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I have received my companion voucher so am thinking about swapping to the free BA Amex card to get a pro-rata refund. I’d want to go back to the paid one next year to earn another voucher. Does anyone have experience of swapping between the cards multiple times? Are Amex happy for people to do this? I wouldn’t want to risk not being able to get a voucher in future.
From October, Amex is no longer offering pro-rata refunds when you cancel a paid credit card. Not sure if they treat a downgrade the same as a cancellation, but I would assume so.
If you are planning to earn one premium voucher per year, then I think the £250 annual fee is well worth it imo.
This is not data as such, but it’s clear Amex are closing doors. I’d think how valuable the voucher is to you compared to the saving.
I recently cancelled a Gold card with a around £20K credit limit, retaining my Plat card. Having then recently applied for a BAPP after the 2 year gap, I was successful, but given a credit limit of less than £2K. I did a random spend check on the Plat for a 5 figure sum and was told that would be OK’d. This is either not very joined up by Amex, or trying to slow the rate at which I can earn the SUB and voucher, maybe pushing me beyond the pro-rota cancel refund.
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If you are planning to earn one premium voucher per year, then I think the £250 annual fee is well worth it imo.Didn’t realise you got one per year if you reached the £10k spend! Do you have to do anything?
Just keep spending £10k per year and the voucher turns up.
From October, Amex is no longer offering pro-rata refunds when you cancel a paid credit card. Not sure if they treat a downgrade the same as a cancellation, but I would assume so.
If you are planning to earn one premium voucher per year, then I think the £250 annual fee is well worth it imo.
It’s an interesting point as when pro-rata refunds were stopped in the US some years ago, it did only apply to cancellations and not downgrades. It was only possible to downgrade one level within a family of cards, so not possible e.g. to downgrade Plat to a free card (in one step at least), but still to one with a greatly reduced fee, presumably after stripping out the key benefits. The new terms emails do only specifically mention cancellations, but in any event downgrades/upgrades are entirely discretionary so can change at any time. This all suits the Amex narrative, so will be interesting to see how it plays out here.
From October, Amex is no longer offering pro-rata refunds when you cancel a paid credit card. Not sure if they treat a downgrade the same as a cancellation, but I would assume so.
If you are planning to earn one premium voucher per year, then I think the £250 annual fee is well worth it imo.
It’s an interesting point as when pro-rata refunds were stopped in the US some years ago, it did only apply to cancellations and not downgrades. It was only possible to downgrade one level within a family of cards, so not possible e.g. to downgrade Plat to a free card (in one step at least), but still to one with a greatly reduced fee, presumably after stripping out the key benefits. The new terms emails do only specifically mention cancellations, but in any event downgrades/upgrades are entirely discretionary so can change at any time. This all suits the Amex narrative, so will be interesting to see how it plays out here.
If they continue offering pro-rata refund for a downgrade, it somewhat defeats the purpose of not allowing it for a cancellation, as one could simply cancel their free card once they have the refund for the downgrade.
From October, Amex is no longer offering pro-rata refunds when you cancel a paid credit card. Not sure if they treat a downgrade the same as a cancellation, but I would assume so.
If you are planning to earn one premium voucher per year, then I think the £250 annual fee is well worth it imo.
It’s an interesting point as when pro-rata refunds were stopped in the US some years ago, it did only apply to cancellations and not downgrades. It was only possible to downgrade one level within a family of cards, so not possible e.g. to downgrade Plat to a free card (in one step at least), but still to one with a greatly reduced fee, presumably after stripping out the key benefits. The new terms emails do only specifically mention cancellations, but in any event downgrades/upgrades are entirely discretionary so can change at any time. This all suits the Amex narrative, so will be interesting to see how it plays out here.
If they continue offering pro-rata refund for a downgrade, it somewhat defeats the purpose of not allowing it for a cancellation, as one could simply cancel their free card once they have the refund for the downgrade.
Yes, it would render the expensive and time consuming exercise of changing terms rather redundant but they have complete control of any upgrading/downgrading. This suits the Amex story as an upgrade or downgrade appears to count as a new customer acquisition in their rather strange world.
From October, Amex is no longer offering pro-rata refunds when you cancel a paid credit card. Not sure if they treat a downgrade the same as a cancellation, but I would assume so.
If you are planning to earn one premium voucher per year, then I think the £250 annual fee is well worth it imo.
It’s an interesting point as when pro-rata refunds were stopped in the US some years ago, it did only apply to cancellations and not downgrades. It was only possible to downgrade one level within a family of cards, so not possible e.g. to downgrade Plat to a free card (in one step at least), but still to one with a greatly reduced fee, presumably after stripping out the key benefits. The new terms emails do only specifically mention cancellations, but in any event downgrades/upgrades are entirely discretionary so can change at any time. This all suits the Amex narrative, so will be interesting to see how it plays out here.
If they continue offering pro-rata refund for a downgrade, it somewhat defeats the purpose of not allowing it for a cancellation, as one could simply cancel their free card once they have the refund for the downgrade.
Yes, it would render the expensive and time consuming exercise of changing terms rather redundant but they have complete control of any upgrading/downgrading. This suits the Amex story as an upgrade or downgrade appears to count as a new customer acquisition in their rather strange world.
Yes, that’s true. Funnily enough, I also work for a company that considers customers migrating to a free product, as opposed to cancelling altogether, as a new acquisition too. However, we don’t make any money on them whatsoever in this scenario, unlike Amex who will still get their transaction fees, but the idea is that these people can simply upgrade back to paid products later down the line more easily, as opposed to starting fresh.
Thanks all, I think I’ll try downgrading to the free card, then upgrading next year back to the paid one to get the voucher again.
Thanks all, I think I’ll try downgrading to the free card, then upgrading next year back to the paid one to get the voucher again.
there is of course no guarantee you’ll be accepted for the upgrade, it’s not automatic
wish I never downgraded but green to the game, this was the modus operandi presented constantly. But hey ho “hopefully” next year I can upgrade and will just keep it.
Personally, unless you have 10 months to go before the anniversary, I don’t see the point in downgrading as you lose the extra 0.5 Avios per £ spend.
And you lose the 3 Avios per £ on BA spend.
I think those Avios earning ratios over the free BA Amex are worth the £250 annual fee.
Plus remember Amex has just reintroduced the minimum income requirement of £35k per annum per person (no longer household income) for the BAPP so be careful as that may make you ineligible in to upgrade next year.
Have now hit my 10K spend and a voucher is in my BA account. Can I downgrade to the free card or is it best to keep my current card till I’ve booked my flight? I have to refurb my house so have around 10k more to spend in the next 3/12 so was looking to put this through the Barclaycard. Thanks : )
Downgrading has no effect on the voucher. Your spend will also reset so you can start earning another one.
@NorthernLass are you sure downgrading resets the earning for a new voucher? I thought the voucher earning year was only reset if you cancelled completely and then made a fresh application.
@NorthernLass I agree with @AJA: Downgrading does neither reset the earning year nor the spend.
Downgrading immediately after earning the voucher will show the spending tracker with the higher limit and the old date suggesting that one could earn another voucher, but that is not true (the tracker is wrong).
Apologies, for some reason I read this as Barclaycard!
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