150K amex offer

[Anonymous]

so i was just made aware of the 150K amex offer. as someone who doesn't travel a lot or redeem for travel, does it still make sense to keep the card for 1 year just for the bonus? in general, how much can 150K provide in travel if I am really conservative and only do lower point redemptions? And if i just choose to cash out the points, how much are they worth? 1cpp? thanks

[notmyrealname23]

If you redeemed 150k MR as a statement credit at 0.6 CPP (worst possible redemption) it would be $900, which is > annual fee of $695. QED it is a net positive value in Year 1 if you decided "I'm going to burn AMEX and close the card after year 1, give me that juicy signup bonus".

That being said...

- you are going to have to put significant spend on the card that you COULD spend on other cards,

- a lot of those cards are straight cash back so you don't have to figure out the ins and outs of airline and hotel programs or do various tricks for MR high value redemptions,

- you don't travel a lot anyway, by your own admission,

- oh, and if you want to keep any of those points after Year 1 and nuking the Platinum, congratulations, you have to apply for another card,

- AMEX is not a big fan of churners, maybe you decide a BCP is something you would like a year or two down the road, oh hey, you applied and AMEX now gives you a popup explaining they're not giving you any more SUBs.

Frankly for someone who doesn't travel a BCP with a $300 SUB might be more useful than a Platinum with 150k MR.

[Anonymous]

---

@notmyrealname23 wrote:

If you redeemed 150k MR as a statement credit at 0.6 CPP (worst possible redemption) it would be $900, which is < annual fee of $695. QED it is a net positive value in Year 1 if you decided "I'm going to burn AMEX and close the card after year 1, give me that juicy signup bonus".

That being said...

- you are going to have to put significant spend on the card that you COULD spend on other cards,

- a lot of those cards are straight cash back so you don't have to figure out the ins and outs of airline and hotel programs or do various dishes for MR high value redemptions,

- you don't travel a lot anyway, by your own admission,

- oh, and if you want to keep any of those points after Year 1 and nuking the Platinum, congratulations, you have to apply for another card,

- AMEX is not a big fan of churners, maybe you decide a BCP is something you would like a year or two down the road, oh hey, you applied and AMEX now gives you a popup explaining they're not giving you any more SUBs.

Frankly for someone who doesn't travel a BCP with a $300 SUB might be more useful than a Platinum with 150k MR.

---

thank you so much for your knowledge and writeup!

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

so i was just made aware of the 150K amex offer. as someone who doesn't travel a lot or redeem for travel, does it still make sense to keep the card for 1 year just for the bonus? in general, how much can 150K provide in travel if I am really conservative and only do lower point redemptions? And if i just choose to cash out the points, how much are they worth? 1cpp? thanks

---

No, it would be a bad idea to add a card like that just for 1 year. Even Amex wouldn't like it.

[SouthernCredit]

Churning Amex is not a good idea if you intend to do further business with them. But that aside, you could probably downgrade to the Gold after the first year. Still a higher AF, but probably more useful to those who don't travel much. I still wouldn't try to churn Amex, though. 

[disdreamin]

I hope it's okay to follow up for thoughts on the 150k offer since that was the title.

That offer greatly interests me due to upcoming international travel in a year or two. If I have a planned use for those rewards in the next 18-24 months, would it potentially be worthwhile to get the platinum and downgrade after the first year? I can effectively utilize the gold card long-term, but the platinum isn't something I think I'd get enough use out of to justify higher the AF.

[jcooks]

I don't recommend downgrading from the Platinum as that would not allow for the big juicy SUB on the other cards.  If you plan to travel, the Platinum has perks a traveller would love to have.  If you weight the perks and benefits over the AF cost and it still doesn't justify itself, you can downgrade, but not to a no AF card.  The only downgrade path would either be the Gold ($250 AF) and the Green ($150). 

---

@disdreamin wrote:

I hope it's okay to follow up for thoughts on the 150k offer since that was the title.

That offer greatly interests me due to upcoming international travel in a year or two. If I have a planned use for those rewards in the next 18-24 months, would it potentially be worthwhile to get the platinum and downgrade after the first year? I can effectively utilize the gold card long-term, but the platinum isn't something I think I'd get enough use out of to justify higher the AF.

---

[disdreamin]

---

@jcooks wrote:

I don't recommend downgrading from the Platinum as that would not allow for the big juicy SUB on the other cards.  If you plan to travel, the Platinum has perks a traveller would love to have.  If you weight the perks and benefits over the AF cost and it still doesn't justify itself, you can downgrade, but not to a no AF card.  The only downgrade path would either be the Gold ($250 AF) and the Green ($150).

---

I am considering doing the platinum for a couple years and then downgrading to the gold card if I didn't find it useful enough to keep long-term - I mentioned one year, but it would be a minimum of two. Within that timeframe there are some international trips for which it would (probably) be useful, but the majority of travel I do is domestic and not through major airports, other than occasional layovers. Reading through the list, most of the other amenities aren't something I'd avail myself of either, other than the hotel credit and possibly the airline fee credit.

That said, the 150k SUB is VERY attractive to me. I'd like to have them for international awards travel, and this seems like the quickest way to accrue a significant chunk of MR points. I've got a few UR banked but I was thinking having MR might offer flexibility/choices.

[Duriel]

The fine print says if you close it before 12 months, they can take the bonus back. I'm a little terrified as to what that means if you already used it. Would they assign an arbitrary cash value and put it as a charge on the card? 

[FinStar]

---

@Duriel wrote:

The fine print says if you close it before 12 months, they can take the bonus back. I'm a little terrified as to what that means if you already used it. Would they assign an arbitrary cash value and put it as a charge on the card? 

---

In a variety of cases, AENB can claw back the SUB if unused (or any remaining portion thereof). I don't think I've ever seen negative MR account balances (maybe @K-in-Boston knows?). With that being said, if SUB has been used AENB reserves the right to make any future AmEx accounts ineligible for any SUBs (or upgrade offers).