I downgraded a Surpass card to the no-fee card over a year ago because I expected to get an upgrade offer either back to Surpass or to Aspire. Not a hint of an upgrade offer ever appeared. Meanwhile, I'm Diamond on stays, so I'm (im)patiently hoping for an offer to appear. As Dr Jabadski noted above, an application for Aspire (or Surpass) would affect Chase 5/24, so I'd really rather get an upgrade offer. Also, I understand that an upgrade does not count against the lifetime language in the Amex terms. If anyone knows how to tickle Amex into an upgrade offer (with points; I have seen offers to upgrade without a point incentive), I would appreciate hearing about it.