Originally Posted by scubadu

Wanted to share a recent NLL experience in case it benefits others as they evaluate these offers/opportunities.

So, in this case my wife had an NLL offer for an upgrade (as opposed to new card) for her Biz Gold to a Biz Platinum. She is almost exactly 6 months into her current card year. My assumption was that upon accepting the upgrade she'd be billed the full $695 annual fee then receive an approximately $150 pro-rata statement credit for the remainder of the annual fee on her Biz Gold. Then she would have a new card year (i.e. 12 months across two calendar years) to take advantage of two airline credits, etc. for one annual fee (reduced by the portion she'd already paid on the Gold thus making the math quite good).

However, that is not how it played out. Instead, upon accepting the upgrade she was billed $354 for the annual fee (which is approximately 50% of the Platinum annual fee) then had a "membership fee adj" (i.e. credit) for $151, which is the pro-rata refund of the Biz Gold annual fee.

On the surface, this would seem good. However, I'm realizing upon reviewing the T&Cs Amex sent after accepting the upgrade, that in this case her card year does not change, etc. So what I think that means, unfortunately, is that in about 6 months (the end of her card year for the original Biz Gold) we will get hit with a new $695 annual fee for renewal. And given that we accepted an upgrade offer for membership reward points, I'm assuming it would not be prudent to cancel the card upon that renewal fee posting as she'll have only had the upgraded Biz Platinum for 6 months (even though the account number will be at one year/12 months) and I'm guessing Amex would then attempt to clawback the bonus since it would have been less than one year since she received the bonus offer.

On the whole, its not a terrible outcome, but my assumed math was definitely off a bit. I originally assumed we'd pay a $695 annual fee, receive a $150 pro-rata Biz Gold refund (so net ~$545) and then we'd be able to get two airline credits, 3 Dell, credits, etc. to help offset the annual fee which I felt was a great deal. However, looks like we'll be in for a total of ~$898 instead of $545 (accounting for the additional $695 annual fee that I wasn't expecting). Again, not a horrible deal, but I might have paused, not sure.

Anyhow, not sure if that will be valuable to anyone or not, but it is an NLL offer, just an upgrade as opposed to new card so thought it relevant to this thread.

Regards