This is the third installment of my gripping trilogy about my experience with American Express’s foreign wire transfer service (FXIP). Here is a brief recap of the other two installments, since you’ve already forgotten:
- Installment one: in which I receive an email solicitation advertising up to 30,000 Membership Rewards points if I sign up for Amex FXIP but abandon my application after it looks like my business isn’t legitimate enough to qualify.
- Installment two: in which I continue my application at the urging of a friendly Amex FXIP rep and get approved after jumping through a couple hoops (although other, more deserving people are not so lucky).
I went ahead and initiated a wire for 100 Euros, and I received a confirmation email about it today, so everything is proceeding apace on that front. However, I also got a call and then an email from an account manager welcoming me to the program and explaining the terms of the 30,000-point bonus offer. Turns out you need to make a wire transfer of at least $500 in the first 30 days to get 15,000 bonus points and then three more $500 transfers over the next 90 days to get the other 15,000. This was a surprise to me, since I read the fine print before I applied, and no minimums were mentioned. (However, I should also note that the original fine print also mentioned needing to apply before April 30, 2016, so I was aware that it might not give me all that strong of a leg to stand on.)
In any case, I emailed the rep back letting him know that this was the first I learned of the $500 limit, and after checking out the link to the original offer, he agreed that I wasn’t informed of the minimum requirement beforehand and manually approved my first wire transfer to qualify for the bonus. I expect the points to post within a couple days, although if they don’t and it turns into a whole shit show, maybe I’ll post a surprise fourth installment to my saga.
Anyway, there are two bottom lines here: first, if you did take advantage of this offer, either make sure your first wire transfer is over $500, or be prepared for some email back-and-forth. For me, this was super painless, but as my last post pointed out, Amex FXIP isn’t always easy to deal with. Second bottom line is that Amex FXIP reps are more accessible and faster to respond than any I have encountered since I started churning. The difference is that individual people contact you and provide direct phone numbers and email addresses, so you can work with a single person, rather than simply working with a department. It’s not a reason to sign up or not to sign up for Amex FXIP, but I’ve been impressed with the service I have received so far and at least wanted to point it out.
Windbag Miles 