Amex USA terms now penalize:abuse,misuse,gaming;1st yr downgrade/close;leaked offers.
 

Note that American Express (USA) has refreshed new account terms to itemize behavior which may cause rewards to be forfeited:

Go get 'em Amex!

"if you cancel or downgrade your account within 12 months after acquiring it;"
Welp that's me!

Direct response to leaked links, code sharing, and other methods shouted about on the internet!

As I've said before, if you're one of those who likes to take the money and run, I hope you get penalized or blacklisted. You're ruining this hobby for the rest of us. I got the 100K offer, but I also paid the AF, and still hold the card today.

I will say though that it was Amex's fault that a reusable link was even generated in the first place. If they're worried about abuse, make all non-public links usable one-time only.

Keeping an eye out for the inevitable r/churning meltdown thread.

Good, gift cards are abuse for a big population of people. Spend should be legit who really buys gift cards regularly besides for a gift for someone?

There goes my plan of opening different Plats and getting the bonus and canceling to get the AF refunded.

People who live near supermarkets that have gas points programs, for starters. Also, lots of retailer gift cards are regularly offered at discounts.

Now if you are referring solely to prepaid Mastercard, Visa, Amex... I'd say almost nobody buys them otherwise, judging by the date codes on the packages of stores that never do promotions. :D

It is a sad state of affairs that a company has to now have some devious individual in the room to help explain all of the ways that an offer can be milked, gamed, scammed in order to try and close all of the loopholes to an offer...

So they're doing something about people stealing from them... Good. I hope this catches on with all cards.

" - if you cancel or downgrade your account within 12 months after acquiring it"

how is that going to work after MR points have been transferred to partners and a card is cancelled after 11 months before the 2nd year AF hits?

I think the intent is to clamp down on 1st year AF dodging, RSVP codes, MS and such, which make sense. Stop blatant abuse.

They give the customer a huge negative balance, and a letter saying to buy them back to even zero at the purchase price (3 cents?)

Then they close the account and ban the customer. If they want to make an example, they can go to court

My local grocery chain (Publix) typically runs a 2x a month promotion where you can buy a $50 gas card for $40 with a $50 grocery purchase. We end up buying pretty much all our gas at a nice discount that way. Plus, no worrying about the card skimmer criminals when you pay at the pump with a fairly small prepaid card. (Seems like 90% of the people I know who have had a credit card number stolen had it happen at a gas station outside card reader)

My interpretation is that this covers their behind with the law and government agencies for what they already started to do last year. If you haven't already been caught by one of their audits, and you haven't gotten more aggressive than "gaming" the system by following AmEx's own rules, then I think you'll be fine.

The only thing I take umbridge with is the "close or downgrade within 12 months" in their sole discretion. Plenty of legitimate users get a new product, use it for a year and decide if the benefits were worthwhile.

I'm only 6 months into my first year with a Platinum card and I'm not completely sold. I signed up at a $450 AF and now it's $550 for a Platinum, and I have only used PP twice, so maybe I don't get that much value out of the card. Now if I cancel for legitimate reasons, I have to worry about them clawing back the bonus?

I think it's shortsighted to have that terminology in there. If 50,000 MRs is the acquisition cost of new business, let them take the gamble. I get why no company wants to pay out the bonus to folks like TPG readers who are just gaming the system for flights. In Amex's history though, isn't the welcome bonus roughly the value of the AF?

Ultimately, the card needs to be used for Amex to make money. So the way I think it should be done, is they should increase the annual spend but spread it out. For example: "Spend $2000 every three months in the first year. Welcome bonus will be applied after six months but may be forfeit if the periodic spending requirement is not reached before the renewal, cancellation, or downgrading of the card."