Membership Rewards cannot be transferred from one MR account to another. A primary cardholder can attach all of their own primary MR-earning cards to the same MR account, and if you are made an authorized user on the Gold Card, she can transfer the MRs to any of your frequent flyer or hotel accounts (or you can do so yourself if she explicitly goes into the card setup to allow you to manage rewards).
Also a very valid point if she wishes to be eligible for American Express Welcome Offers in the future. The general thought is that it’s best to at least hold onto Amex cards for 2 years these days.
@K-in-Boston wrote:
Also a very valid point if she wishes to be eligible for American Express Welcome Offers in the future. The general thought is that it’s best to at least hold onto Amex cards for 2 years these days.
Honestly I never had a problem getting an amex signup bonus and I often close Amex cards after one year, so I don't buy into that theory. I keep all my cards the full first year. I have other amex cards that I keep longer term.
;
@red259 wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:
Also a very valid point if she wishes to be eligible for American Express Welcome Offers in the future. The general thought is that it’s best to at least hold onto Amex cards for 2 years these days.Honestly I never had a problem getting an amex signup bonus and I often close Amex cards after one year, so I don't buy into that theory. I keep all my cards the full first year. I have other amex cards that I keep longer term.
I'm assuming that you have a long established history with American Express and consistently high annual spend like myself. Amex tends to be more forgiving when you have their other cards for 20 years or more and do things like spend $75k+ in a year on a Marriott card, for example. Have those also been recent closings and new welcome offers? This has only been going on for about a year or so. For the overwhelming majority of users here, I would strongly advise against trying to churn Amex as it doesn't seem to be a long-term strategy that will work for most. Anybody trying to spend $1,000-$3,000 to get a SUB on their first Amex, never using it again, and closing the card at a year is not going to fare as well.
@K-in-Boston wrote:
@red259 wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:
Also a very valid point if she wishes to be eligible for American Express Welcome Offers in the future. The general thought is that it’s best to at least hold onto Amex cards for 2 years these days.Honestly I never had a problem getting an amex signup bonus and I often close Amex cards after one year, so I don't buy into that theory. I keep all my cards the full first year. I have other amex cards that I keep longer term.
I'm assuming that you have a long established history with American Express and consistently high annual spend like myself. Amex tends to be more forgiving when you have their other cards for 20 years or more and do things like spend $75k+ in a year on a Marriott card, for example. Have those also been recent closings and new welcome offers? This has only been going on for about a year or so. For the overwhelming majority of users here, I would strongly advise against trying to churn Amex as it doesn't seem to be a long-term strategy that will work for most. Anybody trying to spend $1,000-$3,000 to get a SUB on their first Amex, never using it again, and closing the card at a year is not going to fare as well.
I'm not spending 75+k on a marriott card. I don't even have their marriott card. I think my oldest amex is like 6 or 7 years old. So my file isn't thin, but by the same token I don't think the logic you mentioned applies to the overwhelming majority of users here. I'm also not sure why someone with limited credit history would be wasting apps on cards that they only are going to keep for a year, because its going to make it more difficult to have a good credit file later on. When building credit the logical thing to do is to target cards that you will either keep when starting out or cards that you will be able to downgrade to keep long term. The value of signup bonuses decreases drastically if you are paying extra AFs on cards that are not worth it to you.
Completely agree with KIB. Amex will forgive you if you close a card after a year or have one card that doesn’t get much spend provided you’re overall level of spend is acceptable to them.
My fiancée is locked out of welcome bonuses and I’ve spent 75K on her second ever Amex card and it’s not even a year old. Her first card was the delta gold where she hit the sub and it was almost nonexistent spend until the 12.5 month mark when she closed it.
No matter how much spend I throw at it, they aren’t budging on any welcome offers. I even tried BCE for the low non MR offers.
I’ve seen this theme a lot in the Facebook groups I moderate for, lots of people have this bright idea that they will game Amex and it comes back to bite them in the arse.
The funny thing is that Amex doesn’t really seem to care all that much about MS either. Sure if you’re stupid you’re screwed but they have been extremely tolerant IMO. They don’t like people breaking the rules though and welcome offers/SUB’s/referrals are a big sore spot.
My fiancée is locked out of welcome bonuses and I’ve spent 75K on her second ever Amex card and it’s not even a year old. Her first card was the delta gold where she hit the sub and it was almost nonexistent spend until the 12.5 month mark when she closed it.
No matter how much spend I throw at it, they aren’t budging on any welcome offers. I even tried BCE for the low non MR offers.
I’ve seen this theme a lot in the Facebook groups I moderate for, lots of people have this bright idea that they will game Amex and it comes back to bite them in the arse.
The funny thing is that Amex doesn’t really seem to care all that much about MS either. Sure if you’re stupid you’re screwed but they have been extremely tolerant IMO. They don’t like people breaking the rules though and welcome offers/SUB’s/referrals are a big sore spot.
