I think there are few friends out there that don’t know how much I love Amex (especially with the SPG promotion going on, I’m sure you’ve all seen me pump my links!). Over the course of my 10+ year membership with them (starting with Costco!), they have never ceased to impress me with their professional, helpful, and friendly customer service.

A couple times they’ve come through for me:

  • I lost an expensive (~$200) item that I bought on ebay – I filed a lost purchase claim with Amex, and they refunded it within a few days, no questions asked
  • I bought an iPhone case from Verizon that turned out to be a terrible case. I wanted to return it, but Verizon refused to let me return it. I filed a return protection claim with Amex, and they refunded it, and didn’t ask for the case
  • My mom forgot to set up auto-pay on her new Amex and got hit with a finance charge. I contacted Amex and they refunded the charge.

I always recommend to my friends that whenever they have a really important or expensive purchase coming up (such as a new iPhone), to put it on an Amex card. I’ve filed purchase protection claims with Visa and Mastercard on other legitimate purchases before, and always been denied. Amex has not denied me once.

Recently, Comenity/Virgin America screwed me over (post on that coming later, still developing) and I was counting on their points to help us get to Sydney on Virgin Australia (using Virgin America points). With that option out the window, my friend @saianel suggested that I use Amex Membership Rewards points, transfer them to Delta, and book the same flight that way.

Problem was, I only had 97,000 Membership Rewards points…and I needed 100,000 for 2 one-ways. Twitter friends (@Milenomics) came through again and suggested that I contact Amex for help. I always contact Amex through their Live Chat feature. I explained the situation, and the CSR immediately responded that he would see what he could do.

2 minutes later, he had sped up the points from my recent purchases, which amounted to 3699 points. I was able to transfer 100,000 points to Delta and book the flight, securing our trip to Sydney!

This is a little thing, but little things matter: every time I do a chat with the CSR, they always say really nice things like:

They truly turned a bad day around for me. Other companies really need to step up their customer service game.

What are the ways Amex has come through for you? Let us know in the comments! Or feel free to comment on other companies with excellent customer service. Amazon is another that comes to mind. 🙂