Introduction
In one of the weirder developments of 2023, a year full of weird developments, American Express temporarily offered bonuses for downgrading its Membership Rewards earning cards to cheaper variants. It happened in late 2022 as well with the Delta cards too.
These offers have surfaced again in the last couple of weeks, proving that 2024 now officially exists in American Express’s mainframe.
What’s Going On?
The offers appear via targeted link in your online dashboard, via targeted email, or as a retention offer when you chat or call a customer service agent. Because these offers were visible to agents, my assumption in the past was that downgrade offers were an intentional decision by American Express to prevent losing card members who might no longer want a premium card.
My new opinion though is that these aren’t intentional, but rather a periodic bug in American Express’s systems because:
- Their lifespans don’t match other AmEx offer lifespans (they’re shorter)
- They’re targeting some members that have had the card for years,
- They’re targeting members a few months after annual fees were paid
- The T&C language specifically mentions the word “upgrade”
They’re only appearing on personal cardsfalse, thanks to Bork
American Express’s technology stack includes a mix of systems that date back many decades, and I’m sure it’s hard to fully predict the outcome of a change in one part of those systems. I hope it’s obvious that in general that’s a good thing for churners.
How to Play It?
If you get one of these offers, I’d note a few things:
- To avoid pop-up jail, keep the card open for 12 months after accepting a bonus (but only if you earn the bonus)
- Earning one of these bonuses won’t put a new card on your credit report or affect 5/24
- You can stack this bonus with a retention offer, assuming one is available after downgrade
Good luck friends!
American Express’s technology interconnection switchbox.