Originally Posted by
flyer05
Spend the $150 normally and then cancel the card. If all goes well you should be in the clear.
The terms and conditions do say Annual Travel Credit and that's what led many to believe that you are able to get 2 x $200 Travel Credits during one membership year.
However, it appears that Amex has recently unilaterally changed their minds on this, without updating the T&Cs. Therefore the best practice right now is to avoid drawing their attention to the travel credit when cancelling the card (i.e., cancel before the second annual fee hits, don't leave a -$150 credit balance when you're cancelling, etc.)
Agreed. The blogger (the penultimate referral peddlers) that was able to convince Amex to get back the $200 travel credit is not typical.
The majority of people are reporting that you will be denied a full $699 refund if you cancel after the annual fee has already posted.
But like the blogger, a full refund can happen even after the $699 fee renewal has posted to the card account, as I reported for a friend here at this post:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/28350725-post650.html
Note in that older post, Smiley had reported that Amex clawed back the second $200 travel credit, even though he called to cancel BEFORE the annual fee posted. It's truly YMMV, but definitely against the odds if you wait for the annual fee to post before cancelling.