AMEX won’t let me upgrade.

[Deleted User]

callum9999 said:

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!

The agents don't know and won't be told to stop them giving it out by mistake.

Making yourself appear more attractive/suitable for the card by them giving out the lending criteria will come back and bite them if they find out after that the customer cannot afford the card payments etc and then they end up with an irresponsible lending complaint and/or on the hoc for the payments - so safer to not tell people

Marchitiello

A lot of the people that have replied to this thread (but for few) are clearly not familiar with the products discussed nor the benefits associated with it, so they have just created confusion with their answers.

Upgrades to trigger the 2-4-1 vouchers at 10k and downgrading again getting a pro-rata refund of the Premium Plus annual fee were very common but the process has indeed been made harder now and the upgrade t&c include the clause that you may not revert back to your old product (downgrade), so potentially you will then have to close the card all together to recover the fee but that then open up other issue with actually using the 2-4-1 voucher.

I was also told that “the system says no” on my last upgrade round, but it was then processed manually by a supervisor that kept repeating the clause about “may not be able to downgrade back to the free Blue Card in the future.

andys15

Marchitiello said:

A lot of the people that have replied to this thread (but for few) are clearly not familiar with the products discussed nor the benefits associated with it, so they have just created confusion with their answers.

Upgrades to trigger the 2-4-1 vouchers at 10k and downgrading again getting a pro-rata refund of the Premium Plus annual fee were very common but the process has indeed been made harder now and the upgrade t&c include the clause that you may not revert back to your old product (downgrade), so potentially you will then have to close the card all together to recover the fee but that then open up other issue with actually using the 2-4-1 voucher.

I was also told that “the system says no” on my last upgrade round, but it was then processed manually by a supervisor that kept repeating the clause about “may not be able to downgrade back to the free Blue Card in the future.

Thanks for your reply. 

I have managed to upgrade( well it should go through on Monday). 

I’m glad I didn’t take no for answer like some in here suggested. 

Marchitiello

andys15 said:

Marchitiello said:

A lot of the people that have replied to this thread (but for few) are clearly not familiar with the products discussed nor the benefits associated with it, so they have just created confusion with their answers.

Upgrades to trigger the 2-4-1 vouchers at 10k and downgrading again getting a pro-rata refund of the Premium Plus annual fee were very common but the process has indeed been made harder now and the upgrade t&c include the clause that you may not revert back to your old product (downgrade), so potentially you will then have to close the card all together to recover the fee but that then open up other issue with actually using the 2-4-1 voucher.

I was also told that “the system says no” on my last upgrade round, but it was then processed manually by a supervisor that kept repeating the clause about “may not be able to downgrade back to the free Blue Card in the future.

Thanks for your reply. 

I have managed to upgrade( well it should go through on Monday). 

I’m glad I didn’t take no for answer like some in here suggested. 

No problem, unfortunately many people on this forum are immediately drawn to the Credit History/file situation of when you apply with any credit card company and the only moneysaving focus for them may be the penny rather then saving £5k on a return flight for 2 in ClubWorld to Tokyo or Los Angeles.

Amex churning and upgrades are best discussed on sites like Headforpoints or FlyerTalk.

If you are already an Amex Customer and have a good history with them, and then ask for a credit limit increase, you are often getting it without them running any search on your credit files whilst other provider may run a soft search and an hard affordability search together (have experienced this many times). 

Thrugelmir

callum9999 said:

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!

The credit report is of no interest. Finance companies pay to access an array of data and analyse it for themselves. In conjunction with everything else known about applicant from all the sources they use. Lenders know more about people than people do themselves. Very predictable and easy to put into risk buckets. 

Marchitiello

Thrugelmir said:

callum9999 said:

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!

The credit report is of no interest. Finance companies pay to access an array of data and analyse it for themselves. In conjunction with everything else known about applicant from all the sources they use. Lenders know more about people than people do themselves. Very predictable and easy to put into risk buckets. 

Good discussion but not applicable to this post, this was basically a change of product application that in fact will not show on you credit file even as a soft search from Amex, as the credit account stays the same, together with the credit limit and balance. The upgraded product carry’s an annual fee of £250 and has some additional perks to go with it (Amex insurance, and a better 2-4-1 BA voucher at £10k spend per year). It is simply an Amex internal process; since effectively stopping people from churning cards to maximise Membership points/Avios, it means that on some people profile the system upgrade is not offered and a supervisor needs to manually do it (and I guess if one has been flagged as a serial churner, it may yet not be possible even manually). 

Thrugelmir

Marchitiello said:

Thrugelmir said:

callum9999 said:

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!

The credit report is of no interest. Finance companies pay to access an array of data and analyse it for themselves. In conjunction with everything else known about applicant from all the sources they use. Lenders know more about people than people do themselves. Very predictable and easy to put into risk buckets. 

Good discussion but not applicable to this post, this was basically a change of product application that in fact will not show on you credit file even as a soft search from Amex, as the credit account stays the same, together with the credit limit and balance. The upgraded product carry’s an annual fee of £250 and has some additional perks to go with it (Amex insurance, and a better 2-4-1 BA voucher at £10k spend per year). It is simply an Amex internal process; since effectively stopping people from churning cards to maximise Membership points/Avios, it means that on some people profile the system upgrade is not offered and a supervisor needs to manually do it (and I guess if one has been flagged as a serial churner, it may yet not be possible even manually). 

Profiling customers to hit the desired target market encompasses a whole range of factors. 

mostlynice

Sandtree said:

What do you mean they wont allow you to?

As in they've put through an application for you to and have declined or they say you simply cannot apply to upgrade?

To the best of my knowledge AmEx doesnt offer any "upgrading" or equivalent but make you apply for the new card that you want with the exception of the Centurion which is offered as an upgrade from Platinum Charge Card

They do allow upgrading, I’ve done it just last month. I was on the standard BA card, I was £800 away from the companion voucher (this wasn’t my reasoning for upgrading).

I logged in to my online account, selected upgrade to the premium and it was done within 5 minutes. Same account number etc. 

No new application, and no new credit searches

Marchitiello

mostlynice said:

Sandtree said:

What do you mean they wont allow you to?

As in they've put through an application for you to and have declined or they say you simply cannot apply to upgrade?

To the best of my knowledge AmEx doesnt offer any "upgrading" or equivalent but make you apply for the new card that you want with the exception of the Centurion which is offered as an upgrade from Platinum Charge Card

They do allow upgrading, I’ve done it just last month. I was on the standard BA card, I was £800 away from the companion voucher (this wasn’t my reasoning for upgrading).

I logged in to my online account, selected upgrade to the premium and it was done within 5 minutes. Same account number etc. 

No new application, and no new credit searches

Yes, I have explained how it works in my replies above but I can confirm that not everybody will have the system option to do so due to Amex trying to restrict past exploration of the Upgrade/Downgrade scenario just to trigger the Premium 2-4-1 voucher.