lsquare

Thanks and that's terrible policy. I would argue it's even worse than Chase's 5/24 policy. AMEX should just worry about the total credit limit given to each person rather than limiting the number of credit cards. They have a solid portfolio of credit cards. They should encourage people to sign up and make money from the annual fees. AMEX should be more like Citi.

halamadrid

I believe that this is more cardholder specific and YMMV as I was just auto approved for my 5th cc product (I know the difference and these 5 that I am counting are all credit and not charge products - which I also hold). Note that none of my cc products are/were a Citi Hilton transfer.

evo12

Currently have old SPG/Bonvoy, Delta Platinum, Hilton Aspire, Hilton Surpass as well as Amex Platinum. I literally just cleared the 2/90 limit and was looking to add the Hilton Honors card for 100k points. Saw the reporting on TPG/OMAAT but also saw that the policy may not be fully implemented. Gave it a shot and just got approved (literally right now) for the Hilton Honors making it my 5th cc.

edit: corrected typo

lkar

I am at four lending cards — two personal and two biz — plus one charge (plat). I am considering applying for green. I think this is ok because it is a charge card but I am not clear if this works like chase where I need to be under 4 lending to get a new charge. Any data?

lsquare

I think you’ll be fine for AMEX Green. Lending standard may be higher due to pandemic.

happyvoid

I heard we should not cancel a card before the year. Do we based the year on application date or do we wait until the annual fee shows up on statement

bgriff

Whichever is later, at the earliest. But in general, any closing of Amex cards runs the risk that Amex may blacklist you for future sign-up bonuses.
Amex (USA) restricts bonus based on number of accounts opened/closed (June 2018)

Dr Jabadski

Does a USAA Rewards American Express card count toward AmEx card limits? (I’ve been told that USAA AmEx cards are issued by USAA, not by AmEx.) Thank you.

lsquare

No. It doesn't count.

Diplomatico

Wait until the annual fee posts, then cancel (if that's what you want to do.)

I'm sorry but this is simply false information. I've closed many AMEX cards over the years (including one a month ago.)

I continue to be approved for cards, with sign-up bonuses attached, including a new card about two weeks after I closed a card last month.

One doesn't want to close any AMEX cards within the first year.....after that, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that closing a card after the first year results in a "blacklist". (And yes, I'm very familiar with the thread you linked.)

sdsearch

How does the experience of one person make a claim of "runs the risk" false information? That makes no sense.

bgriff didn't claim it always causes a problem, or anything close to that. The phrase "runs the risk" doesn't say how big the risk is, just that there is some risk. So one person's datapoints, even several people's datapoints, cannot be enough to disprove some amount of risk. And the claim was further only that the risk was that Amex may blacklist, not that they will blacklist. Again, not disprovable with any small amount of datapoints, because the risk being claimed is just of a possibility.

mia

This matches my understanding.

A non-falsifiable statement about something that might happen is simply speculation, and adds no value for decision making.

sdsearch

It depends on the meaning of "first year".

Amex definitely verbally warns these days that they can do something (I don't know if it's quite "blacklisting" or not) to you if you close your card after having it many years, but in less than 12 months after getting a retention bonus. So that's nowhere near the "first year" of having the card, but it is within the "first year" of getting the most recent retention bonus.

Of course, they only seem to have started mentioning this left and right fairly recently, and presumably many people are taking their warning seriously, so I'm not sure when we'll have datapoints as to what Amex actually does in that situation (especially if the retention bonus is bonus Amex points which all get transferred out before the card is closed, in which case Amex can't just claw them back).

bgriff

There are plenty of stories in this thread of people getting the Amex pop-ups for reasons that don't appear to clearly tie to the known no-nos (cancelling a card within the first year or sock-drawering cards). That said there is also plenty of self-reporting of circumstances on FT that is unreliable at best. I was simply meaning to advise that caution and tempering of expectations is probably a good idea for any plans of SUB harvesting with Amex.

TravelingZoomer

I can confirm that the card limit is now a hard 4. I cancelled an old DL card last month to apply for the Hilton Surpass with its increased signup bonus yesterday, and was denied. I called up the Amex CSR and she told me that the computer erroneously thought I had 4 lending cards since the computer thought my DL card was still open. After manual processing I got approved no problem. A little annoying because I was counting on using the instant number for some heavy spend today, but can wait until later in the week until the card comes