Amex Platinum — cancel or downgrade?

[madcap3693]

I love my Platinum!

[Blender]

i have the green and i like it because it works for me, but there are revolvers that i want with the same benefits with a smaller or no AF. I dont want to pay the $150 next year, but i also want to keep a charge in my profile. 

[BronzeTrader]

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@Blender wrote:

i have the green and i like it because it works for me, but there are revolvers that i want with the same benefits with a smaller or no AF. I dont want to pay the $150 next year, but i also want to keep a charge in my profile. 

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So you like it, but do not want to keep it?  What am I missing?

[unsungivy]

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@1LostArk wrote:

I can't justify the AF on my Platinum next year, so I'd like to cancel or downgrade to a Green. I will probably want a Platinum again at some point, so would it be better to downgrade now and upgrade in the future, or simply cancel and reapply in the future? Staying on good terms with Amex is of paramount importance to me, so if it would be better to downgrade I have no problem with that, but if it makes no difference I'll just cancel. Thanks!

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Please don't downgrade unless you have had the Green in the past and already acquired the SUB. Downgrading in the manner you are referencing will make you ineligible to ever attain the SUB for the green... you'd be better off apping for a new green (soft pull since you already have an amex) and closing the platinum, if you actually want a green. Then you could upgrade THAT in the future if you want your platinum again, since you had a platinum before so would not being missing out on the SUB.

[OmarGB9]

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@unsungivy wrote:

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@1LostArk wrote:

I can't justify the AF on my Platinum next year, so I'd like to cancel or downgrade to a Green. I will probably want a Platinum again at some point, so would it be better to downgrade now and upgrade in the future, or simply cancel and reapply in the future? Staying on good terms with Amex is of paramount importance to me, so if it would be better to downgrade I have no problem with that, but if it makes no difference I'll just cancel. Thanks!

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Please don't downgrade unless you have had the Green in the past and already acquired the SUB. Downgrading in the manner you are referencing will make you ineligible to ever attain the SUB for the green... you'd be better off apping for a new green (soft pull since you already have an amex) and closing the platinum, if you actually want a green. Then you could upgrade THAT in the future if you want your platinum again, since you had a platinum before so would not being missing out on the SUB.

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Unless of course OP doesn't care about SUB and doesn't want a new account hit for the Green if they apply for it separately.

[Blender]

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@BronzeTrader wrote:

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@Blender wrote:

i have the green and i like it because it works for me, but there are revolvers that i want with the same benefits with a smaller or no AF. I dont want to pay the $150 next year, but i also want to keep a charge in my profile. 

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So you like it, but do not want to keep it?  What am I missing?

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Tired when i wrote that, i see it doesnt make sense lol. The only perk I've used so far is free unlimited sip club for 4 months at panera bread lol. The 3x travel has been nice and I need to renew my CLEAR membership after the holidays. I guess what I'm saying is right now it has worked for me for no utilization purposes, but there are other cards with a lower or no AF that make more sense that I will PC to or cancel after 1 year. 

[Bk2006]

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@805orbust wrote:

I've been struggling with this same question...  Ever since the pandemic,  the work travel has REALLY slowed down. But you never know when things will change...  I'm not a fan of reapplying so the downgrade may be the move after all.

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I canceled my Amex Platinum in summer 2020 when I couldn't justify the AF with less travel. I'm back to fairly frequent flying with my new job now, but I still can't justify the AF personally - the lounges at many airports seem to be more overcrowded than ever! Plus, i usually fly Southwest (no lounges) or American (no Admirals Club access with Amex) so their own Chase & Citi cards respectively provide more benefits for my spending.

One benefit of canceling and then reapplying for a Gold or Green card later on is that you can get the SUB for the other cards if it's a new account. This is what I plan to do in 2023 - open an Amex Gold which has better bang for the buck for my needs. Since I've never had a Gold card the bonus will be nice.

[SouthJamaica]

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@1LostArk wrote:

I can't justify the AF on my Platinum next year, so I'd like to cancel or downgrade to a Green. I will probably want a Platinum again at some point, so would it be better to downgrade now and upgrade in the future, or simply cancel and reapply in the future? Staying on good terms with Amex is of paramount importance to me, so if it would be better to downgrade I have no problem with that, but if it makes no difference I'll just cancel. Thanks!

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I am by no means an Amex expert like some of the folks in this forum, but here's the way I look at it:

It seems to me that Amex's primary concern about cancellations and new applications is the signup bonus; they don't like to be 'churned'. And the easiest way to get on their wrong side is to do something that triggers their algorithms looking for churners.

So since the paramount goal is to stay on good terms with Amex, it seems to me the best way to proceed is to simply downgrade for now, and then upgrade when the Platinum makes sense again. I would not be surprised for them to shower you with upgrade offers after a while.

Also downgrading and upgrading do no damage to your FICO scores, while opening and closing accounts do.

[BronzeTrader]

AmEx is different from other CC banks.  Its root is the travel, business and charge cards.  I guess it can't tolerate bad credit or any default risks.  It will be happy to pay out new card bonus and hope to generate a lot of swipe fees from those cards.  So it likes high credit cardholders.  

So if you get excellent credit, have a lot of spending, AmEx will be happy to give you some bonus from time to time.  But if you do not put on much spending, but keep opening and closing cards to get bonus, then AmEx will shut it down.

[1LostArk]

Downgraded my card to a Green after the 13th statement rather than cancel it. I had my green card for less than two weeks before receiving an offer to upgrade to the Gold for 60k MR points. Obviously I accepted without hesitation. I did put heavy restaurant spend on the green during the short time I had it, not sure if that played a part. I must say I do feel rewarded for doing "right" by Amex and not canceling. Now a question for the Amex experts: if I downgrade to the green again next year, will that flag my account to the RAT?