their AHT down because there is nothing else the agent can do.

I am sorry but you are wrong.   I can get the credit card I want. They told me to apply for it and I would be accepted. They just won’t let me upgrade to it from my current card. They want me to apply for it ( I will get accepted). This is nothing to do with criteria or credit checks. 

Apply then, get the card you want and just suck up the fact that for whatever reason you can't have the companion voucher this year. They don't have to tell you why they won't upgrade you.

Blimey. Do people on here never push things with these companies. 

I won’t apply. I will persevere and keep trying to get the upgrade. I will exhaust all avenues. 

Oh certainly we do when there is a case to answer.
unfortunately it looks like you simply aren’t entitled to what you want.

you could try a formal complaint.
I found Amex pretty quick and I did win my case (about forfeited cashback) with them.
their call operator made a mistake and they allowed me the cashback even though I wasn’t entitled because the operator (wrongly) said I was.

so goes to show it can be worth a try.

callum9999

lisyloo said:

No sorry, I’m sympathetic but no reason why they should state a reason especially if it’s commercially sensitive information for their business.
if it was well know people would deliberately find ways round it.
they don’t want you to actively improve to fit their criteria, they want to judge you on the objective truth without you manipulating things to meet their criteria.
so I’d say every reason why they shouldn’t from their Point of view.

People keep repeating this line but I've never been able to make much sense of it in my mind! Can you give some practical examples of it? The underlying premise does make perfect sense, so I feel like I'm possibly missing something obvious.

For example, if they want someone with lower credit utilisation and you "manipulate things" to reduce your credit limit, why would Amex be upset by that? I also think characterising taking steps to improve your credit report as "manipulating" it to be a bit strange. It implies you're doing something dodgy like inventing fake income etc.

Sandtree

mcpitman said:

I'm intrigued what is so important about this upgrade.

I get you won't get your voucher thingy, but what is so attractive about the new product you want upgrading to?

OP was fairly clear its the voucher they want which allows them to book 2 tickets for the Avios points of 1 (still have to pay the cash element for both). It can be useful if you have a landmark to celebrate and want to treat yourself to first class seats to Australia but dont have 800,000 avios... 400,000 is a much more achievable target. 

Thrugelmir

callum9999 said:

lisyloo said:

No sorry, I’m sympathetic but no reason why they should state a reason especially if it’s commercially sensitive information for their business.
if it was well know people would deliberately find ways round it.
they don’t want you to actively improve to fit their criteria, they want to judge you on the objective truth without you manipulating things to meet their criteria.
so I’d say every reason why they shouldn’t from their Point of view.

People keep repeating this line but I've never been able to make much sense of it in my mind! Can you give some practical examples of it? The underlying premise does make perfect sense, so I feel like I'm possibly missing something obvious.

Criteria is set and tweaked by the risk management team with approval of a higher level. Will be algorithms within the processing system. Few people will actually know what they are at any given time. 

[Deleted User]

callum9999 said:

lisyloo said:

No sorry, I’m sympathetic but no reason why they should state a reason especially if it’s commercially sensitive information for their business.
if it was well know people would deliberately find ways round it.
they don’t want you to actively improve to fit their criteria, they want to judge you on the objective truth without you manipulating things to meet their criteria.
so I’d say every reason why they shouldn’t from their Point of view.

People keep repeating this line but I've never been able to make much sense of it in my mind! Can you give some practical examples of it? The underlying premise does make perfect sense, so I feel like I'm possibly missing something obvious.

For example, if they want someone with lower credit utilisation and you "manipulate things" to reduce your credit limit, why would Amex be upset by that? I also think characterising taking steps to improve your credit report as "manipulating" it to be a bit strange. It implies you're doing something dodgy like inventing fake income etc.

Lowering your credit limit would increase utilisation. The point is more that if say they didn't want people with say more than £10k of debt because their algorithm says that's unaffordable and risks a default, if I had 12k of debt, I could say borrow 5k from a friend and pay it down a bit, then say I had 7k of debt to qualify, but they would have no visibility of my 5k debt to a friend that I was also paying. Or if we knew they wanted an income of £25k a year and I earned £23k but I could fudge savings going into my account every month to pretend I earned more, that sort of thing. It's a bit simplistic but it's all about stopping people gaming the system. 

born_again

Sandtree said:

mcpitman said:

I'm intrigued what is so important about this upgrade.

I get you won't get your voucher thingy, but what is so attractive about the new product you want upgrading to?

OP was fairly clear its the voucher they want which allows them to book 2 tickets for the Avios points of 1 (still have to pay the cash element for both). It can be useful if you have a landmark to celebrate and want to treat yourself to first class seats to Australia but dont have 800,000 avios... 400,000 is a much more achievable target. 

Which could be that Amex have cottoned on to the scam & will not allow upgrades. But are more than happy for new applications.
It's only the same as banks closing the cheats on cashback.

Sandtree

born_again said:

Sandtree said:

mcpitman said:

I'm intrigued what is so important about this upgrade.

I get you won't get your voucher thingy, but what is so attractive about the new product you want upgrading to?

OP was fairly clear its the voucher they want which allows them to book 2 tickets for the Avios points of 1 (still have to pay the cash element for both). It can be useful if you have a landmark to celebrate and want to treat yourself to first class seats to Australia but dont have 800,000 avios... 400,000 is a much more achievable target. 

Which could be that Amex have cottoned on to the scam & will not allow upgrades. But are more than happy for new applications.
It's only the same as banks closing the cheats on cashback.

I'd be surprised that an "upgrade" would consider spending when under the old card anyway and only future spend would count... that said, having spoken to Virgin Atlantic's credit card provider, their processes are shockingly poor and it could easily have many mistakes made. 

Whilst I'd hope AmEx were better I've nothing to back that up... I did manage to get 160,000 free airmiles from them from a failure in their systems (unintentional but didnt go back to give them back)

Not sure the commercial arrangements for these types of things so who's actually paying for the voucher or if its issuing or redemption that triggers the cost if AmEx

andys15

It’s all sorted. I phoned them again and the guy explained that they are updating their systems and that’s why it’s not letting me upgrade. 

He said phone back next week and they will upgrade me. He actually advised me to make sure I don’t spend over the  £12k before I upgrade as that would automatically send me the economy companion voucher ( currently only  £220 away from the 12k). 

callum9999

Thrugelmir said:

callum9999 said:

lisyloo said:

No sorry, I’m sympathetic but no reason why they should state a reason especially if it’s commercially sensitive information for their business.
if it was well know people would deliberately find ways round it.
they don’t want you to actively improve to fit their criteria, they want to judge you on the objective truth without you manipulating things to meet their criteria.
so I’d say every reason why they shouldn’t from their Point of view.

People keep repeating this line but I've never been able to make much sense of it in my mind! Can you give some practical examples of it? The underlying premise does make perfect sense, so I feel like I'm possibly missing something obvious.

Criteria is set and tweaked by the risk management team with approval of a higher level. Will be algorithms within the processing system. Few people will actually know what they are at any given time. 

That's always been my assumption of why they don't give out criteria - it constantly changes, the agent doesn't know and the people who do don't want to argue about it.

I still don't see what it has to do with not wanting people to "manipulate" their credit report by... making themselves a more attractive customer!