Originally Posted by
Eujeanie
"upgrade offer you can get on a card you've gotten SUB"
Not sure I understand what you mean...let's say you get a card with a SUB (say the Hilton Surpass). You want to upgrade that card to the Aspire a year or two later- do you get a second SUB when you do that?
No, but you may get an upgrade offer. Case in point (not Hilton AMEX card but will illustrate the idea):
- I get a vanilla Platinum some time back. Way back. Like more than than 7 years ago.
- I apply for the Platinum and (of course) get the "sorry, no SUB for you" popup. Call in and according to AMEX, for Reasons™, if was within their definition of "lifetime". Price is Right loser horn plays.
- Right now I hold a Green and Gold card
- At a later point, I see that there is a Platinum
upgrade offer for my Gold card (100k + 5x dining/groceries for 6 months, 5k spend)
- I upgrade because duh, I'm already locked out of a SUB anyway.
- At a later point I get a retention offer on a Green right around my anniversary (10k for 1k spend), and at a
still later point upgrade the Green to a Gold (15k for 1k in spend).
- At a still slightly later point (just a little more than one year after my Gold->Platinum
upgrade) I
downgrade my Platinum to a Green.
Net result: I end up with bunch more MR and the same cards I had before (Green swapped to Gold, Gold swapped to Green).
And you know what? I have an
upgrade offer on my (current) Gold (25k + 5x dining/groceries/gas for 6 months, 5k spend). I imagine I might even get one on my Green card at some point.
(Not taking it right now, I have different fish to fry. Plus this isn't all that lucrative.)
Originally Posted by
Eujeanie
Similarly, if you have an Aspire where you originally got a SUB, then downgrade to either a Surpass or even a No-Fee....then a few years later want to upgrade back to an Aspire, do you get a sign up bonus for that?
I guess I don't understand the purpose of upgrading/downgrading...why not just apply for a new card, with a SUB, then cancel the old one?
No, but you get
upgrade bonuses, and if you already have the SUB, you're not losing anything by taking an upgrade bonus*.
* well, maybe the "7 years=lifetime" will reset, but frankly if the offer is lucrative enough I am not gonna wait around for seven years.
You can play AMEX upgrade/downgrade games with the vanilla charge cards and credit cards that have upgrade/downgrade paths. That includes Hilton, Delta, Marriott. You
must keep the card for at least a year after you accept the offer. Generally the more you spend on the card the more lucrative the offer (I currently have a Delta Blue that gets no spend, that was formerly a Delta Gold, and the upgrade offer to go back to a Gold is 5k miles for $500 spend, not
nothing but not amazeballs for a $99 AF).