viamarina

Right. To do that you need to spend a lot though. I'm 24, I don't spend nearly enough to get that many boosts.

iflyalexair

Understandable. But it's useful to know how you can slide through the products to maximize based on your spending forecasts.

jamesteroh

Does Am Ex limit how many times you can upgrade/downgrade in a year.

Until a couple days ago I've always had a business and personal Platinum. A couple days ago I upgraded the personal to the reserve and am pretty sure I can get $60K of spend on it by year end.

If I think I can spend at least another $30K by Dec 31 and upgrade to the Business to a Reserve will Am Ex give me any issues if I downgrade the business card back to a Plat after meeting the spend and then after meeting the $60K spend on the personal reserve and the $50K spend on the business plat calling and downgrading the personal reserve to a plat and upgrading the business reserve back up to a Plat or do they limit it to once every twelve months?

I'd like to make sure I have one reserve card at all times starting in February due to the Skyclub changes for diamonds.

iflyalexair

There is no limit once the account is more than 12 months old.

My timeline usually looks like this: Platinum personal and platinum reserve on January 1st. I sort of focus on one account, but I earn on both accounts. Once the business gets to about 75k, I call and upgrade (happens usually in June). After that point, I focus 100% of my spend on it to get the reserve boosts asap. Once I have gotten the additional two reserve boosts, it goes back down to Platinum. And I throw it in the drawer and dedicate all spend to the personal. Upgrade that one at 75k spend, and hopefully, earn the two reserve boosts by Dec 31!

It is sort of silly that Amex sends you all new cards with the same account number. I have a few extra cards for employees and I just have a drawer full of cards. I never even swap out the one in my wallet since the number doesn't change!

jamesteroh

Thanks! That is crazy they send out new cards and I thought that is why they may have a limit as to how many times in a year you can do it. What's really crazy is when you upgrade from a Plat to a reserve they allow additional cards holders to remain plat while the card holder is reserve. Back in the days of the dollar coin program I had a lot of different cards linked to the account for coin purchases that I forgot about and when I called to upgrade my card they asked if I wanted to pay the fee to upgrade every card holder or just keep them at Plat (I told her just to cancel the cards since I didn't use them). I wonder if I would have kept the cards as Plat and they were being used how the spend would have been treated towards the MQM $30K spend.

Something else I noticed that is weird is that I haven't received my reserve card and even though the plat is still working fine in apple pay it's showing as a reserve card now and both my Plat card is working fine swiped and my apple pay is also working fine.

iflyalexair

Yep, Amex doesn't care, unlike other card companies. As long as the number isn't compromised, you can use which ever card you like (with varying expiration dates and 4-digit codes).

happydad100

Can you earn 100,000 MQMs by spending $220,000 as follows?

Card Spend MQMs
Delta Reserve Business $60,000 30,000
Delta Reserve Personal $60,000 30,000
Delta Platimun Business $50,000 20,000
Delta Platinum Personal $50,000 20,000

Total $220,000 100,000

RealHJ

Yes, of course. That is exactly what was clearly said and clarified earlier in the thread. Read the earlier posts and you will see this clearly answered.

happydad100

Thank you RealHJ for taking the time to reply. Much appreciated.

Yes, you are right ... I should have read the earlier posts. I'm guess I'm getting lazy in my late 50's

iflyalexair

FWIW, last year when I did this precisely each upgrade also carried a 5k MQM bump. So I actually netted 110k MQMs.

Note. The order is important. You need to earn platinum boosts. Let them post. Then upgrade.

iflyalexair

I received a PM from the sky miles team that it is not possible to earn reserve boosts then downgrade and earn your platinum boosts, even if the total for that account would be two boosts. Maybe the FT member who claims to have done this was a fluke.

I guess ill I'll keep my normal patterns until I have reduced YTD spend.

jamesteroh

Thanks for the heads up on this.

With the Skyclub changes for diamonds that is going to really suck if that's true. I wanted to make sure I had a reserve at all time for SC access. Too bad they still didn't do monthly memberships and I could do that for January of each year since I can get $60K in spend in one card in January. I guess I can just get day passes from my skybonus account to use for January each year.

iflyalexair

When are the closing dates of your current Amex cycles? If you can get that much spend that early in the year, you could, at least in theory, spend before the mid-January closing date. Let's say your cycle closes on the 6th of the month. You could put the spend on, have it post, cycle would close, you'd get 2 platinum boosts, and then you could upgrade and hold at least one reserve for most of the year.

Also, at least for 2017-2018 medallion year, your skyclub membership as a diamond expires on January 31, 2018. Looks like you'll be good this year!

appleguru

Question for the experts... I currently have a Delta Reserve Amex. I'll hit 60k of spend on it this month, which means I'll stop using this card for anything but DL flights for the rest of the year. Thinking of downgrading to the Platinum card, but trying to understand the implications of doing so. A few questions :

1) Will some annual fee be refunded if I downgrade?
2) Will I get to keep my Reserve Companion cert from this year (not yet sued, but will book with it soon)
3) Will I be eligible for plat MQM boosts at $25/$50k of additional spending?
4) Is there any other reason to not downgrade?

KevinSFO

If you have never had the Delta Platinum card before, you will be much better off to apply for it as a new card, rather than downgrading. That way, you will be eligible for the generous signup bonus of 10,000 MQMs and 70,000 RDMs. (http://www.americanexpress.com/us/cr...elta-skymiles/) Plus you will definitely qualify for the $25K/$50K MQM boosts.

You might want to wait until your companion cert is issued, then cancel the Reserve card. I think they will give you a pro-rated refund on the annual fee.