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I appreciate this won’t apply to most people here, but I did an Amex Global Transfer from UK to HK Plat 1+ year ago and have just decided not to renew. It’s a complete waste of money and I just wanted to reflect on my experiences as a point of comparison for the UK card (and indeed Amex in the glory days of pre-covid). Not really looking for any sympathy, just a bit of a rant!
I am just shocked at how awful the Amex Platinum service/benefits are in HK especially for one of the highest annual fees in the world (9500HKD). They plausible owe me between 1500-3000HKD and their behaviour now verges on deceptive.
Reasons why I cancelled:
– Various benefits promised but not provided. E.g. meant to get access to the pool, spa and gym at the W Hotel (as a non-guest) – however this is never available to book despite looking at 12am and 1am on the dot, probably over 100 times over the past year.
– “Shop small” is a meant to be an automatic rebate of 20HKD off 150HKD spending at local merchants, year round in HK (until June 2025), but it’s meant to be applied by the merchant not as statement credit for some reason. However, literally none of the the participating restaurants nor 80% of the phone agents have heard about it. They then promise to get back to you in a few days for a poxy $20 credit, but you really have to fight for it.
– Earning rate is atrocious – about 1.2 Miles per 10HKD up to 150000HKD of spend per year, then dropping to 0.6 Miles per 10HKD (I still think in GBP and so my benchmark is 1 Avios per pound!). I was actually advised by a phone agent to stop spending on the card because I reached this cap. Very surprising that a premium card actually penalises you for spending more and has such awful earnings rates in the first place. for comparison, other cards in HK with low/no annual fees earn 1.8-2.0 miles per 10HKD with no cap.
– THERE IS A 400HKD “ADMIN FEE” TO TRANSFER ANY MRs OUT OF THE CARD! So you’re hit with this every time you want to do a transfer no matter how small, eroding the value of the earnings even more.
– Travel insurance didn’t pay out approx. GBP1000 of expense for a family emergency that I ran past them beforehand – when I claimed under the same circumstances it was denied.
– Really weird offers that are laughable—things like spending 1,500HKD to get a colouring book worth 50HKD, but only if you’re one of the first 25 people to redeem it between 8:00–8:30 AM on the first Tuesday of the month. They’re completely uninspired and scattergun.
– No Platinum events in HK
– Phone agents have no power to fix things (there is also no chat function) – every interaction invariably leads to them needing to get back to me within two days by phone call at a specific time.
– Don’t need lounge access due to BA Gold (for now) and able to get the remainder I need for free with other cards (HSBC EveryMile, even Amex Explorer)Immediate problems with cancellation:
– The card is meant to have $4200 in dining/hotel credits per year. However, they were delayed this year and only enabled after 7 Jan – and are now split every 6 months (e.g. 500HKD local dining credit every 6 months instead of 1000HKD per year). This is to give people “more flexibility” and because cardmembers said they wanted to spend it on smaller amounts. However this makes no sense since there was actually more flexibility before – if you didn’t spend the whole credit in one transaction then the remainder would simply apply to any other eligible transaction in the year. Now there’s the pressure to use these credits (which have become too small to be worthwhile on their own) every half-year and where you can spend them is quite limited – may as well just keep the cash from the annual fee yourself.
– I wanted to cancel the card because of this but I’ve just tried to use the credits and they say I need to wait up to 150 days for them to be applied. Seriously? So I have to keep the card open for another 5 months, and pay a whole year’s annual fee, just to compensate for their incredibly inefficient systems? They say if the card is cancelled before the credit is processed then it’s not eligible – despite them giving me only 2 weeks notice for the changes of these terms.
– No pro-rata fee refunds so I have until my statement due date (tomorrow) to tell them I want to cancel. Did get offered a 500,000 points retention bonus (these are HK MRs, about 18x less powerful than US/UK ones), which is about a 2000HKD statement credit (don’t bother with airline mile transfers due to the fee above), but it’s still not worth it.
– They promised to escalate and look into a $1100 annual fee rebate for the W Hotel issues I mention above – but I got no response after 2 follow ups and they won’t let me dispute their own annual fee as a “merchant not providing a promised service”.At the end of the day, the Platinum Card has gone from something which was once more “relational” — felt like being part of a club where you didn’t really need to be petty and add up the benefits vs. the annual fee due to all the soft benefits (concierge, events, good customer service, etc.), to something that is very “transactional”. By removing those soft benefits (there is also no concierge in HK, and the travel team a clueless to the point of calling Sao Paolo “Gru” because they don’t know where it is), they have forced me to reconsider the card on a purely commercial basis – which I don’t usually do. I wrote about the beginnings of this here: https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/concierge-will-no-longer-reserve-restaurants/#post-366815. I am not one of those people that churns cards or goes for manufactured spend – I just want to hold a card that suits me and more or less provides value. But they’ve become so petty with their side of the deal that I’m now forced to respond in kind, and now just cancel entirely. Good riddance – at least there are a plethora of other cards out here offering 50-70k Avios sign-up bonuses at the moment.
‘Rant over…’ 🙈
Amex in HK is a status symbol and not much more
Most banks will waive their cards’ annual fees if you ask
With the HSBC rewards app offers I’ve been coming close to 1 Avios per HK$ on the premier card (up to a limit of course)
Re dining credit – isn’t it also now split into two equal half-yearly chunks in the UK as well?
And also I think the “up to 150 days” waiting time for it to post is also in the UK T&Cs? So no different between the two thenIn HK you get two free supplementary cards for $9500, whilst in the UK you only get one free supplementary card for £650… so again similar cost on a per-cardholder basis.
But yes, agreed with the above comment that it’s more a ‘status symbol’ rather than an actual card where you want to earn reward points
Re dining credit – isn’t it also now split into two equal half-yearly chunks in the UK as well?
And also I think the “up to 150 days” waiting time for it to post is also in the UK T&Cs? So no different between the two thenIn HK you get two free supplementary cards for $9500, whilst in the UK you only get one free supplementary card for £650… so again similar cost on a per-cardholder basis.
But yes, agreed with the above comment that it’s more a ‘status symbol’ rather than an actual card where you want to earn reward points
Yeah, the dining credit is the same but it’s only HKD500 local, 500 abroad per six months – so about half than the UK – and really is too little to have a completely “free” meal each time unless you’re and dining alone on a shoestring.
And the supplementary cards are nice on the face of it, but don’t include priority pass. Nearly every time my sister tries to use it she calls me up to ask whether there are any lounges at the airport she can use and it’s usually no. They do let you give them to people residing outside of HK, which is nice, but the benefits are not that useful outside of HK anyway.I had the HK Amex Plat card when the annual fee was $7800 (around £780-800), with the welcome bonus I could have made it to be cost-neutral. The next year the fee increased to $9500 – even with any retention points offer there’s no chance for keeping the card to be worthwhile, so I cancelled it promptly when the fee is billed. The severely-restricted scope in concierge service also made the card worse than any Visa/Master premium-grade card (namely no international restaurant booking service).
The only sweet spot in AMEX HK is the Explorer card – no admin fees for transferring to airlines and 8-time HK Airport lounge access. There’s still an annual fee but so far (this year included) I have been managed to call and get it waived.
The credit card market in Hong Kong is very different than UK or US – the annual fee are generally waived when you call them (only a handful card had enforced annual fee), some bank even offer online chat/form to save everyone’s time – It’s all just a formality. Having said that, there’s limited options to earn Avios in Hong Kong (most offer options to Asia Miles only) – HSBC HK and AMEX are the major players.
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