AmEx SPG Luxury Card Upgrade Offers: Worth A Second Look

Update: Multiple readers are reporting being told that you don’t receive the $300 credit in that first prorated year. The fine print doesn’t say this at all, so I think you should be able to get it and use it but YMMV.

A few days ago we let readers know that American Express is offering upgrade bonuses of zero to 100,000 points on the new SPG Luxury. Most people were unenthused about the offers, but there is something that I missed. The terms state that:

Annual Membership Fee: Approximately 45 days after your account is upgraded, you will be charged a prorated Annual Membership Fee for your new Card based on the time remaining until your next account anniversary date. You will also receive a prorated refund for any annual fee paid on your previous Card.

This means you keep the same account anniversary date and pay a prorated annual fee (plus get a refund on the annual fee you’ve already paid on the regular SPG card). The reason this is important is that one of the key benefits to the Luxury card is that it comes with a $300 credit for eligible purchases at SPG & Marriott properties (including the room rate). This is based on a card member year, rather than a calendar year.

Let’s say your card anniversary is in two months time, you’ll pay a prorated annual fee of $75  and receive a refund of $15.83. You then have until your card anniversary to spend $300 at eligible properties. You will then be charged another $450 annual fee and your $300 statement credits will reset. In the above scenario you’d be receiving $600 in statement credits, plus the upgrade offer, plus the card benefits, plus you get a free night valid at properties costing up to 50,000 points per night (I assume you’d get this when paying the full annual fee the second time) and you’d be paying $525 in annual fees.

Obviously you’d need to be able to use the credits before your annual fee hits, I think purchasing gift cards will probably work if you do it at the front desk of a SPG/Marriott property. I thought maybe the upgrade offers were based on when your card anniversary is, but despite the limited datapoints that doesn’t seem to be the case:

Looks like if you’ve spent a lot on the existing SPG personal card that spend count towards the $75,000 needed in a calendar year for platinum elite as well. One other important thing to note is that the upgrade offers are valid until 10/31/2018, so it might make sense to wait to upgrade to better time the prorated annual fee refund.

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MarcoPolo
MarcoPolo (@guest_828552)
October 21, 2019 20:21

nm……

Novacat05
Novacat05 (@guest_654026)
October 8, 2018 11:47

Amex pulled my 100k offer… I was holding out until now to maximize the AF situation, but sadly I don’t think I’ll be able to do this anymore. Gonna try calling them but I don’t have high hopes.

Did anyone else’s upgrade offer get pulled? It stated it was good until 10/31…

TP
TP (@guest_655051)
October 10, 2018 00:19

Same for me… did you have any luck by contacting Amex?

HappyInAZ
HappyInAZ (@guest_655847)
October 11, 2018 15:10

it might just be harder to find….I thought mine was pulled, but after some searching I found it again. log in to your account and click on the the menu button in upper left, then click on Cards and then Credit Card offers. Mine shows in there, but didn’t elsewhere

B
B (@guest_648972)
September 28, 2018 14:29

I called in today. Rep pulled out no offer for upgrade.. mentioned that I already have the lux card on file.

Had previously applied the Lux card during the 3 day window, and working on MSR for now.

Derek
Derek (@guest_650161)
October 2, 2018 08:27
  B

DP- My previous 150,000 offer has now been reduced to 15,000. I was waiting it out until Mid-oct to maximize, but looks like Amex may be adjusting / wise to the situation. I did get and still have a 150k upgrade to Aspire though.

Jon Snow
Jon Snow (@guest_647209)
September 25, 2018 10:19

My AF is in April and I was offered 100K bonus.

J T
J T (@guest_646802)
September 24, 2018 13:33

Anyone else experience a shrinking upgrade offer? SO has had the SPG personal card for 2+ years, the initial upgrade offer was 50k/$2500, then 15k/$1000, and recently “offer unavailable”.

Enrico
Enrico (@guest_646806)
September 24, 2018 13:41

Did your credit score go down at the same time?

