It is monetarily a good idea to always downgrade American Express cards even when you intend to cancel the downgraded card. Well, here is yet another reason to downgrade American Express charge cards – to get signup bonus of American Express Green.
American Express Business Green card comes with a signup bonus of 5,000 Membership Rewards (MR) points and the signup bonus hardly makes it worth applying for. However, if you product change, and put a dime on it, you may still get 5,000 welcome bonus.
I had downgraded my Business Platinum to Green, put 50 cent on it, and received 5k welcome bonus.
earning welcome bonus on product change
Does this work with personal Green? I do not know. Give it a try. Even if you have already received the signup bonus on Green, this trick is still worth a try because you can always downgrade plus cancel to get prorated refund.
6 comments
you can actually get 25,000 point sign on bonus with this card if you use incognito mode. I wouldn’t recommend downgrading to it
The business Green is what I had in mind when writing this article. I have edited appropriately to make that clear.
How about one has the sapphire reserve and the other downgrades to the freedom (1.5ur points is beat by both amex blue business 2xmr points, the boa travel 2.625% on all with plat preferred honors, ir sign up bonuses on other cards), and one has the citi prestige (only if you use the fourth night free, otherwise a premier). The citi has price rewind (which i use with the att access and more instead of the prestige for most purchases, since they are online), the ticket insurance protection is nice, it allows two transferable programs, and the travel insurance on paid tickets generally beats the reserve. Both get PriorityPass, and while the 2x ty points on dining is less than the three times on the sapphire reserve, it does cut the difference down. When possible use apple pay or just dining together and using the sapphire reserve.
I am a big fan of being invested in multiple programs. I really like BBP for 2x MR and AT&T for online purchase plus Citi’s usual easy price rewind feature.
You have to pay the $99 annual fee when you PC ?
technically you’ll get prorated refund and will be charged prorated annual fee but, ahem, see this post
http://travelinpoints.com/always-downgrade-american-express-cards-prorated-refund/