I earned 110,000 transferable Brex points as part of an account opening bonus offer, and then another 100,000 Brex points signing up for a free Paypal business account. So I’m sitting on a little over 210,000 points. I haven’t been using my Brex account, though, and Brex let me know they’ll be shutting down the account – and that means losing any remaining rewards.
My first thought was to generate some account activity but that may not be enough to save the account. I might do that anyway, but I’m going to use my rewards right away. Brex says if I use the account they will merely “conduct an internal review” over whether to close the account. Usage alone may not be enough to save it.
Meanwhile one reader shared that when Brex told them their account would be closed in 30 days the account was actually closed sooner than that. I’m going to cash out immediately.
Here’s the note they sent:
It looks like there haven’t been any transactions on your account in a while. Therefore, we plan to close Miles and Points Consulting, LLC.’s Brex account in 30 days, including all associated Brex cards and Brex Cash accounts.
If you’d like to keep your accounts, please start making transactions again within the next 30 days. We will then conduct an internal review to make a determination about account closure. If you want to add funds to your account, please check your deposit limit and then follow instructions in this help article.
If you do not want to continue using Brex, please make sure to redeem any available rewards points within the month, before we close your account.
If your account is closed, you will no longer be able to transact with your Brex account and cards, or redeem rewards. You will still be able to sign in to your dashboard and download your statements.
I suppose I should have been using Brex for 8x earning on Rideshare spend but I wasn’t. Each point is worth a penny a piece, or transfer to a variety of loyalty programs:
- SkyTeam: Air France KLM, Aeromexico
- Star Alliance: Avianca, Singapore
- oneworld: Cathay Pacific, Qantas
- Non-alliance: Emirates
I’ve considered Brex to be the least valuable transferable currency compared to American Express, Chase, Citibank, Capital One, and Bilt. The truth is that,
- Air France KLM is the best program in SkyTeam, but a pain to deal with sometimes. It’s an option.
LI>Aeromexico is mostly low valuable but can have occasional uses unlikely to apply if you aren’t originating in Mexico
- Avianca is a very useful program, but their points are so easy to come by
- Singapore is good but their miles expire even if you have activity in your account
- Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles offers ok value, though I’ve wondered what the underlying future of the associated airline looks like
- Qantas mostly charges exorbitant prices, but has some very limited strategic uses with unusual partners and for access to Qantas inventory not offered to other airlines.
- Emirates just charges a lot for awards. It’ll be my go-to for booking Emirates first class redemptions of course. Like Singapore miles expire after 3 years regardless of activity in your account so I prefer to transfer for a specific use rather than store value there.
This largely leaves me debating Air France KLM and Avianca. My balances with both programs are low, having just made redemptions through each program in the past couple of weeks. I’ll bet on Star Alliance miles being more useful than SkyTeam miles and make the transfer to LifeMiles. And I’ll consider that better than getting a penny apiece for my points.
Bonvoyed again!
I transferred my 200k points when they had the 25% transfer bonus to LifeMiles. No brainer. They can close my account.
Just transfered my 99,000 Brex points to Air France book a JFK-CDG-LIS business class award. Glad to use them up.
Last year when all the Brex promos where ongoing, as soon as I earned points, I transferred. I use my two accounts some, but from the post looks like Brex will be gone. I kind of liked them.
Brex won’t be “gone.” They just raised 300mm a few months ago at a 12b valuation. This is probably some compliance issue.
Where you gonna transfer the miles?
I got the same email and have been pissed since. I could have transferred to Singapore airlines and earned gold. I also have 210k miles
I wonder who is really using Brex??? I know a TON of people that got the same 200k points that you did for the same sign up bonuses. I got the same ones and it was too good to be true. Imagine their customer acquisition costs!! I don’t really know anyone that actually uses them.
I used them a few times on token charges for small things so I didn’t get the letter but I can’t imagine anyone really using them that much.
Still, I consider them good honest people for honoring the Paypal bonus. I did n’t actually think those points would post and they finally did so I consider them an ethical company.
I cashed out my points recently, but I still have cash in there. Did you have cash in your account? Did they say you would get it back? I don’t think they can legally take it, but, well, they have it and I don’t at this point. I’m probably going to move that cash really soon.
@Omar: Let me correct my previous post. I mean gone as in my accounts, not Brex.
As a company, it makes money on charge activity.
As a regulated lender, it can extend only so much credit.
Of the credit it extends, it wants the borrowers to be charging.
If someone isn’t charging, close that account and extend that credit allocation to another person . . . who will charge.
It’s that simple.
I got the 30 day notice. I got the exact notice again stating 30 days a couple days later. I made a small transfer of funds to Brex and ordered a replacement card at that point.
On the 9th day they closed my account, preventing me from using the points I had not decided where to send yet. My only option was to transfer my funds back out. I got the replacement card on the 14th day, unusable of course.
Customer service refuses to explain anything beyond boiler plate messaging.
Though it’s business, I did file with CFPB, but that failed. Brex isn’t in their database (had to manually input what info I could find) and CFPB said they were not able to find Brex to send my complaint.
I opened 2 accounts and got the Paypal bonus on one of them, so I had over 300K points. I transferred 100K to Lifemiles and after a few recent transactions, I still have 151K miles. I guess I’ll transfer the remaining Brex points to Air France.
I got what looked like a routine email to confirm my account yesterday. Then today I got a shutdown notice without any opportunity to transfer the miles. This is NUTS. Stay away from this company like the plague.
I was also screwed by this company, but what they don’t realize is my ability (and total inclination) to pursue a class action for this underhanded business move. Want to close my account for any reason under the sun? That’s your right. Tell me that I can’t use/transfer my rewards? Girl, go home–you’re drunk.
I will be posting a form on Reddit soon if you would like to be added to the class action.
Brex is closing my account. After much effort, I finally got this weak answer as to why my account was being closed:
“Regarding the account closure notification, as Alan and Samy mentioned below, Brex is shifting business strategies and our products are no longer a fit for smaller businesses. After a review of your account, including account activity, balance, size, operations, etc., Brex would not be suitable to provide efficient support for your business needs.”
It’s a cluster f over there with either nobody answering questions or multiple Indians trying to answer questions they don’t have the answers to.