I´d appreciate the input of those AMEX customers living in Germany:

I applied for the AMEX Green personal card maybe 10 months ago and have used it pretty extensively (let´s say mid five-figure range).

1) Is there a way of getting the annual fee refunded? (in some old posts on the internet I found some info that you can have the Gold card fee refunded if you spend >10k Euros/per year, is that info still correct?)

2) Has anyone had any success getting a comp. upgrade to Gold based on spending? Should I be proactive or should I wait until some computer decides to call me? I don´t really care about the "image" of any of the more "exclusive" AMEX cards, but the Gold card seems to have some useful benefits compared to the Green card.

This is what happened to me: I used to own the Amex Platinum card and one day decided to cancel it because of the high fees. I got a phone call from Amex on why I wanted to cancel and that, considering my card revenues, I could get the Amex Gold for free - if I would continue to spend at least 8k EUR a year. This, however, was about 5 years ago.

So: if I were you, I would not wait for a computer decision to call you. I would call Amex and ask them. Usually, amex staff are quite cooperative, competent and friendly. If they say no, just cancel your card and see what happens. ;-)

Just an update:

Called AMEX to ask whether the annual fee could be waived for my Green Card.

The extremely friendly and polite agent offered the following arrangement on a permanent basis:

all fees are waived for credit card / supplementary cards / Membership Rewards as long as I spend >8.000Euros per year

Very happy with this deal and very impressed with customer service since I got this card.^

If this is really permanent and not only for the next year, this seems to be a good deal.

The agent said "dauerhaft", so I´ll take her word for it for the time being.

I guess my spending over the last year which by far exceeded the threshold didn´t hurt, but nevertheless I was very impressed with the offer (particularly as I didn´t expect the MR fee and secondary card fee to be waived without me even mentioning it) and have put >90% of all charges on the AMEX card.

Will probably get rid off the LH CC at some point as it no longer really serves any real purpose...