Back in 2016, American Express stopped prorating the annual fee when you cancel a card in middle of the card-year. Product changes, however, still get the fee prorated. This leaves the option of downgrading a card no longer needed in order to get the desired prorate. Card closures within 30 days also get the full fee refunded.
Reader Mike tells us a very interesting tidbit that upon request you can get the annual fee prorated on an American Express card, provided that you have at least one other Amex card open. You need to specifically request the prorate at the time you call in to close the account; it won’t happen automatically. You can likely get a refund check or ask them to apply the prorated fee to your other card.
DP: Literally just got off the phone with CS to close my gold card. Rep had told me last month that they WILL prorate at cancel if you ask, so long as you have OTHER Amex cards open. It can’t be your only card. She encouraged me to wait until my ~6,000 membership rewards points from the last statement hit before canceling. Sure enough, they just closed the card and prorated the refund for the remaining 10 months on the account.
She was adamant that you have to specifically request this, however.
I’ve never heard of this before; it can be quite useful for the lot of us who have multiple Amex cards. While we only have one report on this, it’s actually based on two different Amex reps who told Mike about this (the first rep who told him about it and the second rep who actually processed the prorate for Mike) which makes me more confident it’ll work for anyone.
I’m not sure if this works with business cards as well, e.g. if you close a Platinum business card in mid-year, and you have a Blue Business Plus card remaining. Please let us know in the comments if this worked for you and if you try it out on a business card.
[Update: Another data point confirms that you can get a manual prorate.]
