OK, this isn’t really about tennis, but for anyone out there who is in business — or for anyone who uses a credit card for that matter — get an American Express card. (BTW, I am not a paid spokesman for the company.)

They have many options that have no annual fee — I have three: Blue Cash, Blue Sky, and Platinum Business — and there is no credit card company I have ever dealt with that has better customer service. I am sure there are others out there who have had trouble with Amex, but my experiences have been consistently positive. For example:

-Have you ever accidentally missed a payment then got stuck with a $25-50 late payment fee? I have done this a few times before, and other credit card companies give you a ton of grief about it, and one company even allowed me to cancel my card in order to keep my $25. Both times I’ve called Amex about this they have reversed the charge without any questions.

-Have you ever had a dispute with a merchant? Two years ago I checked into a hotel on Thursday but they had me scheduled to check in on Wednesday so they charged me for that extra night. When I got home, I went on-line, found the charge, hit the dispute button, and soon enough my account was credited back for that extra night. Amex assumes its cardmembers are right until proven wrong, rather than my having to prove the hotel was wrong.

-Even though it costs a bit more in terms of the service charge (though not the flights themselves), I now book my travel through American Express Travel Services. I was traveling in California last year, and had a flight from San Francisco to San Diego on Southwest connecting to a Delta flight from San Diego to North Carolina. Delta changed my flight so that I would be arriving on Southwest too late to make the connection. One call to Amex Travel Services and they me booked onto a flight that fit my schedule. As hard as it is to fly these days, I appreciated knowing that Amex would take care of me.

-I was motivated to blog about this today because I was linking my Platinum Business card to the Membership Rewards program on-line and got an error message. So, I quickly emailed Amex (from within their website) and got a reply within 24 hours that apologized for the problem and completed the enrollment for me. I responded with thanks and also a suggestion that I had wished the company had been more proactive in letting me know I was eligible for the Membership Rewards program, that they should consider ways of doing this in the future. I had this card for a year and only recently realized I could enroll so was disappointed to lose out on a year’s worth of rewards points.

The response I got was astonishing to me. I thought it would just be a note of thanks for the suggestion, but this is what I got instead:

Hello David Yamane,

Thank you for your follow up email.

You are welcome!

I am sorry that you missed out on points due to this error. Please be advised that I have made an exception to issue 20,265 retroactive points to your program account on 11/01/2009 and this adjustment covers your 11/2008-10/2009 statements. Your current available balance is 20,265 points.

Please let us know if we can help you in any other way.

Sincerely,

Sonya Robinson
Email Servicing Team
American Express Interactive Services