Amex Blue Update! Got $625 Back

Remember how my mother's American Express Blue Cash card was suddenly cancelled a few weeks ago? Well, it was incredibly frustrating because we "lost" out on over $1,200 Amex Reward Dollars that we could have used to redeem as statement credits.

My father was pretty upset, though he had very little to complain about given he had been exploiting an Amex loophole since January. Nevertheless, he still held a small grudge and decided to delay payment of his $4,300 outstanding balance at the end of November since he had a wonderful 0% interest promotion until April 2015.

He spent a few days trying to find a clever way to replicate the lost earnings power of his favorite credit card and came up with a few approximate, but un-scalable alternatives. While he didn't find the magic bullet for future reward earnings, he did find a small victory this afternoon.

As my father does from time to time, he was trolling around on FlyerTalk and came across a subtle but very important post. Oddly enough, no one seemed to react to it at all. But my father did.

User exarkun posted that "Had account closed on November 25th. I had tried amex online chat a couple times to redeem my rewards but was shut down. Just for the hell of it, I tried again today and was successful! Thank you Scarlett! I received an email confirmation of my rewards redemption already."

With that, my father jumped online to Amex Chat to see if he could replicate that success with his stranded Amex Reward Dollars.

Not the Scarlett we were talking to

Scarlett: Hi! Welcome to American Express chat. My name is Scarlett. How may I assist you?
you: Hi Scarlette, I was calling about the Reward Dollars on my Amex Blue Cash card
Scarlett: Hello there! Scarlett: Sure! you: I understand that American Express closed my account, but it seems unfair that they did just before I received my rewards for past spend
Scarlett: I apologize for the inconvenience of having to contact us today. I understand your time is precious, let me look into this right away.
Scarlett: Am I chatting with Mother Songer?
you: yes
Scarlett: Thank you for confirming.
Scarlett: Please allow me a moment while I pull up the account.
you: ok thank you
Scarlett: Checking it for you now.... I see that you have $639.25 rewards available on the account right now.
you: I was hoping to use that for a statement credit
Scarlett: I will be happy to see if the redemption can be done.
Scarlett: That might take some time, please bear with me.
you: thank you Scarlett:
Just a heads up... The rewards must be redeemed in increments of 25 Reward Dollars.
you: ok, then is $625 available?
Scarlett: The credit appears on the statement within 2 - 3 business days from redemption. The credit does not apply to the balance until the next month’s statement.
Scarlett: Yes!
you: that would be great!
Scarlett: I am on it...
you: Thank you Scarlett.

[Part where American Express asked a series of questions to confirm my mother's identity.]

Scarlett: Thank you for your patience. And it is done...
you: wonderful