Refund to credit card / promotional bonus issue

FTB_Dan

Hi there. 

In short - I was refunded £1500 to my Amex, even though this was paid on another credit card. Amex are telling me I now need to spend an additional £1500 to get my promotional rewards (3k spend within a 3 month period). 

Is there anything I can do?

Additional context:

I recently took a car rental via Booking.com. This was paid for using my Amex (online - prior to the trip starting). 

At the rental collection, a 750 Chf holding charge is required in case of any damage. I was unable to pay this on my Amex, so did this on my Barclaycard. 

During the trip, there was some damage totalling £1500. I was able to claim this ok via Booking.com, however the money was refunded to the card I initially used to book the rental with not my Barclaycard (where the damage cost was charged to).

Amex have agreed to credit me this amount, so I can pay off my Barclaycard, however now because it's technically counted as a refund, I now have to spend an additional £1500 within a 3 month period to get the promotional bonus. 

DullGreyGuy

What are the exact terms of the promotion?

FTB_Dan

DullGreyGuy said:

What are the exact terms of the promotion?

Unable to find T&C's explicitly mentioning the 90 day reward bonus but the general membership rewards here: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/benefits/rewards/membership-rewards/

"Losing your points If you earn points on a transaction that is later refunded, those points will be deducted from your points balance. You must pay your monthly payment shown on your Card Account statement for each statement period in full and on or before the date shown on your statement. If you are late in making payment, you will lose any points you have earned in relation to that statement period. You will not lose any points you have earned before that statement period. If we remove points that have been credited to your Points Account, this may result in you having a negative points balance. In this case, any points you earn afterwards will be applied first in paying off your negative points balance. You will lose your points if your Card Account is closed by us because you have breached the terms of your Card Account Agreement."

Based on this, I've not earned any points on a transaction that was later refunded as it came out of another account. 

born_again

FTB_Dan said:

Hi there. 

In short - I was refunded £1500 to my Amex, even though this was paid on another credit card. Amex are telling me I now need to spend an additional £1500 to get my promotional rewards (3k spend within a 3 month period). 

Is there anything I can do?

Additional context:

I recently took a car rental via Booking.com. This was paid for using my Amex (online - prior to the trip starting). 

At the rental collection, a 750 Chf holding charge is required in case of any damage. I was unable to pay this on my Amex, so did this on my Barclaycard. 

During the trip, there was some damage totalling £1500. I was able to claim this ok via Booking.com, however the money was refunded to the card I initially used to book the rental with not my Barclaycard (where the damage cost was charged to).

Amex have agreed to credit me this amount, so I can pay off my Barclaycard, however now because it's technically counted as a refund, I now have to spend an additional £1500 within a 3 month period to get the promotional bonus. 

Why did AMEX refund it?

DullGreyGuy

born_again said:

FTB_Dan said:

Hi there. 

In short - I was refunded £1500 to my Amex, even though this was paid on another credit card. Amex are telling me I now need to spend an additional £1500 to get my promotional rewards (3k spend within a 3 month period). 

Is there anything I can do?

Additional context:

I recently took a car rental via Booking.com. This was paid for using my Amex (online - prior to the trip starting). 

At the rental collection, a 750 Chf holding charge is required in case of any damage. I was unable to pay this on my Amex, so did this on my Barclaycard. 

During the trip, there was some damage totalling £1500. I was able to claim this ok via Booking.com, however the money was refunded to the card I initially used to book the rental with not my Barclaycard (where the damage cost was charged to).

Amex have agreed to credit me this amount, so I can pay off my Barclaycard, however now because it's technically counted as a refund, I now have to spend an additional £1500 within a 3 month period to get the promotional bonus. 

Why did AMEX refund it?

Why did AmEx refund what? It's Booking.com that sent the funds to AmEx rather than Barclays where the original transaction was actually charged to. AmEx has just allowed it to be transferred as cash so it can be passed on to Barclays

FTB_Dan said:

DullGreyGuy said:

What are the exact terms of the promotion?

