garden21

My aging parents have 200k points on their gold card and they are no longer traveling. I do not see much benefit for them to continue paying the annual $250 fee.

Some questions:
1. If they drop Gold and open Blue Cash Preferred or Blue Cash Everyday will they keep their points?

2. Regardless of question 1, what is the best usage of these points? The rewards calculator shows the points good for $1400 at various online checkouts, $1200 to cover charges on the card, and up to $2000 for gift cards. Not crazy about any of these, I assume the best value for the points is travel related. Any way for my parents to use the points for family members travel (children, grandchildren)? Problem is, I don't know when that travel would be; so question #1 is also important to retain the points.

Thank you for any advice.

mia

No, they need a card that earns Membership Rewards to retain the points. The free card which will serve this purpose is Everyday: https://www.americanexpress.com/us/c...amex-everyday/

Don't be distracted by other cards with the word Everyday in the product name. This is the one that is free -and- earns Membership Rewards. Note that they cannot downgrade from a charge card (Gold) to a credit card (Everyday). They must apply. Do this before closing the Gold card.

Ord Liza

Do they have an account with an airline the children/grandchildren are likely to use? If so, they could transfer their points to miles in the airline account.** My mother uses her AA miles (not obtained through an Amex transfer) to buy tickets for her grandchildren. There was an issue though and I am not sure if it still exists: It used to be that with some airlines you had to use a credit card in the mileage account holder's name to pay for the fees; I don't know if this is still the case.

**Note that the airline would need to be an Amex transfer partner.

moe8555

Why not set them up with a Schwab Platinum? Get the 100K bonus, pay the $695 fee, use whatever benefits that you can for the year you have it, then cash out your 300K points for $3300 cash and transition to cashback cards (ideally a base card that offers 2% and another card or two that has 5% rotating categories if they aren't averse to having 2-3 cards to use).

Or Citi Premier for 3X on most main household purchases (gas, groceries, dining, flights/hotels should they possibly need to travel at some point) and Rewards+ for the 10% uplift on cashouts. That would be a pretty robust single daily card solution and still retain point transfer flexibility should the need arise (Citi points can be cashed out at a penny each or transferred).

GUWonder

If it's ever been the case in policy, in practice it's been easily worked around for online redemptions of miles for US-origin and Europe-origin mileage tickets using the major US and European airline programs.

SanDiego1K

Then if they add you as an authorized user, you will be able to transfer points to one of the AMEX partners that you use.

mia

Indeed, but note that there is a 90 day delay between adding a supplementary cardholder and the ability to transfer to their airline or hotel accounts.

sdsearch

What does eating have to do with traveling?

That can knock that $250 fee down to $10 by using the $10 monthly Grubhub/Seamless credit and the $10 monthly Uber (including UberEats) credit each month.

mia

Perhaps, but they may have an older version of the Gold Card which does not have the features of the current card.

Adelphos

Do your parents never intend to travel again? If you believe they may have to book travel in the future for family events (grandchildren's graduation, etc), you can always just use the points to book that travel via Amex Travel at 1 cent per point (which is similar to the other options you have listed).

Other options include converting into gift cards, then giving those out as gift to family, getting a Charles Schwab card for a year then cashing out

sdsearch

How can they an older version without the features of the current card and yet be subject to the current $250 AF? Isn't the $250 AF only for the current card?