FrontOfTheCurtain

DFWsakp

Does AMEX allow you to cancel the card after you have used the Free 1 Night certificate for a Pro-rated refund? OR Once the free night is used, there is no refund on the membership fee?
I currently have 3 AMEX Bonvoy Cards and thinking of cancelling 1.

halamadrid

Amex does not do prorated refunds anymore. You have 30 days from the date the annual fee is assessed (usually coincides with the statement date) to cancel and receive a full refund of the AF. The free night certificate takes more than 30 days to post so you can't have both (AF refund + certificate). You can of course always cancel after receiving the certificate, but you'd also be eating the full AF at that point. If you are thinking of cancelling one of the cards, make sure that you are not cancelling within the first 12 months of having that particular card or if you've upgraded, within 12 months from the upgrade. Let the annual fee hit your statement before cancelling or it may prevent you from getting bonuses from Amex in the future. As long as you cancel within 30 days from when the fee hits you'll get a refund so there's absolutely no benefit to cancelling before the AF hits.

duceno1

tstauck

Just went to apply now, one day before the 4/24 deadline. "We're sorry, the card apply site is temporarily down".

Anyone else running into issues?

halamadrid

Application comes up fine for me (although I'm not actually trying to apply since I hold the card). A lot of times when I get messages like that from the Amex site, I can usually fix it by clearing the [Amex] cookies in my browser. You can also try applying through Incognito mode.

tstauck

Thanks! Yes the website came up fine and the error only came up when I actually went to submit my application. I'll try it again in a bit.

NDS88

Apologies for asking maybe basic question, thread is *very* long to read through. I currently hold the Marriott Chase Rewards Plus card, but it's been more than 24 months since I received the welcome bonus for it. I also recently had/cancelled whatever the Amex SPG $95 card was, and had received the bonus for that in last 24 months. Today I applied and was approved for the Amex Bonvoy Brilliant card, didn't receive any message about not qualifying for the 100k signup bonus, but the language (including on TPG) describing the disqualifiers is pretty dense. Given the above status on other Marriott / SPG cards, anyone able to tell whether I qualify for the 100k offer or not?

halamadrid

Having the regular SPG/Marriott Amex does not prevent you from getting the bonus (unless you cancelled that one within the first 12 months or Amex has you on a list - but you mentioned not getting any popup so shouldn't be an issue). On the Chase side you pretty much have to look at the product you have or had and bonuses you received; then go through each item in the list provided in the terms:

If your answer is YES to any on the list = No Bonus
If your answer is NO to every item in the list = Bonus

Wolverine

Questions:

1.) For those who "upgraded" their SPG AMEX cards to the $450 AMEX Bonvoy, will they honor the 100K sign-up bonus (since it's considered a new AMEX product)?

2.) Is paying $95 Annual Fee for the Chase Bonvoy 100k bonus worth it if you plan to sock drawer it right away?

tstauck

Tried the application again today, the final day for the 100k bonus offer, and it went through fine this time.

However, when trying to get my card number now, I got: "we're sorry, our systems are not responding at this time. While you await for your new card, we will award you $60 in the form of a statement credit".

It said 3-5 business days for the new card, so that's fine. Free $60

halamadrid

1. Only if you are targeted and received an offer stating that you'd get the bonus for upgrading; otherwise it's just a straight upgrade (product change) without a bonus. From what I've read and also on the email offer I received the deadline to upgrade is today 4/24/2019. When I hit the "upgrade" link in the email offer I received the application page showed the bonus as part of the terms. I believe some people have also seen the targeted upgrade offer through a banner in their Amex account. I never saw a banner, and only got the offer via email. Additionally, I think you are only targeted if you're already passed your first year with the card.

2. Don't hold that product, but I've stayed away from the Chase card as getting that one bonus would've prevented me from getting the two Amex bonuses (regular card and business card). If one doesn't hold any Marriott card products, I think you are better off double dipping with Amex and getting the business and personal bonuses.

rustum76

Is it possible to downgrade amex card to no fee card after 1 year to avoid paying AF. I switched to staying with one of Sheraton property instead of Hilton property. I still have another 10 weeks to travel for this project. I am using chase reserve card with 3X points.

halamadrid

You can't change to a no fee product as the product change has to be within the same card family and all Marriott cards have a fee. I've read that it might be possible in the future to move from the Brilliant to the regular Bonvoy Amex with the lower AF, but I haven't seen any data points as the refreshed products are relatively new. Even if it were possible, I feel that the Brilliant with an effective AF of $150 (after the $300 Marriott credit) is a much better value even if the AF is $55 higher than the regular Bonvoy Amex because of the 50K annual certificate. It should also be easy to get way more value than $150 from that annual certificate so the card pretty much pays for itself and is worth holding on to it even if you end up not using it on a regular basis.

Wolverine

The first 50k Cert is given in Year 2 though after you've paid your second $450 AF. The Cert won't hit the account until 3 months after the Anniversary so you just can't get cancel the card in Year 1 and bank getting that Cert.