Amex quietly stops minting new Kingfisher First cardholders
With effect from 27 April 2012, American Express stops issuing new Kingfisher First cards and switches all future spend on existing cards from King Miles to generic Membership Rewards points.
American Express just filed for divorce, quietly. With effect from 27 April 2012, all future spend on the Amex Kingfisher First card earns generic Membership Rewards points instead of King Miles — and new card issuance has stopped altogether.
Read the sequence. Barely a year ago, Amex was force-sweeping cardholders’ entire MR balances into King Miles every month. Now, as Kingfisher’s finances crater, it’s doing the exact opposite: routing every new point away from the airline’s currency and closing the front door to new customers. Issuers don’t reverse course like this for fun.
No press release, no drama — just a change in what your swipe earns. But it’s Amex reading the writing on the wall, and it’s the template for how a card issuer quietly de-risks a dying airline partnership.
Our take: when your card’s issuer stops trusting your card’s airline, so should you. MR points beat King Miles today anyway — flexible currency, no single-airline risk. Burn any King Miles you’re sitting on, fast.