25 Things Everybody Should Know About American Express

Each & every card issuer is slightly different in what they offer and how they handle different things. I thought it would be a good idea to have a look at 15 different things everybody should know about American Express. You might know some of these already, but hopefully you’re able to find one or two useful gems that you didn’t know before.

  1. If you don’t already have an American Express card, wait for a good offer to come along. American Express is very aggressive when it comes to acquiring customers that don’t have any American Express issued credit cards and they offer large sign up bonuses to try and entice these customers. If you don’t already have an American Express card, chances are you receive a lot of targeted sign up bonuses from them. When you decide to go for one of these offers, make sure it’s a good one because you’ll receive far fewer after that first sign up. There is also some anecdotal evidence to suggest that you might be able to get these good bonuses to reappear by cancelling all of your American Express cards.
  2. They have application rules. You’re limited to one approved credit card every 5 day rolling period and two approved credit cards every 90 rolling period. Note that this only applies to credit cards and not their charge cards.
  3. American Express refunds the annual fee on your card as long as you cancel within one statement period after it posts. If you cancel after that time, they used to prorate the annual fee, but since September 1, 2016 they stopped doing so. Downgraded cards will still be prorated.
  4. You can increase your credit limit by up to three times it’s starting limit. American Express make a lot of money from interchange fees (part of the fee merchants pay to accept credit cards), because of that they want their cardholders to spend a lot of money. One of the easiest ways to increase spending on a card is to increase the credit limit. If you request a credit limit with American Express, they’ll usually approve an increase of up to 3x. E.g if you started with a $2,000 limit you could get it increased to $6,000. This is very useful as your credit utilization is another factor in most credit scoring models and other card issuers typically don’t like to extend you more credit than what you’ve been extended. Some cards have a minimum credit limit (e.g Visa Signature cards require a limit of at least $5,000) so having a higher limit with American Express could help you get approved for these cards.
  5. You can only get the sign up bonus on American Express personal & business cards once per lifetime. In the past it was possible to get the sign up bonus multiple times. On May 1st, 2014 American Express cracked down on this practice for personal cards, they then extended this to business cards on February 25th, 2016 and now you can only get the sign up bonus once. This means you really need to think long and hard about applying for a card before you do so, to make sure you’re getting the best possible bonus. However, you can sometimes get a separate bonus for each business with a unique EIN/SSN. Amex also sometimes has offers which don’t show any lifetime limitation language (so called ‘NLL’ offers) which allow you to get a bonus again. And after a number of years (perhaps 7) the system ‘lifetime’ seems to reset. Amex has an eligibility-check feature which will tell you if you are eligible for the bonus before completing the application.
  6. You can reallocate your credit limits with American Express online. Sometimes American Express will not want to extend you any more credit, but you might want to put more spend on an existing card. Reallocating your credit limit allows you to take some of your credit limit from one of your other cards that you rarely use and add it to the card that you want a higher limit on. There is no hard pull to do this either, which is very nice.
  7. You can view what personalized credit card offers you have online. American Express allows you to view all of your targeted personal & business card offers online, you can also check CardMatch but they are not always partnered with American Express and typically show the same offers even when they are.
  8. American Express doesn’t officially match higher sign up bonuses if you apply for an American Express credit card and then see a higher sign up bonus for the same card a couple of days later. However, they are good about giving ‘goodwill’ points for such a thing upon request.
  9. American Express will expedite shipping on their credit cards. If any of your American Express credit cards are lost or stolen, American Express will expedite the shipping on those cards. They will also automatically expedite shipping on some of their premium products (e.g Platinum cards) for new applications. For lower end cards you can call and request this expedited shipping, but not all customer service representatives will do it.
  10. If you apply for multiple American Express cards the hard inquiries will be combined. As long as all of your applications are approved on the same day, multiple hard inquiries will be combined into a single inquiry. The catch is that you can only apply for one credit card per day, so you’ll need to add in charge cards to be successful doing this tactic. It’s possible to mix applications for both business & personal cards as well.
  11. If you’re declined for an American Express card you should always call reconsideration. American Express will often approve you after asking a few basic questions, you can always view the American Express reconsideration number here as well as the opening/closing hours. If you’ve never called reconsideration before, I’d recommend reading our post on tips for your first call.
  12. If you have an American Express card with a high annual fee, consider downgrading it.  American Express has a lot of credit cards with high annual fees, most of which aren’t worth keeping after the first year (when you’ve gotten the sign up bonus). You can downgrade these cards to a no annual fee card, I think the best option is the AmEx EveryDay card which has no annual fee and also earns American Express Membership Rewards points. This allows you to keep those points rather than having to redeem them/transfer them until you’re ready.
  13. You should call American Express every 90 days asking if they have any retention offers on your account. Most people only call retention when their annual fee is due (which you should do as well) but it’s worth calling every 90 days, you’d be surprised at how often they’ll give you 5,000 points just for being a cardholder or offer you a spending bonus.
  14. You can make some serious money from American Express Sync offers. Last year I made about $150 per American Express card just buying gift cards and reselling those, but you can also just get some great discounts on purchases you’d planned to make anyway as well. The basic premise is that American Express will release offers (e.g receive a statement credit of $20 when you spend $100 or more at <merchant>) and then you can use Twitter to sync these offers to each card. I personally recommend using OffersBot to do this, but you can set up your own system just as easily. Not all offers can be synced via Twitter, so it’s worth checking the website every week or so to see if there are any individual offers you can take advantage of.
  15. They run Small Business Saturday every year. Small Business Saturday is basically a way for American Express to increase the number of smaller merchants that accept American Express cards, every year they offer a bonus to card holders. Last year you could receive three statement credits of $10 when you spent $10+ at any small business Saturday participating merchant (basically any small business that accepts American Express). Lots of people were able to make lots of small $10 purchases and get some goodies for free (or almost free if they were above $10).
  16. You can have a maximum of four five American Express credit cards at one time. This only applies to credit cards issued by American Express and only credit card. As for charge cards, you can have 10 or even more than that.
  17. If you’re an existing cardholder and apply for a new card and American Express denies you – they will usually only do a soft pull. This is because they’ll usually check the credit report they already have on file for you.
  18. Amex is known to sometimes give out the new credit card number instantly, at the time of approval, so that you can use it for online purchases. This is very YMMV; sometimes you’ll get it and sometimes not.
  19. If you’re not given an instant credit limit when promised, you can sometimes get a bonus. This isn’t always the case, but worth asking for one and seeing what happens.
  20. Amex business credit cards do not get reported to the personal credit bureaus which is useful for keeping your credit report cleaner.
  21. If you closed out an Amex card and change your mind, you should be able to get the account reinstated with no hard pull provided you make the request within 30 days.
  22. American Express periodically offer upgrade offers to their credit cards. Read more about that here.
  23. You can check your credit card’s application status online.
  24. They will adjust your auto-pay and you’ll only pay what is due. This is useful for people that pay off their card mid cycle.
  25. You can often get a bonus for adding an authorized user card, so it’s worth waiting for one of these offers. You can view previous offers by clicking here.

