crimson12

My wife has an Amex Plat personal card, and a Gold business card. The Plat is up for its annual fee soon, and I want to cancel it because I have a Platinum card and I don't think we get enough benefit to justify to annual fees. (We got the cards in the heyday of the 100k point bonus.) We both got Global Entry, and we were using the $200 for points purchases which apparently aren't reimbursable anymore. I guess there's always lounge access, but we usually have another way in (one day passes, etc.), and I am often with her so I can at least get myself in on my Amex. Even if we paid for her lounge access it wouldn't hit $450 (or even $250, netting out the incidental credit) in a year, so I don't much mind that. My question is about the MR points.

My understanding is that her MR points will remain "active", and can be transferred to partners, etc., because she has the linked business Gold card. Is that correct? In other words, she won't lose any of the transfer/redemption possibilities on the MR points?

The biz card comes up for renewal in Feb 2013. My hope/thinking is that a decent sign up bonus will come along for the *personal* Gold card, and she can get that, and then cancel the business Gold when it's up for an annual fee. If this works, this also would keep the MR points "live", right?

Also, is there anything else I should be thinking about? Obviously I'll ask for some sort of retention bonus but I'm not holding my breath...

I Love to Travel

As long as she has one open Amex account linked to her MR, then she won't lose the points.
Another option available is to transfer her points to your account before closing all her Amex accts (if that is what you want to do). You can do this if she is an additional CM on your Amex Plat. account.

I did this a few months ago. My wife opened a plat Amex for 50K bonus last year. When renewal came, we didn't want to pay the fee (I also have my plat Amex). Since she is a CM on my Costco Biz Amex, we called MR. They saw both accounts, transferred her points into my account and then transferred us to CSR to close her Amex. It's important to note that you must do the transfer BEFORE closing her AMex (at least it's the safer option).

crimson12

Good to know, thanks. I think we will keep one Platinum Amex in the household, so no matter what she should eventually be able to transfer the points to me. For now her Biz Gold should keep the points live.

mia

Note that the ability to transfer between Membership Rewards accounts is not a published feature of the USA program. They may well allow you to do it, but do not take any irreversible actions until the transfer has been performed.