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(SUSPENDED) Are you going to cancel an Amex card before fee refunds are scrapped?

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EDIT: Amex has now suspended these changes until at least 2024. See our top story.

American Express has traditionally offered one feature which other UK credit card companies did not.

If you took out a card with an upfront annual fee, you would receive a pro-rata fee refund if you cancelled your card part-way through the year.

This feature ends on Sunday 1st October for most cards.

You will still be allowed to cancel your card but you won’t get any portion of the annual fee back.

Does this change apply to all American Express cards?

No.

The change only impacts credit cards.

If you still hold a charge card – although all personal charge cards have been withdrawn from the market over the last couple of years for new applicants – then nothing changes. You will still be able to cancel it at any point for a pro-rata fee refund.

The two core small business cards – Business Gold and Business Platinum – are charge cards and will not be impacted by this change.

How will this change the card market?

That’s a good question, especially as you also need to factor in the appeal of competing products – the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard, for example, has a fee of £20 per month and so can be cancelled at any time without penalty.

Let’s look at a few of the cards:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is free for the first year, so the appeal of this card (you receive 20,000 Membership Rewards points as a sign-up bonus, £120 of Deliveroo credit and four airport lounge passes) is unchanged.

The Platinum Card from American Express

The Platinum Card is more complex, but at a non-refundable £575 for the first year it remains a good proposition. In year one you would get 30,000 Membership Rewards points bonus, up to £600 of dining credit, £150 of Harvey Nichols credit, two Priority Passes, travel insurance etc.

During special offers such as the recent ‘60,000 points + £200 of Amex Travel credit’ promotion it becomes exceptional value for the first year, even at the full £575.

No more pro-rata fee refunds for UK American Express cardholders

British Airways Premium Plus American Express

The British Airways Premium Plus card becomes less attractive for a quick pump and dump, with the 25,000 Avios bonus equalling but not exceeding the £250 annual fee on our valuation.

However, because of the value of the annual 2-4-1 companion voucher, it is by far the most common card for HfP readers to keep for the long term. I doubt many people who read HfP cancel this card quickly.

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

Most HfP readers who have the Marriott Bonvoy American Express card will have it because of the 15 free elite night credits you receive. This is an annual benefit, and anyone who gets the card purely for the elite nights is probably in it for the long haul.

The 15 elite nights even count towards lifetime status.

What am I doing?

I am not looking to cancel anything before next Sunday.

My wife and I both have a British Airways American Express Premium Plus card. These generate 2 x 2-4-1 companion vouchers annually, which is ideal for our family of four. I treat these as ‘long term holds’.

I also have The Platinum Card. I have held this for many years and I still feel I make a ‘profit’ from the annual fee. The £300 annual dining credit and £100 of Harvey Nichols credit is money I would spend anyway, and I easily get value from the travel insurance, car hire insurance, Fine Hotels & Resorts hotel benefits etc. Nothing will change here.

My Marriott Bonvoy American Express card is also a keeper. I am only about five years short of Lifetime Platinum status in Marriott Bonvoy, and the 15 elite night credits I receive each year from holding the card is a key part of achieving that. The £75 fee is also easily justified by the semi-regular Marriott Bonvoy cashback offers (the new one is £100 back on £250 of Marriott spend) and the six points per £1 I earn for UK Marriott spend.

The only card we could drop is my wife’s Preferred Rewards Gold card. However, as this is the old charge card version, we will retain the right to cancel this at any point for a pro-rata refund so there’s no rush to act here. I also feel that we get value from this via the Deliveroo credit and the fact that Amex Gold seems to have FAR more cashback offers than any of our other cards.

No more pro-rata fee refunds for UK American Express cardholders

What should you think about before cancelling?

Here are the answers to a few common questions about card cancellations:

Preferred Rewards Gold / The Platinum Card:

  • your Membership Rewards account will be closed shortly after you have closed your last Membership Rewards-earning card – you will need to transfer your points out. This may impact your willingness to cancel.
  • your Priority Pass airport lounge card will be cancelled as soon as you cancel your card
  • for Platinum, you will retain your hotel status cards until the end of the year and potentially longer

British Airways Premium Plus:

  • if you downgrade to the free British Airways American Express, your card year remains the same and your ‘spend to date’ towards your next companion voucher is carried over
  • irrespective of what you may be told by Amex, any unused 2-4-1 companion vouchers should remain in your British Airways Executive Club account (the card T&C contradict this and say they will be removed but in reality this is what has always happened for the past 20 years – although of course you do this at your own risk, and have no recourse if they are removed now or in the future. The risk free option is to downgrade to the free BA card.)
  • you do not need a British Airways American Express card to pay the taxes when you redeem your 2-4-1 voucher (and the new T&C confirm this) but you will need AN American Express card of some sort. This does not necessarily need to be in your name as Amex does not do name verification as a security check.

Will this strategy work for Amex?