Sorry for the click bait headline, again I hope you learned something new. If you didn’t consider sharing this post with somebody just starting out as I’m sure they’ll find it useful. Is there anything about American Express that you think I missed? If so, share it in the comments. If you did find it useful, let me know what number tip/trick you found the most useful.

I’ll do a similar thing for the other card issuers in the coming weeks.

You can view other posts in this series by clicking the links below.

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Kay
Kay (@guest_1821673)
March 28, 2024 16:55

Hey guys,
Just wanna check, I got an amex green last May with a nice 60k bonus. WIll I be eligible for a Amex everyday card 15k bonus if I apply today?

Thank you!

Tony
Tony (@guest_1768171)
December 31, 2023 22:26

Does Amex refund prorated AF if you cancel more than a month after the AF posts?

VL
VL (@guest_1768704)
January 2, 2024 02:10

I am not sure about cancellation, but for sure they do if you downgrade.

roko
roko (@guest_1737550)
November 15, 2023 15:41

As a PSA, I upgraded and downgraded by Everyday card a few times for bonuses, but didn’t spend a lot on the card. Now I’m finding that I’m not eligible for any new AmEx card sign-up bonuses.

Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek 🔗
Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek 🔗 (@guest_1598700)
April 15, 2023 21:43

DP: Prorated AF refund, it is down to the day.

Had a $95 AF charged 4/13 on Amex Everyday Preferred, appeared on the statement close date.
Called to downgrade 4/14.
AF refund $94.73 posts on 4/15, dated 4/14.
Need to pay 27-cents.

Buffalogal
Buffalogal (@guest_1647867)
July 5, 2023 19:53

I recently downgraded from Preferred. Unfortunately, I did not realize it was 1 week short of a year since I had upgraded, and Amex clawed back the 40,000 point upgrade bonus. I would gladly have paid the entire AF to have kept it! Learn from my mistake.

Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek 🔗
Gadget - Bank Bonus Geek 🔗 (@guest_1647901)
July 5, 2023 20:54

Last year, did the Blue Cash Preferred upgrade offer: $150 statement credit for $1,000 in spending & they waived the $95 annual fee for the first year. (Yes, some people see better offers, but this isn’t my 1st time doing this offer)

Earlier this year I called and asked when I converted to Preferred. They verbally told me July, but I searched my email inbox after seeing a partial charge for the annual fee appearing about a year later, last month. I could see my Blue Cash Everyday was converted around June 20th, 2022 because they emailed stating they were mailing the new card.

