Amex India clawed back points tied to closed cards. One cardholder says he's 2.1 million points in the red

American Express India has taken back Membership Rewards points tied to cards that customers had already closed. Amex told affected cardholders by email that a "technical issue" had kept those points visible after the 30-day window to use them, NDTV Profit reported.

Cardholders say the removals were large, came with no warning, and hit balances they thought were safe. One says his balance is now negative. The clawback lands days before Amex India splits its pooled points into separate balances for each card on Nov. 15.

What Amex says happened#

Amex is leaning on a rule that already sits on its own card cancellation page. The page says points not redeemed within 30 days of a card's cancellation "will be automatically forfeited."

According to NDTV Profit, the Amex email said the technical issue let points from canceled cards stay on display past that 30-day window. It said the issue had been fixed and balances had been updated in line with the program terms.

Amex's public cancellation page also says that after a card is canceled, its points can only be redeemed as a credit to that card account. In other words, the points were never meant to live on after the card.

Why cardholders are angry#

The dispute is about pooling. NDTV Profit reports that Amex India's Membership Rewards terms combine points from linked basic cards into one account. Members saw one balance, not one balance per card.

That made it hard to know which points "belonged" to a closed card. Many members kept redeeming from the pooled balance after closing a card. Now they want to know how Amex decided which points to remove, and whether earlier redemptions were counted.

NDTV Profit said it had not independently verified the screenshots that users shared. Here is what has been reported so far.

Account	Points removed	Where it was reported	Verified?
Screenshot shared online	311,990	NDTV Profit	No
Screenshot shared online	75,715	NDTV Profit	No
Screenshot shared online	53,528	NDTV Profit	No
Sumanta Mandal	2,388,090	His post on X	No
Roshan Agarwal	About ₹4.5 lakh in value	His post on X	No

The screenshots in NDTV Profit's report show the adjustments dated Nov. 9.

The reaction on X#

The loudest post came from Sumanta Mandal, founder of the Indian credit card community TechnoFino. He says 23,88,090 points were removed from his account, which is 2,388,090 in the Western format. He says that left him at minus 21,48,040.

Two of his claims need context. He writes that there was "No email, no SMS." NDTV Profit reports that Amex did email affected customers about the change. He also says the 30-day rule applied only when a whole account was closed. Amex's public page applies the rule to each card's cancellation.

View this post on X

Another cardholder, Roshan Agarwal, says points worth about ₹4.5 lakh were removed from his account. He is asking Amex for a line-by-line accounting. That request is reasonable, because the email quoted by NDTV Profit does not show how each figure was worked out.

View this post on X

Nov. 15 makes this permanent#

The timing is not random. Amex India is ending pooled balances. From Nov. 15, points will be kept separately for each card, as we explained in our earlier story on the Amex India per-card split.

Under the new setup, each card's points will be visible on their own. That should make the 30-day rule easier to follow. It also means a closed card's points can no longer hide inside a shared total.

	Before Nov. 15	From Nov. 15
Balance	One pooled balance for linked cards	A separate balance for each card
Closing a card	Its share was hard to see	Its balance is shown on its own
30-day rule	Applied, but hard to track	Same rule, easier to track

What to do if you hold Amex cards in India#

• Check your balance now. Look at your Membership Rewards statement for an adjustment dated Nov. 9.
• Ask for the math in writing. Request the number of points Amex says were tied to each closed card, and the dates used.
• Use points before you close a card. Amex's page gives you 30 days after cancellation. After that, the points are gone.
• Escalate if you get no answer. Under the Reserve Bank of India's Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, you must complain to the bank first before going to the ombudsman.

What we still don't know#

Amex has not said publicly how many members were affected. It also has not said whether points redeemed after a card closed were netted out before the removals. We found no public statement from Amex beyond the email quoted by NDTV Profit.

We will update this story if Amex India explains how it calculated the adjustments or reverses any of them.

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