Unable to find T&C's explicitly mentioning the 90 day reward bonus but the general membership rewards here: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/benefits/rewards/membership-rewards/

"Losing your points If you earn points on a transaction that is later refunded, those points will be deducted from your points balance. You must pay your monthly payment shown on your Card Account statement for each statement period in full and on or before the date shown on your statement. If you are late in making payment, you will lose any points you have earned in relation to that statement period. You will not lose any points you have earned before that statement period. If we remove points that have been credited to your Points Account, this may result in you having a negative points balance. In this case, any points you earn afterwards will be applied first in paying off your negative points balance. You will lose your points if your Card Account is closed by us because you have breached the terms of your Card Account Agreement."

Based on this, I've not earned any points on a transaction that was later refunded as it came out of another account. 

Which is the sort of thing to look for but you need the terms of the promotion explicitly as they may vary from the standard terms. 

sheramber

Can you confirm how much you paid to whom?

You paid X to booking.com for hire using Amex

You paid damage bond to ? Using Barclaycard. 

Was this paid to booking.com?

You incurred damage of £1500.

Did you pay for this and if so what card?

Is the money from Booking.com a refund of what you paid for the damage, and not a refund of the original hire booking?
 

visidigi

Booking.com only had your AMEX to refund to, so no surprise thats where they refunded it to - they wouldn't refund to another card as there's restrictions on this.

Are you saying you had met the spending requirements on the promotion up until it was refunded?

Assuming the promotion kicks in only at the end of the spending period and not as soon as the required target is hit?

dumpster_fire2025

FTB_Dan said:

Hi there. 

In short - I was refunded £1500 to my Amex, even though this was paid on another credit card. Amex are telling me I now need to spend an additional £1500 to get my promotional rewards (3k spend within a 3 month period). 

Is there anything I can do?

Additional context:

I recently took a car rental via Booking.com. This was paid for using my Amex (online - prior to the trip starting). 

At the rental collection, a 750 Chf holding charge is required in case of any damage. I was unable to pay this on my Amex, so did this on my Barclaycard. 

During the trip, there was some damage totalling £1500. I was able to claim this ok via Booking.com, however the money was refunded to the card I initially used to book the rental with not my Barclaycard (where the damage cost was charged to).

Amex have agreed to credit me this amount, so I can pay off my Barclaycard, however now because it's technically counted as a refund, I now have to spend an additional £1500 within a 3 month period to get the promotional bonus. 

Amex seems to be an innocent party in this. They had no control over what Booking.com did or didn't refund to.

As such all Amex can do is see a £1500 credit to your account which reduces your spend by the same amount. Thus you will need to spend that amount again to get the points.

You could, in theory, challenge this with Booking.com but you really have no basis for this, as others have said they refunded you to the only payment card they had on system. It could actually come back to bite them in a chargeback situation, but that's none of your concern.

Ultimately this is an unfortunate confluence of events that won't work out in your favour.

FTB_Dan

sheramber said:

Can you confirm how much you paid to whom?

You paid X to booking.com for hire using Amex

You paid damage bond to ? Using Barclaycard. 

Was this paid to booking.com?

You incurred damage of £1500.

Did you pay for this and if so what card?

Is the money from Booking.com a refund of what you paid for the damage, and not a refund of the original hire booking?
 

To summarise:

• In June, I paid £250 to rent a car (including excess cover) via Booking.com (paid using my AMEX)
• In July, to begin my car rental I needed to pay a 750 Franc deposit/holding fee with the car rental company (Hertz) in case of any damage (paid using my Barclaycard).
• During my trip - there was damage which I was charged by the rental company onto my Barclay card (original deposit + another 750 franc (overall £1500)).
• I claimed for the damage via Booking.com who as per their T&C's can only reimburse via the card used to book (my AMEX).As a result, my AMEX received a £1500 "refund" - which meant losing 1,500 existing points, and now means I need to spend an additional £1,500 within the 3 month period to gain my promotional bonus.
• I've spoken with AMEX who have said I'm able to withdraw the funds to use to pay off my Barclaycard, however the above still stands.

