{"id":3847,"date":"2022-04-26T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=3847"},"modified":"2023-04-18T11:45:07","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T17:45:07","slug":"american-express-penalty-box-getting-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/26\/american-express-penalty-box-getting-out\/","title":{"rendered":"American Express Penalty Box: Getting Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 id=\"introduction\">Introduction<\/h4>\n<p>There are several different \u201c<a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/luminarypodcasts.com\/listen\/milenomicscom\/milenomics--podcast-no-annual-fee-edition\/episode-38-maximizing-amex-20000-point-referrals\/08f2eaf8-adcf-408b-86c4-66fd2ec5a2b9?country=US\">penalty boxes<\/a>\u201d with American Express, but they all share one thing in common: You get a pop-up telling you that you\u2019re not eligible for some bonus due to your past relationship with American Express.<\/p>\n<h4 id=\"getting-in\">Getting In<\/h4>\n<p>There are multiple ways to get put into the penalty box, but all of them involve a single principle \u2014 you\u2019ve done something that AmEx didn\u2019t like. Known routes in:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Closing or downgrading a card within the first 12 months of having the card<\/li>\n<li>Closing or downgrading a card within the first 12 months of a retention offer<\/li>\n<li>Closing or downgrading a card within the first 12 months of earning an upgrade bonus<\/li>\n<li>Too many card referrals to the same person<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are probably other ways in too, but data-points are sparse so it\u2019s hard to find more patterns.<\/p>\n<h4 id=\"getting-out\">Getting Out<\/h4>\n<p>There are two known vectors out of the penalty box:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spend ($20,000 per month for a month or two, especially on a co-branded card)<\/li>\n<li>Time (1-2 years)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Spending on Membership Rewards earning cards seem to be less likely to get you out, while co-brand cards like the Delta or Hilton cards are more likely to get you out. The likely reason that AmEx purchased a bunch of co-brand rewards points and gets to remove some of them off of their books, improving their overall balance sheet.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized is-style-editorskit-rounded\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3874\" sizes=\"(max-width: 714px) 100vw, 714px\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/penalty-box.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/penalty-box.jpeg 714w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/penalty-box-223x300.jpeg 223w\" width=\"420\"\/><figcaption>Hangin\u2019 in the AmEx penalty box.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction There are several different \u201cpenalty boxes\u201d with American Express, but they all share one thing in common: You get a pop-up telling you that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":1,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3847"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7047,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3847\/revisions\/7047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}