Cutting It Close With My AmEx Business Platinum Cancellation and Dell Credit

The $695 renewal fee came up on my American Express Platinum card, and I decided to cancel. My statement ran from November 25th through December 25th, and the $695 annual fee posted on December 25th. The following statement ran from December 26th through January 25th.

I decided to keep the card for another few weeks before cancelling since the annual fee gets refunded with a cancellation within 30 days.

[Side note: if you downgrade instead of cancelling, I believe the annual fee gets prorated on a daily level. You don’t end up getting the free 30 days.]

After January 1st, I quickly got the $10 cell phone credit and the $200 annual airline incidental credit. However, I didn’t get a chance to take advantage of the $200 Dell credit initially.

From what I’ve heard, if you order something from Dell order then cancel the card, AmEx will send you a check for the $200 Dell credit. However, from what I’ve seen reported, the Dell item first needs to ship before you cancel. The Dell charge date will show as the date of shipping, and you can then cancel the card even before seeing the Dell credit show up. It’ll post eventually and they’ll cut you a check.

I finally got around to doing a Dell order late at night on January 22nd-23rd. At this point I’m cutting it close on getting the credit. Dell does have a 30 day return window so that’s always an option.

I ordered two items – one ending up shipping on January 23rd and one on January 24th. Indeed, the charge date shows up on AmEx as per the ship date; January 23rd and 24th, respectively.

At this point I’m bumping up against the 30 day limit to get an annual fee refund.

It’s not clear to me how to calculate the 30 days. Do I need to cancel by 11:59pm on January 23 since that’s the 30th day from December 25th, the date of annual fee charge? Can I cancel on January 24th too since it’s within the calendar month of December 24th? Can I cancel on January 25th and still get the annual fee refund since January 25th is part of the billing cycle following the fee?

I didn’t know the answer to this (and still don’t), so I ended up cancelling the card via chat late in the day on January 23rd. The rep there indicated that January 23rd was, in fact, my last day to cancel and get the annual fee refunded. I don’t know if the rep is correct.

• Does anyone has more precise information on how to calculate the 30 day annual fee refund policy? Let us know in the comments. Update: Two data points on being able to cancel on day 31 and getting a refund (1, 2); one counter data point (1). Maybe it depends on time of day or other factors.

The chat rep told me that I can either call 1-800-492-3344 and have the card cancelled immediately. Or they can process the cancellation via chat, and their specialists will finalize the cancellation within 24 hours. The rep advised me that the specialists are usually quick, and that the cancellation would likely to complete within hours. I went with the chat cancellation option, and indeed an email came just 10 minutes later confirming that my card cancellation request was processed.

Fortunately, the annual fee refund showed up for me automatically with a January 24th statement post date.

I still don’t know if I’ll get the Dell credit. My guess is I’ll get a check cut for the purchase that shipped on the 23rd.

I’m less optimistic about the one that shipped on the 24th. Since the annual fee refund shows up as January 24th,  I suppose I’m no longer considered a Platinum member on the 24th, and there won’t be any Dell credit for the charge posted on the 24th.

• Does anyone have clear data on this scenario? Let us know in the comments. 

Update 2/26/24: In the end, I still couldn’t get any clarification about whether I’d get credited for the Dell purchases (despite some attempts with Amex chat), and so I opted to return the items instead.