Dormant Amex credit card holders face charges

By UK CreditCards.com

American Express credit card holders face a charge of £20 if they do not use their accounts for a year or more.

The credit card firm is to introduce the fee on dormant Platinum cashback accounts from October in order to cope with administrative costs incurred by managing them, the Guardian reported.

In addition, Amex is planning to up the level at which cardholders can qualify for cashback from £2,500 to £4,250. Both Lloyds TSB and Santander assess fees for little or no card usage.

Tom Allder, vice president of UK lending at the company, told the newspaper: "Rather than making changes across the board we have looked very closely at card member usage to ensure that we continue to offer the best proposition we can for our existing card members."

Card  holders who hadn't used their cards in 12 months received letters announcing the fees.

Published: 1 September 2009