Be warned about Amex Personal Checking

SRC1954

Well, I thought I would look into this account since I have a Personal Savings Account with Amex.

Guess what?

1) Amex Checking and Amex Savings are different banks with different routing numbers and cannot be connected. You cannot even add the other as an external account as you can with every other checking/savings account. I find this plain weird.
2) Amex Checking will not download transactions even as a .csv file and certainly no Quicken/Simplifi connection.
3) Checks are available but expensive. $17 for 80 of them.
4) Amex Debit card won't connect to Apple or Google Pay.
5) Amex Debit not taken at many grocery stores and a hold of up to $200 may be placed on your account if you use it at gas stations.

And they tell you none of this in their faqs or on their web site.

They do pay .5% interest on your balance. That's good. And you do get some rewards (1 point for every $2 spent). They also make some vague statement about hoping to add more features later but they have no roadmap.

Hope this helps anyone who has an AmEx account and wondered about their checking account.