We've seen it time and time again: American Express making a once easy-to-use benefit on its popular travel rewards credit cards slightly more complicated, and thus, harder to take advantage of. The target this time? The monthly Uber Cash perk you get with the *amex platinum* and *amex gold*.
As first flagged by Doctor of Credit, beginning Nov. 8, you must use an American Express card for Uber and Uber Eats purchases to use their $10 or $15 monthly Uber Cash you get with your card. Amex began notifying cardholders of this change in their most recent statements.
The monthly Uber Cash you get remains the same. You can still put it towards an Uber ride or a food order on Uber Eats. You still get $15 of Uber Cash a month (and up to $35 in December to finish the year) with *amex platinum* and $10 a month with the *amex gold*.
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What's changing is how you are able to redeem that Uber Cash.
Gone are the days when you could use any credit card with your Uber Cash balance to make a purchase. You are now required to use an Amex card as your payment method when booking an Uber ride or ordering an Uber Eats meal to put your Amex Uber Cash towards that purchase.
One small silver lining: You don't necessarily have to pay with your Amex Platinum or Amex Gold card. You can use any Amex card at checkout. Whether cardholders with multiple Amex cards with Uber Cash benefits will be still able to stack those together for a single transaction remains to be seen.
For now, just be sure to check that you've turned on Uber Cash and set an Amex card as your payment method before making an Uber transaction.
This latest change is very much in line with Amex's typical antics, adding more and more benefits and credits to their travel cards while routinely hiking annual fees on those same cards, then adding additional hoops to jump through to actually use them. And that's the point. Amex is banking on cardholders to forget to use the credits – or just find them all too difficult and not even try in the first place.
Read next: We’ve Had It: Amex Card Credits & Benefits Are Out of Control
Bottom Line
Effective Nov. 8, Amex Platinum and Gold cardholders will need to use an Amex card to pay for purchases on Uber or Uber Eats to redeem their monthly Uber Cash – a benefit that comes with both popular travel cards.
It's a relatively minor change, but one that underscores how Amex is constantly tweaking these benefits to make them more complicated and difficult to use for many people.
I don’t think it’s really that outrageous – I was afraid that they were removing UberEats as an option to use the credit like they have with other cards, and let’s be honest that is likely down the road.
This is just getting absurd. Already cancelled my gold, my platinum will be cancelled in January.