I hold amex payback card. I was approached by an executive in a shopping mall to apply for payback card a year back. He told initially that there is no fee but later said me that 750 rupees will be charged as annual fee and I agreed to it and gave him all my documents which he asked. It took amex 2 weeks to give me approval wherein other normal banks give an approval in jus 2minutes. U read it right it takes just two mins to give an approval because I ve credit cards from 6 banks and all banks had given approval in two mins and dispatched in jus two days.
And most importantly everybody says that amex doesn’t approve easily and it is impossible to get an approval on the first time but my application was approved in the first time itself and I felt like an king. But when I received the card the limit provided to me was jus a paltry 24000/- only, all other banks have given a limit of 1L and above and I was seriously embarrassed to have this limit after having a high joining fee of 750 rupees. Another shocker was waiting for me regarding the next year fee, it says only for 1st year it is 750 and from 2nd year onwards it is 1500 rupees, oh my goodness I got so angry at that point of time that if I had founded that executive I would ve killed him .
Firstly I got such a low limit and they want me to pay 1500 rupees for jus 24000 limit, but there I saw a waiver condition that if I spend 1.5L in a year they will waive of the fee and that was a bit of consolation for me as I m a high spender and I thought I wont be charged for the fee. Once I thought of returning back the card but later after seeing the waiver condition I retained it.
Another shocker- I started carrying as I ve to achieve the target with such a low limit and I use to keep other cards at home. when ever I use to present the card to cashier he/she use to say sorry sir amex not accepted. My goodness forget about small shops who don even know wat is amex even branded stores and many shops in malls don accept amex and even online many websites are not accepting amex but now many have added amex. Once I reasoned out from one retailer, he told me that amex charges convenience fee heavily and if we ask customer to pay they outright deny to pay extra fees so we don accept the card at all. Now after many days I din knew how to spend and achieve the target. But later as many websites started adding amex, I started using only for online usage and I have almost achieved target and jus short of few thousand rupees.
And the other reason of retaining the card is "amex’s royalty", amex card is known for its royalty and is not issued to any tom dick and harry but to selective persons only and its a kind of prestige holding amex cards as it is considered people with amex cards are high worthiness.
As amex ve a process of enhancing credit limit once in six months, I had requested for the same, but it got declined due to low cibil score, and it was right as I too din knew that one of my gold loan has been reported negative. I requested amex to give a exception as it is a gold loan and a very small amount but amex said that unless it is cleared and your score is improved we cant help it as it is a normal banking procedure and I too agree with this point.
I got in touch with the loan bank and got it sorted out and it was removed from cibil, which took me approx 45 days to get this issue solved. Then again I approached amex for limit enhancement thru call center, the guy transferred the call to the concerned lady, I don exactly remember her name, may be it is sapna, she told that still my score is the same and it will not help me out, but I requested her that u can retrieve my cibil report and u can see that the gold loan which was affecting my score has been cleared but then she told it will still not be possible, then I told her u can check my record of my amex account, it is without any remark nd its completely clean, she was happy to see a clean track and appreciated for the same and she told me that as u ve been a PAYMASTER with amex, on this basis I ll recommend ur case to higher ups despite ur low score but having ur cibil cleared too.
And too my surprise the limit was enhanced to 40000, though I was not happy with the limit, but I was full of appreciation for amex, and this gesture is completely priceless. Despite me having low score the amex saw worthiness in me and enhanced my limit. U people know how amex scrutinize meticulously each application and how difficult is to go thru their process but by their goodwill gesture I was gone thru. In this case all other banks would ve simply outrightly rejected it even when they are not so choosy about each application.
Then few days back I had issue with amex cards not going thru payments with online and I contacted amex regarding this and the executive named MR.ROSHAN attended to me and he said that amex is perfectly fine and its the issue with the payment gateway of the merchant. So later end of the day the transactions went thru. The next day morning I got a call from ROSHAN asking me whether the issue has got resolved or it is still persisting. I said no no it went thru later and he said no sir actually we were worried as the transaction was not going thru and ur facing difficulty with our card. I was over whelmed by his response as no such other bank even think of it even after complaining several times. I appreciate and wish him a bright future from the deep of my heart.
Regarding points system, I never faced any issue and all the points are transferred to my payback account on time without any issue.
Yes amex is higher on its fee structure which they need to seriously look into and see that amex is widely accepted rather than few high end establishments, so that the usage of the card is high and the customer don feel the pinch after paying such a high fees.