We previously shared various situations in which AMEX clawed back welcome bonuses and upgrade bonuses. Recently, another reader got caught by this. About six months ago, he received an offer to upgrade his no-annual-fee AMEX Everyday Card to the AMEX Everyday Preferred credit card for 25,000 Membership Rewards points. After the upgrade, the system automatically charged a prorated annual fee for the Everyday Preferred for the first half-year. Then six months later, the card was charged the full annual fee for the entire year. Seeing that annual fee, he assumed a full year had already passed, so he contacted customer service to downgrade the card. After the downgrade, the 25,000-point bonus from the upgrade was clawed back.
So once again, a reminder: when upgrading or downgrading, be sure to pay attention to the requirement to keep the card for at least one full year. If this reader had waited another six months before downgrading, he actually could have received half of the annual fee refunded. Either way, there was no avoiding paying a full year’s annual fee in total.