Hsn
Hsn (@guest_646391)
September 23, 2018 06:08

Hi there
When i logged in to my Amex account i saw 15k points offer if i upgrade my spg card to spg lux. Do you think its worth upgarding? Should i give amex call and ask for a better offer since 15k seems nothing.

Jason
Jason (@guest_644152)
September 18, 2018 14:17

American Express is doing a horrible job explaining the $300 benefits for the first year. I’m so confused right now. Here is a chat history between me and the representative:

The question is simple. I have already upgraded to SPG luxury card. Am I or am I NOT getting the benefit of $300 statement credits for the time period between Sep 2017 and April 2019
You – Sep 18, 2018 2:10 PM
You need to wait till 04/18/2019.

Enrico
Enrico (@guest_644168)
September 18, 2018 14:48

You are getting it, for sure! Chat has become poor in this kind of stuff. It might be better to call them for questions like these.

I got the credit within a few days after upgrade and before the anniversary.

Kevin
Kevin (@guest_730001)
March 3, 2019 15:43

How long did it take for the pro rated AF to post? Mine said 8 weeks after the upgrade, April 9, 2019. I was shocked it would take that long.
That would make it a week after my annual fee for the old SPG was due. I wonder if this would impact if I’d get the $300 Marriott statement credit now before April.

Enrico
Enrico (@guest_730519)
March 4, 2019 18:40

Yes takes around a couple months for the new and pro rated annual fee to post. The old annual fee will post around the usual time, which can be a statement after the anniversary.
For the $300, the anniversary date counts not when the annual fee posted. The Anniversary date is when your original credit card got approved.

Enrico
Enrico (@guest_644184)
September 18, 2018 15:48

When I chatted with them I got the same response, but ignored the bs. I almost think they were instructed to say that or always base it on the one poor language sentence where it says “renewal year” But as already pointed out, in the terms it states you get the credit after account opening and after each anniversary.

Also what is clearly stated, the free anniversary night, if you upgrade before anniversary, will be 50k instead of the 35k at the anniversary.

Enrico
Enrico (@guest_640341)
September 9, 2018 01:38

DP:
I think the month of anniversary has nothing to do on how many points your are offered for the upgrade offer.
I just got my upgrade offer for 100k, my anniversary is in a couple weeks.

Spending on the SPG also doesn’t seem to be important, or at least not recent spending. Last spending for a couple nights were in December. No spending since then.

I did have spending on a couple Amex cards and my credit score improved recently quite a bit and I’m now in Excellent category (Fico Score 8).

Diamond Vargas
Diamond Vargas (@guest_638177)
September 2, 2018 23:13

100k / $5k offer — annual fee due next month (October 2018)

Novacat05
Novacat05 (@guest_636399)
August 29, 2018 10:30

Got my SPG personal card in April 2018, got the 100k/$5k offer! Spend was only about $5500 until the recent point devaluation. Since then it’s in the sock drawer for now.

I rarely travel anymore(young kids and no work travel anymore), but if I could get the credit the partial year, then it could be worth it. If I upgrade mid-Oct the pro-rated AF hits in 45 days around 12/1, so that is around $187. 3 months to hit $5k spending wraps up mid-Jan. If I cancelled the card before the full $450 AF hits on my anniversary in April, will they claw back the points? If not I’d be making a profit of ~$100 along with the 100k points, that seems too easy…

If I keep the card another year I’d be charged another $450, so that would be just over $600 in AFs, with $600 in statement credits, which I would have to to go buy Marriott GCs with. I would use them eventually so I guess I could hold onto them.

I was planning on upgrading my Marriott CC to the new card for 20k offer, then cancelling it and signing up again when they have another 100k offer. But I won’t be eligible for that if I do this SPG Luxury card offer sadly. Just doing the Marriott route seems easier, however I don’t know when they put out another 100k upgrade offer there. Even if I just did a 75K offer with that plus my 20k upgrade offer that’s almost the same amount of points, and for a lot less risk.