Amex Early cancel - NOT churning...should I wait?

[Anonymous]

On the phone with Amex in June, one of the reps convinced me to sign up for a Business Gold Rewards. The two big selling points for me were the hotel collection (free credit or perks) and the "no-limit" charge card benefits...The minimum spend was 5k, in the past 6 months i've spent over 20k on that card specifically. Another 100k across my other amex cards. I didn't sign up for the bonus...but...im just not feeling it anymore.

I have an amex BCP, BBP, and SCP... about to get the amazon business prime card too! I absolutely LOVE the cards, amex, customer service, purchases protections and warranty protections. As far as I'm concerned, nobody comes close! I know everybody is out there loving on Chase, but I just don't like them most the time which is why I'm getting rid of my chase amazon prime card(different topic didn't mean to bait lol). Simply put, I don't want to tick amex off. I don't want to be ineligible for future SUBs. I love them, they love me and I'd like to keep it that way. 

My problems with the gold card... Nearly all my spending is in the 1X category. I have better cards for ALL categories. The SCP pretty much overlaps all categories and I get 2X on ALL spending through BBP.

I clicked the "check spending power" button in my BBP which has flex spend. It approved me for 40+k over my limit. This COMPLETELY satisfies my need for a charge card as far as credit limits go.

The hotel collection is only useful if you want to stay in high end hotels. Maybe it's just me, but the high end hotels just don't do anything for me. I travel to do things I can't do at home. Museums, restaurants, night life, theme parks, whatever that city has to offer. When I go back to the hotel I just want to lay in a comfortable bed to sleep (or other things) for a few hours before I go back out to do it again. I can do that most places for 150-200. Every time I look up hotel collection they're 300+/night.

So... wrapping this up, the bonus points are worth more than the AF. I don't dispute it, and I don't want to give them up. However, I'm just not happy after using the actual card. I ESPECIALLY love Amex and I don't want to piss them off or burn any bridges unneccessarily over $175 dollars...should I:

1. cancel now, explain the situation. they will see significant (20k + 100k) non churn spend between gold card and others. Expect they will allow me to keep my bonus points. (ie, is the claw back a definite or case by case basis)

1a. If I cancel now is it better or worse if I immediately sign up for a personal gold card? I've been looking at the bonus categories on that one and I would ACTUALLY use it. 4x on restaurants AND groceries? I own a restaurant and eat out ALL the time. I'll use the crap out of it!

2. wait til day after my AF to cancel

3. Do I need to keep it longer?

4. PC from business gold to personal gold? I know I wouldn't get the 25k SUB but that's less than I got from the business gold anyway.

4a. would I be giving up a future SUB just by HAVING a personal gold card, even if they don't give me the second bonus?

[Anonymous]

You won't be able to PC from business to personal. You could consider downgrading from business gold to business green when fee come due.

[Shadowfactor]

In my point of view, you paid the annual fee so you might as well keep it until the end of the first year.
I doubt they will claw back your points, they could but again I highly doubt it.

The hotel collection has some good mid priced hotels. I recently did two different weekend stays at Hilton Resorts in the Caribbean for $150 a night. Off peak pricing, but it’s definitely possible to get lower priced properties. A lot of the times you have to call into Amex to see if a property is THC as they may not be listed as such online but still are part of the program.

You can’t PC from Business to Consumer or vice versa.

It’s a crap shoot if closing a product or even opening a product will bar you from future SUB’s. I’ve seen DP’s where someone has only opened 2 Amex cards in the past several years and gotten the pop-up.
Then there’s people like me that have opened 6 Amex cards with the highest SUB’s all within the last year and several new accounts with other lenders and never seen a pop up.

No one knows their internal algorithm.

I just saw a DP where someone got the pop up and then a couple weeks later tried again and supposedly got the bonus.

If you have ever held that card , even if you never got a bonus previously you won’t get a SUB unless you receive a targeted mailer without the lifetime language. Business and personal cards even if the exact same card are different products.

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty sure first year fee was waived. I'd have to double check my records. I suppose you're right about if I keep it past the first non waived AF I might as well set an entry on my calendar a year later and keep it while it's paid for.

Good to know there are some cheaper hotel collection hotels. Going to Disney next month... I'll try calling instead of Amex Travel website.

[UpperNwGuy]

Keep the card as long as it is free.  Don't close it early.  In the future, do your cost/benefit analysis before applying for a card, not after you have it.  You may not be churning, but you're collecting too many cards.

[Anonymous]

I'm collecting too many cards? LOL That's a funny thing I didn't expect to hear from anyone here. I started to reply but decided it really was a separate topic. You're welcome to tell me I have too many cards here ...

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Amex-heavy-is-this-bad/td-p/5398368