American Express Membership Rewards ‘Account Linkage Fee’
Tip It!Just a quick word of warning to those of you out there that have taken advantage of the signup bonuses for AmEx Business credit cards. Awhile back, I applied for a Business Gold Rewards Card, which was offering $150 in rewards for just signing up and making a purchase with the card (a $100 credit statement plus reward 5,000 points).
Upon approval, I received my card, and shortly thereafter I received a letter from American Express stating that they were going to link the Membership Rewards account associated with my Business Gold Rewards Card to my existing Membership Rewards account associated with our existing American Express Optima Card. That’s all well and good, but they also said that there would be a $10 annual linkage fee. Not a huge deal, but it’s $10 that I don’t want to spend.
When our Optima statement showed up with a $10 linkage charge on it, I immediately called and asked them to unlink the accounts and reverse the charge. The CSR expressed surprise (yeah, right!) that they would’ve automatically linked the accounts and applied the fee without asking me, but she was happy to unlink the accounts and issue a $10 credit. Annoying? Yes. But still, that’s a pretty minor headache for a pocketful of jingle.
Published on January 29th, 2007 - 6 Comments
Filed under: Credit Cards
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
Related articles...
» Cashing in American Express Membership Rewards Points» AmEx Gold Card 25k Signup Bonus
» Paying Your Taxes with American Express Membership Rewards Points – Deal or No Deal?
» Spend Your AmEx Membership Rewards Points at Amazon.com
» AmEx Premier Rewards Gold Card: 25k Points ($250) Signup Bonus
» Changing Our Reward Credit Card Strategy
» Don’t Forget to Cancel Your Amazon Prime Membership
» PayPal vs. AmEx Serve
Was this article useful? Please sign up to receive our content via e-mail:
6 Responses to “American Express Membership Rewards ‘Account Linkage Fee’”
Leave a Reply
Top Cards by Category
Earn $200 Bonus Cash Back after you make $500 in purchases in your first 3 months. 5% Cash Back on up to $1,500 spent in bonus categories each quarter.
Receive 10,000 Membership Rewards bonus points when you spend $500 in your first three months of card membership. Redeem bonus points for gift cards valued at $100. This is a charge card with no pre-set spending limit.
Earn 25,000 Membership Rewards(R) bonus points when you spend $1,000 in your first three months of Card membership.
Enjoy a 0% introductory rate for 18 months on Balance Transfers and 6 months on Purchases. Earn up to 5% cash back in categories that change.
Enjoy no balance transfer fee for a limited time. 0% introductory rate on Balance Transfers and Purchases. Earn up to 5% Cashback Bonus in categories that change like gas, restaurants, department stores and more. Limitations apply*
Enjoy no balance transfer fee for a limited time. 0% introductory rate on Balance Transfers and Purchases. Earn up to 5% Cashback Bonus in categories that change like gas, restaurants, department stores and more. Limitations apply*
Enjoy amenities for you and your business, like: complimentary airport club access, including American Airlines Admirals Club(R) lounges.
5% Cashback Bonus in categories that change like gas, restaurants, department stores and more. Limitations apply*. Up to 1% unlimited Cashback Bonus on everything else. No annual fee
Earn 3X points on airfare, 2X points on gas and groceries, and 1X points on everything else.
Reports to 3 major credit bureaus monthly and acceptance at millions of locations worldwide, including website purchases and reservations.
- How to Become a Millionaire
- How to Get Out of Debt
- The Best Dollars I've Ever Spent
- How Our Estate Plan is Structured
- How We Paid Our Mortgage In Less than 10 Years
- Money Making Ideas
- How to Manage Your Asset Allocation with Multiple Accounts
- Consumption Smoothing - Save While the Saving's Good
- How to Save on Groceries
- How Much Life Insurance Do You Need?
- Eleven Great Books About Money
- Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math
- Dish Network Customer Service SUCKS
- $8,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Pay Off Mortgage Early or Invest?
- How to Claim the First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Reduced Credit Limits? Share Your Experience
- $15,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit
- Ethanol Blended Gas = Lower Mileage?
- Termite Control: Sentricon vs. Termidor
- How Much Should You Pay a Babysitter?
- Federal Income Tax Rates Went Down but Your Federal Tax Withholding Increased. Here's Why...
- Would the "Fair Tax" Gut the Economy?
How to save money on insurance
- Why Do Cell Phone Companies Charge Activation Fees?
- Double-Check Your Ally CDs
- Stocks are Not Bonds, CDs, or Savings Accounts
- The Best Values in Colleges - 2012 Edition
- Five Myths About Renter's Insurance
- Own Your Investments, Rent Your Fun
- Citibank to Issue Credit Cards in China
- Heartstrings and Pursestrings
- Saving Money at the Grocery Store: Store Brand Pricing on the Rise
- Missing Tax Paperwork?
January 29th, 2007 at 10:39 am
Be thankful it’s only $10!
I have an AmEx corporate card, but our linkage fee is $75. Thankfully, it’s something I can add to an expense report, but still!
January 29th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
I am guessing that they will slip that under the radar of at least 50-60% of the people using the new card without them ever noticing.
January 29th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Flipping those database bits must be really expensive for AmEx.
January 29th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
For pete’s sake. Thanks for the heads up! I just signed up for a business card with AMEX.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
If you seperate them, how are you going to combine points from both accounts? Not linking them probably makes sense if you do not have any points left in your optima card and/or you do not intend to use it anymore? surely $10 cannot be the issue as the Gold Business Card has an annual fee of I believe to be $125 (though it is free for the first year)?
October 11th, 2007 at 12:18 am
I doubt if this charge is legal without card owners’ consents. I too had the same problem with the additional cards. It didn’t say in the fine print when I requested the additional cards (2500 bonus for each) for my workers that linkage fee was required in order to get the bonus points.