My gut feeling is that American Express will see an improvement in the ‘quality’ of cardholders who sign up for The Platinum Card and – for non-HfP readers who don’t understand the value of the 2-4-1 voucher – the British Airways Premium Plus American Express card.

The acceptance criteria for The Platinum Card has already been tightened up this year by bringing in a £35,000 minimum income criteria – presumably to meet new FCA rules on ensuring products are not missold – but this obviously goes further.

It remains to be seen if blocking British Airways Premium Plus refunds will make the Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard more attractive for people looking for their first Avios credit card.

These changes probably won’t make much difference to the attractiveness of cards during special promotions. If Amex brought back the recent offer of ‘60,000 Membership Rewards points + £200’ which recently ran on The Platinum Card then it remains a no-brainer, especially with up to £750 of dining and Harvey Nichols credit thrown in during the first year, even at a sunk cost of £575.

What interests me is whether some people will still choose to cancel their cards quickly even when they don’t get a fee refund. This would make sense in some scenarios, since the quicker you cancel, the quicker the two year clock for reapplying comes around.

There is some upside too. It is possible that American Express will increase sign-up bonuses further on its paid cards because it knows that cardholders are committed to a full year. Let’s see what happens over the next few months.


best travel rewards credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – February 2025 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

50,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

For a non-American Express option, we also recommend the Barclaycard Select Cashback card for sole traders and small businesses. It is FREE and you receive 1% cashback when you spend at least £2,000 per month.

Barclaycard Select Cashback Business Credit Card

Get 1% cashback when you spend at least £2,000 per month* Read our full review

Comments (198)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • letBAgonesbe says:

    I tried to cancel my BA premium AMEX a couple of days ago as I also have a platinum Amex and the fees for 2 together is too much, and I already have so many different vouchers.

    The agent tried to make me keep it, by explaining the current benefits, but I insisted on cancelling it.

    Only at the very end he decided to share a special offer “spend £3000 within 3 months, and receive 10,000 bonus Avios” which changed my mind.

    • Gordon says:

      I can see Amex receiving a lot of calls from people with empty intentions to cancel said card, hoping for a Brucie bonus!

  • Tariq says:

    Cancelling BAPP this week as already have plenty of companion vouchers and Avios to cover the next 12-18 months. Putting spend on the Bonvoy card as Marriott points are more usable day-to-day and if I happen to hit the £25k bonus trigger then that’s an additional benefit. Using a Barclays Avios premium card alongside.

  • S879 says:

    Will be cancelling too but still undecided about what to book with the 2 for 1. With recent reports of voucher being clawed back don’t want to risk it. Still not sure if it was taken back due to a refund. I have spent double the required amount of the card so tempted to cancel as no plans to travel for sometime.

  • Louise says:

    £600 dining credit and £150 Harvey Nicks….are these special HFP rates!

    • roger says:

      No.
      I applied in June and if I use the full 12 months I too would get the same.

      £50 used in JUNE then in second half and again in the fist half next year.
      This plus £300 for each calendar year does indeed make up £750 of credit to spend.

    • Dutch Schaefer says:

      Unless you time your application for 1 January you’ll hold the card across two calendar years / 3 half years

    • Joe says:

      But…it’s only true in the first rolling year of the card, otherwise you’re double counting..

  • Mr. AC says:

    Called to cancel my Plat last week. Was offered to switch to monthly payments with the option to cancel anytime, which I did. But it seems that I would not have actually been affected since my Plat is a Charge card?

    Also: fun fact. Switching to monthly payments causes some arcane Amex back office system to reissue all your card, so I got a bunch of envelopes in the mail, including with the main and supp metal ones. Lady on the phone warned this would happen and told me they have no way to prevent it! Just told me to cut them up, which is a challenge for the metal ones… Probably a £50+ cost right there for Amex.

  • Paul says:

    This has prompted me to cancel my preferred rewards gold card. The lounge passes used to be valuable but are no use anymore at Manchester airport. I will transfer my points into Finnair plus this week and make the call. Exactly same for my wife too.

    • Rob says:

      I assume you’re planning to burn them before year end, because they transfer to Avios at 3:2 if you don’t so you’ll have taken a big hit!

  • Michael C says:

    Will cancel OH’s BAPP but will make a booking using their 241 this week just in case.
    A 10K Avios retention bonus wouldn’t really swing it for me.

    • Gordon says:

      10k Avios to buy is £194!

      • Michael C says:

        …but I generally value them at 1p = GBP100…

        We have another in the family to maintain the 241, which I agree is worth it.

        • Gordon says:

          I was looking at the worst case if you had to buy to top up for a redemption. But yes if you have an additional card then no problem.

  • W6 says:

    Called to cancel platinum last week, as new membership year commences October, was offered 35:000 reward points to stay which I accepted, now have the points I wonder if I can still cancel if I move all my reward points first😀

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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