American Express’ annual fee refund policy was to give a full annual fee refund if a card is cancelled within 30 days of the annual fee posting and a prorated annual fee refund if outside that 30 day window. In September 2016 they changed their policy to no longer offer prorated annual fee refunds when closing a card, but downgrading your card still worked to receive a prorated refund. It looks like there has been another.
Reddit user RlCHARlZARD let me know that they received a prorated annual fee rather than a full annual fee refund when product changing within 30 days of the annual fee posting. At first I thought this might have been a new American Express policy, instead it looks like that was always the case after American Express made the changes back in September 2016. I’ll update our post on annual fee refunds to make this point clearer.
Data Points
Some data points I gathered before I realized this wasn’t a new policy.
Downgrades:
- American Express Delta Gold to Blue (27 days after AF posted)
- American Express Delta Gold to Blue
- American Express Delta Platinum to Blue (7 days after AF posted)
- American Express Platinum to Green (29 days after AF posted)
- No specifics: 1
