Iīd appreciate the input of those AMEX customers living in Germany:

I applied for the AMEX Green personal card maybe 10 months ago and have used it pretty extensively (letīs say mid five-figure range).

1) Is there a way of getting the annual fee refunded? (in some old posts on the internet I found some info that you can have the Gold card fee refunded if you spend >10k Euros/per year, is that info still correct?)

2) Has anyone had any success getting a comp. upgrade to Gold based on spending? Should I be proactive or should I wait until some computer decides to call me? I donīt really care about the "image" of any of the more "exclusive" AMEX cards, but the Gold card seems to have some useful benefits compared to the Green card.