Get your Amex Annual Fee Prorated by Downgrading the Card

Starting September 1, Amex card will no longer have their annual fee prorated if they are cancelled 30-days after the fee posts to your account. The good news just broke that this change only effects card cancellations, not downgrades.

Often, instead of cancelling a card with a high annual fee, we’ll do a product change and downgrade it to a different card version which comes without a fee or with a lower fee. See Best Downgrade Options for more details on this.

When doing a product change, the annual fee will continue to be prorated, as has always been the case in the past. Only when cancelling a card will you lose out on the unused part as the fee won’t be prorated beginning September 1.

The only thing that changes for downgrades is that we’ll have 30 days, not 60 days, to get a full refund starting September 1.

This news was first reported on Dansdeals based on their Amex contact. We reached out to our media contact at Amex to verify, and they came back with the same response that the new policy will only affect cancellations, not downgrades.

We will still pro-rate annual fees for upgrades or downgrades, just not cancellations.

This should hold true for personal and small business cards, and should hold true whether you downgrade to a card with a fee or a card with no annual fee at all.

On a practical level what this means is that when you downgrade your $450 Platinum card halfway through the year to the $95 Green card, you’ll still get $225 refunded for the half unused Platinum year, and you’ll get charged $42.50 for the half upcoming Green year. If you subsequently cancel the Green card, you’ll lose the entire $42.50 since cancellations don’t get prorated.

Thus, if you have a charge card (Platinum or Gold or PRG) the cheapest card to downgrade to is the $95 Green card, and there’s no way to get out of losing a minimum of a prorated $95. If you have a credit card (BCP, EDP, etc.), you can downgrade to a no-fee card and get the fee prorated. Afterward, you can cancel the no-fee card if you want to.

[Update 8/23/19: a reader notes that when downgrading, even within 30 days, it processes as a prorate, so you’ll end up losing a bit by downgrading instead of cancelling if you’re doing it after the annual fee posts.]

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Daniel A
Daniel A (@guest_1396841)
June 17, 2022 09:18

I just hit the year mark on my platinum card, and called to downgrade the card and avoid the $700 fee. I had thought that there was a charge card with no annual fee, only to realize that no, the Green card has the lowest fee, and it’s still $150. After spending a moment thinking about it, I decided to cancel the platinum card entirely (I recently got the Gold card so not losing my points).

I’m thinking ahead to next year when my Gold card hits the year mark – I would prefer not to pay any annual fees that I don’t have to. if I open an AmEx Everday card separately, and then cancel my Gold card, will I still retain all the reward points I earned via charge cards? Or do I need to have a charge card open to keep those points?

Woori
Woori (@guest_996212)
June 11, 2020 10:26

Amex will prorate the annual fee for a downgrade even inside the 30 days, there is no longer any “free” time. I got hit with a 50c charge for 2 days

felix
felix (@guest_802186)
August 23, 2019 11:58

I downgrade my Hilton Aspire 25 days after my membership fee is charged, AMEX only refund me $419, not $450, so 30 days of full refund isn’t correct anymore. It’s charged day by day though.

Nik
Nik (@guest_769550)
June 12, 2019 14:03

I had product changed the Amex Platinum to Amex Gold within a few days after the annual fee posted (5 days or so.) They have correctly charged me a pro-rated fee for platinum and gold but they used the entire month for proration. So instead of charging me a fee for 5 days for the Platinum and 360 days for the Gold they have charged me a fee for 1 month for the Platinum and 11 months for the Gold. I have opened an issue with them since I think this is unfair but I am not hopeful of the outcome. People should be aware of this. There is no benefit downgrading early in the 30 window as opposed to later in the 30 day window.

SMan
SMan (@guest_744750)
April 5, 2019 05:47

I upgraded to Blue Cash Preferred from Blue Cash with an upgrade bonus. I did it about 10 months ago. Will it be Ok, if I downgrade back to Blue Cash ? I rather cancel my card then pay $95/year .

SMan
SMan (@guest_744892)
April 5, 2019 13:56

Thanks Chuck .

mileshusband
mileshusband (@guest_721822)
February 13, 2019 15:46

My DL SkyMiles AF posted Jan 10, I downgraded to free-free card on Feb 2, and get hit with 30 days of AF on Feb 7. Had to recklessly threaten to shut down all AMEX accounts in order to get the statement credit for the proration. I don’t recall this proration beginning immediately upon year 2 AF hitting. Is this a change?

mileshusband
mileshusband (@guest_721979)
February 13, 2019 19:37

The “proration” language is buried in the disclosure T&Cs read orally upon electing the downgrade. I wrongly presumed it applied only to a intra-year downgrade rather than a downgrade at end of month 12.

Justin
Justin (@guest_657438)
October 15, 2018 02:01

If I downgrade a Blue Cash Preferred to a Blue Cash, and then later close the Blue Cash, am I still eligible for a Blue Cash signup bonus in the future? Thanks.

Felix
Felix (@guest_620755)
July 23, 2018 17:48

Couldn’t you downgrade a plat to a green, then cancel the green within 30 days to have that fee waived?

Weedibix
Weedibix (@guest_577940)
April 4, 2018 20:23

How long should a person wait after upgrading to the Ascend to downgrade? Does Amex care?

abe
abe (@guest_553015)
January 22, 2018 01:32

I called amex to downgrade from plat to green after having it for a few months. they said that although i used the signup bonus already they will reverse my account 70K points and i will be in negative and need to pay it.
They said its in the rules now.
Is this true or is this just a scare tactic?