Date: Jun 20, 2022
Subj: Your new Card is ready to ship
Email body: Blue Cash Preferred®
ACCOUNT ENDING: 110xx
Hi Gadget, Your new Card is expected to arrive by Monday, 27 June, 2022.

Fast forward to 2023… statement/online banking shows:

Jun 16 2023 RENEWAL MEMBERSHIP FEE $6.47

Called on June 22, 2023 to downgrade to Blue Cash Everyday.

The next day, the statement/online banking said:
Jun 22, 2023 Credit ADJUST MEMBERSHIP FEE -$4.91

TL/DR: Wait until after they charge the Annual Fee (again) before downgrading/closing.

VL
VL (@guest_1648003)
July 5, 2023 23:38

Word of advise.. actually a few
1) I always keep an upgraded card a week or 2 beyond the 1 year mark, (a) just in case, (b) so it does not look too obvious
2) Although I keep track of the date I upgraded I would always chat with CSR to confirm the date which shows as an upgrade date on their end… unlike the new SUB which easy to track by the posted annual fee, here the annual fee is prorated, and may have already posted awhile ago… then (in a separate chat) request the downgrade a few days later.

Yes, some work, but.. getting on the bad side of Amex books is much worse. I want those upgrade offers to come back (as it is getting harder and harder to get approved for new cards), and they do practically every year.

Good luck.

Bear
Bear (@guest_1596692)
April 13, 2023 09:10
Aur
Aur (@guest_1530794)
January 10, 2023 23:13

Blue amex :
Update about Amex Macy’s Wine offer. I spent the $$ to get the Macys offer. After 8 months, I did not get the 35$ credit. I contacted them 4/6 times times and they said to wait 6 months, and after 6 months they concluded l did not click on the good link (conclusion I guess the offers are different on macys.com and macys.com/amex

andy
andy (@guest_1445128)
September 14, 2022 13:40

Are there any MS opportunities left for Amex? I just got the 150k biz plat, but I need to spend 15k. I’ve never done MS so have no idea whats what, but I know they are not MS friendly in general.

thx

BobQbert
BobQbert (@guest_1444302)
September 13, 2022 12:50

If I sign up for the platinum bonus, then cancel or downgrade in 11 months to avoid next years fee, will Amex claw back the signup bonus reward?
I read somewhere that made it seem that they do that.
Thank you.

VL
VL (@guest_1444742)
September 13, 2022 23:46

You should never do that. They will not only blacklist you, but also will take back the sign up bonus.

You can safely close or downgrade after 12 months passed from the day your account was open. You have 30 days from the day your annual fee posts (which is always 12 months +) to downgrade or cancel to get your AF back, or even get it refunded before you need to pay it.

This is a standard verbiage from any Amex offers now a days

“If we in our sole discretion determine that you have engaged in abuse, misuse, or gaming in connection with the welcome offer in any way or that you intend to do so (for example, if you applied for one or more cards to obtain a welcome offer (s) that we did not intend for you; if you cancel or downgrade your account within 12 months after acquiring it; or if you cancel or return purchases you made to meet the Threshold Amount), we may not credit Membership Rewards points to, we may freeze Membership Rewards points credited to, or we may take away Membership Rewards points from your account. We may also cancel this Card account and other Card accounts you may have with us.”

and they WILL DO IT.

Good Luck

ritholtz
ritholtz (@guest_1440691)
September 8, 2022 09:53

Just got amex plat business card. It offers $200 travel credit for each calendar year. I should able to get $200 for 2022 and $200 for 2023. Does AA gc qualify for travel credit?

VL
VL (@guest_1440800)
September 8, 2022 11:26

No. It has not been working for several years (pre-pandemic). I want to say it stopped working in 2018 or 2019.
Your best options are United (travel wallet) and Southwest (travel credit). Search flyertalk for more details, there is a lot of info there.
Each option has its pros and cons. United wallet is flexible, but has a 5 year expiration and glitchy (in my experience) to use, Southwest now never expires but has serious restrictions on usability (can easily use for yourself, but much harder for others – can transfer it only once if purchased as WGA Plus).
But still something…
Good luck.

newguy
newguy (@guest_1436465)
September 1, 2022 23:06

If I am an existing Amex Credit Card holder, will there be a hard pull If I apply for Amex Cash Magnet card?

VL
VL (@guest_1436498)
September 2, 2022 00:25

There is no 100% guarantee, but usually Amex does not do a hard pull on the existing customers with a good history with Amex. I have number of data points when Amex just approved without the pull.