One of Amex’s card which is very popular with most people except myself is the American Express Platinum Travel Card. This card gives Membership Reward points for purchases at the standard rate of 1 MR for INR 50 spent except on a few categories. Apart from that, the key feature of this card has been the milestone based spend vouchers that accrue.
- At signon, you would get 5,000 MR, worth INR 4,000 Indigo voucher after the first transaction
- On spending INR 190,000 in the year, you would get INR 7,500 MR, worth INR 6,000 Indigo Voucher
- On spending INR 400,000 in the year, you would get INR 10,000 MR, worth INR 10,000 Indigo Voucher
- All these vouchers are applicable for your regular Indigo flight bookings using the website or the call centre of Indigo.
- You also get a voucher worth INR 10000 from the Taj Group once you reach the INR 400,000 spend within the membership year.
Now, as of June 9, 2017 Amex is switching from Indigo to SpiceJet for the provision of these vouchers, of equal value. You could also receive a voucher from an online travel agency in India but of lesser value.
Like you can see, the changes are essentially from IndiGo to SpiceJet. What Surprised me is these changes are still not announced on the website of Amex, who are currently pitching the product as if Indigo would be there for good as well.
I see this as affecting people who depend on Indigo’s breadth of network and frequency across the country, over SpiceJet’s much smaller route network. Not just that, Indigo had a reasonable network abroad as well.
Bottomline
If you prefer Indigo Vouchers over SpiceJet then you have to move quickly over the next 8 days. Else, you have nothing to worry about and you could continue with business as usual.
Someone got to tell me why would Amex not update their website and only send private communication to members about this?
HT: Prateek Roy
Can they change such offerings in middle of the year?
They issued the card at a cost and we bought it only coz of the offering!
What is ur view?
I m tempted to sue them
@Ankit the best you’ll get from them is cancellation of the card and refund of fee I presume. All card issuers can indeed change features. It is someone’s middle of the year I guess. Also, I hear Indigo initiated the change and not AX. But I can’t be sure of that
Ajay: Though I am kind of disappointed by the change from Indigo to SpiceJet, I am very much looking forward to the introduction of the OTA. I am hoping it is MakeMyTrip considering the tie-up Amex already has with them in terms of discount vouchers. This will definitely give me more flexibility with respect to my travel (both flights and hotels can be availed) and also I could use the coupons to book a ticket with Vistara or Jet Airways and earn some miles rather than having to undertake mileage runs to maintain status. Any thoughts?
Hi,
Can the bonus MR points be used to convert to miles of any of the AMEX partners or is it compulsory to use them for vouchers?
amex is not issuing the Indigo vouchers for the non-bonus miles anymore.
instead they are offering statement credit for the same value.
so 10K points would have yielded 5K Indigo voucher, but instead they issued 5K statement credit.
Works for me.
Also the gold card is undergoing changes. No more four transaction enable 1000 points in a month, they have made it six.
@Vinay: Is this confirmed? Can you share the email/communication you have received with regard to the same?
This is true. I received this communication two days back. My friend who just got this card, sadly, received it as well. The website didn’t show this change
Yes, its true.
I have also received the email. It is applicable from July onwards
A fortnight back i wanted to convert my points to Indigo voucher, the Amex gentleman told me that they are coming with a better plan so hold on.
i did not receive any communication from amex till now.i recd your email today and telephoned for the Indigo voucher redemption.
They said for regular miles they will give 50 percent cash reversal to the account & for bonus miles they gave indigo voucher.