American Express Hilton Honors Surpass card doesn’t forgive late payment (2024)

Was wondering if anyone else had the same problem with this card.

In July, I happened to pay my bill on the day that next monthly statement cycled. Consequently, it wasn't accepted as my July payment. On July 27, I was charged a late fee. Once I noticed that, I made my minimum payment (an additional one) on July 29th bring my account current in theory.

Despite two calls, they will not waive the late fee. Additionally, it caused me to forfeit my surpass points to my Hilton Honors account. On those, they were willing to reinstate 3000 of them for free or give me the full 4050 points for a charge of $35.

First time being late due solely to a technicality, and they are being hard asses. Any other credit card company would waive the late fee.

Has anyone else experienced this?

• Rewards cards
• Travel cards

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@privateonewrote:

Was wondering if anyone else had the same problem with this card.

In July, I happened to pay my bill on the day that next monthly statement cycled. Consequently, it wasn't accepted as my July payment. On July 27, I was charged a late fee. Once I noticed that, I made my minimum payment (an additional one) on July 29th bring my account current in theory.

Despite two calls, they will not waive the late fee. Additionally, it caused me to forfeit my surpass points to my Hilton Honors account. On those, they were willing to reinstate 3000 of them for free or give me the full 4050 points for a charge of $35.

First time being late due solely to a technicality, and they are being hard ****. Any other credit card company would waive the late fee.

Has anyone else experienced this?

It's really a YMMV situation. If this was your first and only late payment then yes you'll stand a better chance of them refunding the fee.

The good news is that there's no impact to your credit score as you weren't 30 days late.

I'd keep trying with AMEX, maybe you'll have luck with another CSR.

March2010 FICO® ~ 695 TU, 653 EQ, 697 EX

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What day of the month is your statement cut date?

Are you saying that you paid July's statement balance on the next month's cut date? If so, that's sounds like it'd be 30 days late. From the Nth month's cut date, you have 21 days from then to make the minimum payment to be in good standing ("current" as you called it). If it's a technical issue, it should be easy to explain within 2 phone calls. I'd be more worried about a "30 days late" posted to my CRA report.

On another note, $35 for 4050 Hilton points doesn't sound too bad since it equates to 8.6 cents per point...higher than the current 5-6 cpp they're typically valued at. Set up Autopay if possible, they'll let you schedule it up to 15 days before the due date (IIRC)...lets you forget about manually paying with several cards.

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I paid $55 on July 2nd, which ended up being the day the statement cut, intending that to be my July payment. Had the payment been credited in July 3rd, they would have counted that as my minimum payment for July. Bill was due July 27th. Since the $55 payment didn't count, they accessed a late fee that day. When I saw what happened on July 29th, I paid $40, my minimum monthly payment.

I talked to two CSRs. One of those tried putting the request through twice. Also sent a letter to Amex.

I was not over 30 days late.

3000 points for no charge versus $35 for 4050 points - Offhand, the 3000 points for no charge sounded like a better deal to me.

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