And just to clarify - I hadn't yet reached the 3k spend required. 

FTB_Dan

dumpster_fire2025 said:

FTB_Dan said:

Hi there. 

In short - I was refunded £1500 to my Amex, even though this was paid on another credit card. Amex are telling me I now need to spend an additional £1500 to get my promotional rewards (3k spend within a 3 month period). 

Is there anything I can do?

Additional context:

I recently took a car rental via Booking.com. This was paid for using my Amex (online - prior to the trip starting). 

At the rental collection, a 750 Chf holding charge is required in case of any damage. I was unable to pay this on my Amex, so did this on my Barclaycard. 

During the trip, there was some damage totalling £1500. I was able to claim this ok via Booking.com, however the money was refunded to the card I initially used to book the rental with not my Barclaycard (where the damage cost was charged to).

Amex have agreed to credit me this amount, so I can pay off my Barclaycard, however now because it's technically counted as a refund, I now have to spend an additional £1500 within a 3 month period to get the promotional bonus. 

Amex seems to be an innocent party in this. They had no control over what Booking.com did or didn't refund to.

As such all Amex can do is see a £1500 credit to your account which reduces your spend by the same amount. Thus you will need to spend that amount again to get the points.

You could, in theory, challenge this with Booking.com but you really have no basis for this, as others have said they refunded you to the only payment card they had on system. It could actually come back to bite them in a chargeback situation, but that's none of your concern.

Ultimately this is an unfortunate confluence of events that won't work out in your favour.

I think as you/others have said, no party has done anything wrong and followed the correct process they've outlined, unfortunately for me it's a case of things not working in my favour here.

Frustrating, but seems like I may have to accept it. Appreciate comments on this.

DullGreyGuy

FTB_Dan said:

dumpster_fire2025 said:

FTB_Dan said:

Hi there. 

In short - I was refunded £1500 to my Amex, even though this was paid on another credit card. Amex are telling me I now need to spend an additional £1500 to get my promotional rewards (3k spend within a 3 month period). 

Is there anything I can do?

Additional context:

I recently took a car rental via Booking.com. This was paid for using my Amex (online - prior to the trip starting). 

At the rental collection, a 750 Chf holding charge is required in case of any damage. I was unable to pay this on my Amex, so did this on my Barclaycard. 

During the trip, there was some damage totalling £1500. I was able to claim this ok via Booking.com, however the money was refunded to the card I initially used to book the rental with not my Barclaycard (where the damage cost was charged to).

Amex have agreed to credit me this amount, so I can pay off my Barclaycard, however now because it's technically counted as a refund, I now have to spend an additional £1500 within a 3 month period to get the promotional bonus. 

Amex seems to be an innocent party in this. They had no control over what Booking.com did or didn't refund to.

As such all Amex can do is see a £1500 credit to your account which reduces your spend by the same amount. Thus you will need to spend that amount again to get the points.

You could, in theory, challenge this with Booking.com but you really have no basis for this, as others have said they refunded you to the only payment card they had on system. It could actually come back to bite them in a chargeback situation, but that's none of your concern.

Ultimately this is an unfortunate confluence of events that won't work out in your favour.

I think as you/others have said, no party has done anything wrong and followed the correct process they've outlined, unfortunately for me it's a case of things not working in my favour here.

Frustrating, but seems like I may have to accept it. Appreciate comments on this.

You may as well put a complaint into AmEx but your position is weakened if you cannot find the terms... you need to point out that the terms you have found explicitly state about a transaction being refunded which has not happened in this case or at worse only £250 of it can be considered a refund of a previously charged amount.