Upgrade 2: Someone was denied 3rd upgrade bonus.
Update: A fellow redditor confirmed to me that 2nd upgrade was no go for him as well.
Late March 2017 (reddit), a 100k upgrade offer for no AF Hilton card appeared. The following was the direct link for the said offer but it has expired long since. The said offer did not contain once in a lifetime language.
I obviously upgraded my existing no AF Hilton card to surpass and soon after meeting 3k spend, 100k Hilton points deposited into my account. 100k points for no hard pull, no new account? Glorious.
But around mid may 2017 (reddit) it occurred to me that I could potentially churn this over and over again. A redditor confirmed it and I proceeded to downgrade my newly upgraded card. Then about 24 hour later downgrade to no AF Hilton card successfully reported in Amex site. Next I tried above mentioned upgrade offer link and I was somehow eligible for it again so I made an upgrade again and voila after 24 hours my upgrade to Surpass was complete. Meanwhile, said redditor turned out to be Geo from uscreditguide who soon after made a post on how he was able to churn this offer thrice for a whooping of 300k points!
Fast forward a little bit and I paid almost 3k to a family member via plastiq and I used this trick to waive plastiq fee. I thought I had hit a jackpot. Not only did I avoid hard pull or creation of new account but also I did not pay AF to amex and it cost me 0% to MS 2nd time around…and for all that I was about to be rewarded with 200k points. Glorious?
I waited quite some time for 2nd installment of 100k but it never came through. I recently inquired with Amex and they told me that 100k points was not pending either. I’ll soon be hit with an AF and will have no choice but to downgrade to regular surpass. For obvious reasons I will not fight with Amex.
Speculation
While it is possible that Amex has stopped paying out upgrade bonus more than once, it is more likely that this is part of a system wide glitch from Amex. We know that many new applicants of SPG card did not have signup bonus attached to their account.
0 comment
[…] churn a NO once in a lifetime language offer thrice in a short duration BUT I failed to churn the very offer 2nd time around. The point I’m trying to make is if you’re trying to do this once than once in a short […]