A long time MS’er told me he got shut down COMPLETELY by AMEX the other day. I asked him some questions and he let me write about it so we can all learn. He said he talked to a supervisor and she thinks his recently closed Schwab got eyes on his account, who then saw all this opened and closed cards the past 2 years. At the time of the axe, he had 9 charge cards.
I asked if he self-referred – he said once but more than a year ago. Never got a clawback on the self referral.
Asked him if he had high closed balances with any banks – NO.
Asked him if he was FR’ed – A couple of years ago.
Now, he does MS and I’m sure it’s primarily groc store with the GOLD cards.
I asked him if he had any airline clawbacks. He said YES, about $2K worth and the last clawback was for $300 for 2020 credits
He said he closed the Schwab on 4/13 and the clawback was on 4/14 (but wasn’t on the Schwab. He did sign up for the Plum and got $400 out of the $600 bonus, but I don’t think he got any bonuses for the other charge cards.
My guess is the amount of airline clawbacks is what did him in; the Schwab closing sounds coincidental or maybe it did put his eyes on his account. OR maybe it was the Plum bonus, but I don’t think it’s that.
I did ask him if he could move his MR out; he luckily had moved them to Schwab before the axe. He did say he could log in, but it said he wasn’t authorized to redeem points. This is similar to Citi where you’ll lose any MR if you’re quick axed. This makes me really nervous since I have a similar profile as his but without the airline clawbacks. If you’ve been getting airline clawbacks, I suggest you stop playing shenanigans and maybe transfer out your MR asap.
Addendum – I asked the reader how many NLL signups he had received and he said 3 w/in the last 12 months and 4 w/in last 16 months, so all these bonuses may have played a factor too.