Oh, how I love finding out about new restrictions and finding out I'm grandfathered into the restricted status. Even better is finding confirmation of a restriction after I've fallen victim to it!
Not long before the 24 month open/close rule began, I downgraded a Citi AA Plat to a Bronze. When the new rule started I diligently waited for over 25 months. In the meantime, all Bronze cards were converted to MileUp cards involuntarily. At the time I wondered if this screwed me over on the 24 month clock. When I applied for a new AA Plat in October, I noticed the language on the application said the MileUp card was an exception to the 24 month clock. Foolishly assuming that something with Citi made sense, I figured the exception was in there exactly for cases like mine of automatic MileUp conversions.
1.5 months after hitting the bonus spend and there was no bonus. I made a few calls. Two Citi reps in a row were clueless and the second connected me to the AAdvantage rep, who looked at my spending and card history and said there was no reason I shouldn't get the bonus. She said my last statement closed right before the 8 week mark in spending, so I should wait until the March statement closed. That happened, and still no bonus points. Now I suspect that even though the involuntary conversion was to a card that was specifically mentioned as an exception, their system sees a closure of the Bronze card. Tricky devils!
I've searched around but couldn't find any confirmed examples with the same situation. Any thoughts?