Amex upgrade offer voids the welcome bonus later?

[ficomember]

I received an upgrade offer from Amex to upgrade my everyday card to everyday preferred with annual fee and get 25k bonus. Questions:

1. if I upgrade, one year later,  can I downgrade back to the no annual fee card? 

2. If I upgrade then downgrade after a year, can I signup for Amex everyday preferred and get sign up bonus or no later on? Or upgrade is considered the lifetime bonus too? 

[Anonymous]

1. Yes

2. No, you won't get the opening bonus if you have held the card before (from upgrading) 

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Losing the sub is why I apped directly for the Delta Platinum. It was no-brainer for me. 10k upgrade or 75k app.

[Trikoret]

3 years ago I took the upgrade offer to upgrade my Amex Gold to plat to get 60k. I only had the plat card for a week and decided to go back to Gold card cause I had cold feet about paying the $450 annual fee back then. I never got the 60k welcome offer.  The other day I asked CSR if I have any upgrade offers on my account and she said no but I can apply for a new card and get the welcome offer. Is that true or she's clueless?

[Anonymous]

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@Trikoret wrote:

3 years ago I took the upgrade offer to upgrade my Amex Gold to plat to get 60k. I only had the plat card for a week and decided to go back to Gold card cause I had cold feet about paying the $450 annual fee back then. I never got the 60k welcome offer.  The other day I asked CSR if I have any upgrade offers on my account and she said no but I can apply for a new card and get the welcome offer. Is that true or she's clueless?

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No, you're not eligible because you've held the card before. And especially because you went back a week later, and loosing the 60K upgrade offer. Then it's probably a double no. Though you can always apply and the system should have apop up telling you if eligible or not.

I'm not an expert when it comes to upgrade versus an actual app for the SUB and then canceling before 12 months is up.

For OP's case, 25K isn't that bad for upgrading since that's typical SUB for an actual app. While you will not get the SUB again, there are DP's suggesting that you may get another upgrade offer in the future. A few people here have done this with the BCE<>BCP more than once, you just haev to wait for the offer after you downgrade which could be  awhile.

[MrDisco99]

Yes taking the upgrade will disqualify you from getting the new card SUB down the road.

However, sometimes it's worth just taking the upgrade anyway.  I've found when apping for a new higher level card, the upgrade offer goes away.  So you can only get one or the other.  In that case it probably makes sense to take the upgrade and keep the same tradeline if the offer is competitive.

[TSlop]

Where do upgrade offers appear? Whenever I get an offer to upgrade my no AF HH card to the Surpass I'll probably take it, especially if the offer matches the current SUB of 125k points. I like the idea if keeping the same account instead of opening another card, even if it is a SP. I'm unsure if I'll either get an email about the upgrade, see it in my account somewhere, or see it only when I look to apply for the Surpass.

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

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@Trikoret wrote:

3 years ago I took the upgrade offer to upgrade my Amex Gold to plat to get 60k. I only had the plat card for a week and decided to go back to Gold card cause I had cold feet about paying the $450 annual fee back then. I never got the 60k welcome offer.  The other day I asked CSR if I have any upgrade offers on my account and she said no but I can apply for a new card and get the welcome offer. Is that true or she's clueless?

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Normally if you downgrade before 12 months (some recent DPs point to 24 months), you'll become ineligible for the SUB on most cards. Not sure what would happen to you because it was so quick and you never got the SUB. You may still be eligible, you may not be eligible on just that card, or you may not be eligible on most or all the cards anymore. We don't have enough DPs with that timetable to say for sure.

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

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@TSlop wrote:

Where do upgrade offers appear? Whenever I get an offer to upgrade my no AF HH card to the Surpass I'll probably take it, especially if the offer matches the current SUB of 125k points. I like the idea if keeping the same account instead of opening another card, even if it is a SP. I'm unsure if I'll either get an email about the upgrade, see it in my account somewhere, or see it only when I look to apply for the Surpass.

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They'll email them to you. You can also call in and ask, which is how I found out about my 10k upgrade offer.

[pinkandgrey]

1. Yes, you can downgrade later.

2. Unfortunately, Amex doesn't give out the SUBs for previous cardholders. There's wording to the effect of "offer not available for people who have or have had this card." 

If the SUB is important for you, you'll want to app for that card directly.