The Offer
Direct link to offer (hat tip to davidknowsbest on /r/churning for new link)
- A lot of people have reported receiving upgrade offers from their business charge cards to the American Express Business Platinum card. The offer is as follows:
- Receive 50,000 points after $10,000 in spend within 5 months
Card Details
- Annual fee of $450 is not waived the first year
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 2x points per $1 spent on purchases made directly from the American Express travel website
- 1.5x points per $1 spent on qualifying purchases of $5,000 or more (up to 1 million extra points per year)
- 1x points on all other purchases
- 50% of points back when redeemed for first/business class tickets or any fare class with your selected airline
- $200 airline incidental credit per calendar year
- Lounge access:
- Centurion lounge access
- International American Express lounge access
- Delta SkyClub lounge access
- Priority pass select membership
- Airspace lounge access
- Internet Access:
- 10 free GoGo passes
- Unlimited Boingo internet access
- SPG gold status
- Fee Credit for Global Entry or TSA Pre✓
- No foreign transaction fees
- View these other hidden benefits
[Read: Premium Cards Compared: Chase Sapphire Reserve, American Express Platinum & Citi Prestige]
Our Verdict
There is no hard pull and you’re eligible for this bonus even if you have received a bonus on the Business Platinum card before. If you haven’t held this card before if you complete this offer you won’t be eligible for future bonuses on this card (keep in mind the current bonus is 100,000 points). Because of that I’d only recommend this offer if you can easily meet the spend requirement and you’ve held this card before (and find value in paying the $450 annual fee for the sign up bonus and benefits). If you have any other questions, I’d recommend reading our guide to these upgrade offers.
Hat tip to Mile Per Day
This is awesome. I opened a platinum card to get the 100,000 points after reading this. Already got $200 in GCs, will get $200 more after new year then downgrade to get annual fee refund. I then upgraded my gold biz card to platinum and hit minimum spend yesterday and also received $200 in GCs for this year will get another $200 after new year also and 50,000 points. I then opened another gold biz card and will be hitting min spend for another 75,000 points soon ill then upgrade and get at least $200 plus 50,000 points. Will be opening another gold biz card today for another 75,000 points and then I will upgrade that too and then downgrade to get annual fee refund after hitting min spend and geating $200 in GC. I love you Amex.
I just noticed an upgrade offer for the first time today and it expires tomorrow. Upgrade from personal AMEX Green to business AMEX Platinum and receive 75K MR points after $5K in spend in 90 days. I’ve not noticed an offer to upgrade from a personal to business card before. Since I’ve had the business card before I’m probably going to pounce on this one…especially since the Green card is due for it’s 1st annual fee. I was about to cancel it anyway but now I’m glad I didn’t.
Score!
My AU has this offer on his account. Any idea if the AU can use this offer?
Disregard, must be primary user to upgrade. Duhh!! 🙂
FYI I have seen an offer for 100,000 points with 10k spend instead of 15k. (new sign up not an upgrade).
do you have any link for that?
thanks
Big question is – will they do a clawback if they believe gift cards were purchased to make the minimum spend?
I just had an online chat with representative at Amex, and they confirmed I can still be eligible for signup bonus if I decide to apply another Platinum business credit card after upgrade. The agent said my upgrade offer does’t not effect my opportunity to get signup bonus since I never had Platinum business card before. Can someone confirm?
Not sure if anyone would be able to confirm unless they’ve experienced this tricky data point. But logically it makes sense that one would be an upgrade bonus and the other a signup bonus — two totally different situations
Except the Amex terms I have seen refer to you having ever had the card and never mention signup bonuses. I would be careful with trusting the CSRs too much on this point. A number of claims made by CSRs during the whole 100k leaked link debacle/clawbacks were disowned by Amex. Basically they said we went back to the recording our representative did tell you X but they were wrong, sorry.
@Dave, I’m with you. Not sure why it’s assumed that doing this will negate future bonuses. Certainly a possibility but doesn’t seem obvious to me.
On the other hand, it’s sure hard to trust an Amex rep about this so it’s a risk.
Yes, I can confirm it. I upgraded the Hilton card to surpass card, and I got the sign on 100k points again later when I applied the surpass card.
did you happen to downgrade the upgraded card by any chance (presumably before you closed it?)
I’m in the same boat as you now & amex wont honor the new sign on bonus for the Surpass that I just signed up for from scratch for the first time. cause they say I already got the bonus on the noAF Hilton (its marked as a Surpass in their system since I forgot to downgrade it before I closed it after upgrading it)… so I dunno if that history sticks & its forever considered a Surpass now instead of a reg Hilton that it was originally signed up as.
What if I have an AU on my gold, will the AU be free or will I be charged for them??
Everything will be prorated, I think
I did the upgrade from Amex Gold Biz a couple of days, but now have second thoughts after reading this. Anybody knows if I can call and downgrade it back to Gold Biz? Will I keep my eligibility for any future new card bonuses (I haven’t had a platinum card before)? They haven’t charged the $450 annual fee yet.
Not sure, probably best to call American Express and double check.
I received this offer when I’m logged into my account. I already have the Business Platinum (got in with the 150K offer last year). So if I do this I’ll end up with TWO Bus. Platinum Accounts. Pros: 50,000 MR Points worth between $500-$1000 (valued between 1-2 cents a piece) for a net cost of $50 (after deducting $400 for 2x airline fee credit in 2016/17, netting $450-$950 in value. However, I’ll be giving up the 3x points on airfare from the B, which by business spends between $10-20K on each year. So that’s a loss of 20,000-40,000 MR points. So at the end of the day, I net somewhere between 10,000-30,000 points for a cost of $50. Perhaps ($50) if I’m able to utilize the global entry again for an employee. What would you do? If I downgrade in a year back to the BRG, would we keep the same account numbers?
For me it is more “difficult choice” – I have an upgrade offer from my Busn Gold to Busn Platinum as stated in the post, plus I have an offer in amex offers for Business Platinum (75K MR after $5K spend). I already had business Platinum before, and this offer does not contain lifetime language. I also got a snail mail with offer for personal Platinum (50K MR after $5K spend). I also had personal Platinum before. Which to choose? Upgrade offer is good and no harm (no hard pull), but higher spend requirement and less MR points than in the second offer.
Same exact situation in my case. It looks like offer expiration date for the new business plat is mid November but not sure when upgrade offer expires. Since I am already working on couple CC spends, I’ll probably wait until November and go with the new card offer. I should be able to capture 2 annual airline credits within 3 months and then decide if I want to downgrade or not (most likely keep the card for the benefits).
Why downgrade and not just cancel?
Amex no longer refunds part of the annual fee if you cancel.