Multiple reports indicate that the increased $95 annual fee will apply to existing Blue Cash Preferred (BCP) customers starting August 3.
Amex is publicly mentioning that the annual fee on the BCP will go up from $75 to $95 on August 3, but we were hopeful that existing cardholders would be grandfathered in at the lower rate.
However, it’s now confirmed by reader Sam and Redditsnoopy on Reddit that BCP monthly statements are now showing that the annual fee will increase for existing cardholders as well starting August.
Anyone who gets hit with an annual fee before August 3 will pay the lower $75 annual fee, after that it goes up to $95.
My annual fee is coming soon, and I was debating whether to pay it or not. Since the demise of manufactured-spend opportunities in 2016, I find myself with less of a need for grocery bandwidth. I’ll probably downgrade my BCP to save the annual fee, and just use my Old Blue Cash card.
My membership fee just posted 8/12 and it was $75. It was also $75 last year 8/11.
I am an existing cardholder and just paid my annual fee. It remained $75.
they can change terms anytime. They have that spelled out in the agreements. All CC issuers reserve that right
I’m not convinced the AF is increasing for existing cardholders. I’ve just generated a new account agreement and the last page lists the latest changes to the agreement. It outlines how the AF is no longer prorated as of 9/1/16. The only references to the AF say $75 and there is no mention of an increase.
The new, increased AF would be in the “Detail of Changes to Your Cardmember Agreement” – don’t you think?
You’ll receive an update with your next statement.
my local Shop rite informed me this AM (when I always buy 3 500.00 VGC weekly, that as of today they will only sell VGC with a 200.00 max. Great. Wife and I have 2 BCP. And my other groceries here )Stop&Shop/Acme/ Hannaford’s do not sell VGC with CC anymore. So I will definitely cancel 1 BCP and just buy grocery GC for the 6K per year. Also have the BC everyday, so reassessing my strategy.
I just got hit with AF on the BCP I called retention department they had a offer of $25 if I agree to keep the card and pay the AF so it got me down to $50 AF
Yeah I’ve read the horror stories. I try and minimize my risk by only buying reloads when I’m down to about $100 or so in account and using the card for legit purchases. I never get cash back.
I love my OBC even if it’s not what it used to be. Sure u have to MS the first $6500 which will cost u $77.35 if ur buying $500 GC with 5.95 activation fee but ur already paying $75 for BCP. After u spend $6500 is when the magic starts. I buy $500 MyCash PayPal reloads with 3.95 activation fee and load the reload onto my business paypal card. I then liquidate money on PayPal debit card buy using it as a credit card for everyday spend gaining another 1% cash back. My profit comes out to 26.25 per $500 reload. Not too shabby.
You’re probably already aware but be careful with PayPal and MyCash reloads and their trigger happy ban-hammer.
From my perspective it’s actually costing you $77.35 + 1% lost cashback(you could have used a 2% card after all). So total it’s costing you $142.35.
With that said here’s my question, what’s the rush? Why buy VGC’s and pay the fee? If you’re not capable of hitting the 6500 with non-VGC spend, may want to reconsider how much this card is worth IMHO. I’d argue the break even point for having OBC is around 15k year bonused spend.
With the death of almost all MS options these days, I have questioned why I keep it around except for credit history. I considered switching to BCP and this makes that less attractive. We have Kroger and they still sell ebay gift cards. I buy them during promotions and convert them to rack up 4x fuel points which saves my family an additional $100/mo avg on gas I’d say. So given that I spend $2200/mo on 5% with OBC between gcs and normal spend, It has been worth it to keep around this uncapped no annual fee version of the card even though it essentially costs me the annoying 6500 initial spend every year.
You get 1% CB on Everyday spend for the first $6500.
So monetary cost to cross the initial threshold is actually ~$11.
Any additional “opportunity cost” is subjective.
Cost of forgoing spend that could otherwise be used towards minimum spend on new cc as well.
Bottom line is the value of BCP vs BC vs OBC is highly YMMV.
Just to keep this all in perspective, the annual fee is increasing by $20, or $1.66 per month… That being said I cancelled mine ages ago and went with OBC
Yep, this just served as a reminder to those of us already on the fence with this card that it’s time to reassess it’s value in our wallets. Its value was really in one’s ability to cap the $6k every year. Anything less was is waste of money.
Did you have any difficulties with the PC? When the time comes I’ll probably try for OBC anyways, but the more data points the better.
For our family it’s still worth the annual fee. We spend about $5,400 annually on groceries, which equates to $229 in rewards with the BCP after the $95 annual fee. Since we only have one Sallie Mae card and new applications are closed, the alternative would be to put the first $250 of groceries on the Sallie Mae card each month (5%) and the rest on Citi Double Cash (2%). That requires monitoring, and even if we got it perfect we’d earn $198 per year, which is $31 less. So while it sucks that the annual fee is increasing and AmEx offers aren’t what they once were, it still makes financial sense for us to keep this card.
If you have the Sallie Mae cc and you shop at the same stores then why not just buy a store gift card once a month for $250? Keep in mind that if you have cash back going into your Upromise cash back account you’ll earn an additional 10%on whatever rewards you earned in the previous year, which equates to 5.5% net cash back. Even if you don’t have Upromise it’s still 5% on $3k a year upfront.
The math:
Store gift card bought monthly for $250 @ 5% = $150 ($3k spending)
BC card 3% = $72 ($2.4k)
Total with SM+BC: $222 ($237 if SM is 5.5%)
Total with BCP: $169
You wouldn’t lose out on any amex offers since you’re not losing any amex cards either. Plus, even if it’s not needed, you’d still have about $3.6k at 3% left on your $6k cap versus only $600 on the BCP.
I can’t blame you for keeping it simple. I get my foot caught in my mouth sometimes myself, juggling family life and the practicality of keeping simple while also trying to maximize rewards. In your case though IMO not using SM card is a lot of lost value.
But 10% bonus on UPromise transfer to Sallie Mae is not considered cashback. 10% bonus is counted toward as an interest earned for that year.
Anthony,
Great post. I am in the same boat as Sarah. My concern with your strategy is that you are banking on SM keeping the 5% reward structure on groceries. Have you heard any rumors of this going away?
Also, if I downgrade to BC as you suggested and then SM drops the 5% bonus is it as easy as simply calling Amex and “upgrading back” to BCP (and paying the $95?)
Thanks in advance for your help!