{"id":4654,"date":"2022-06-09T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=4654"},"modified":"2023-04-18T11:38:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T17:38:37","slug":"the-defunct-starter-morgan-stanley-card-and-its-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/09\/the-defunct-starter-morgan-stanley-card-and-its-replacement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Defunct Starter Morgan Stanley Card and its Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Several months ago an astute reader (MattyB) let me know that the <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/31\/black-wednesday-turns-unsung-hero\/\">Morgan Stanley no-annual fee American Express card<\/a>, a Miles Earn and Burn <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/category\/unsung-heroes\/\">Unsung Hero<\/a>, had vanished and links to the application <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www262.americanexpress.com\/dapply\/partner\/msb\/msb-ms-1\/cshop\/cshome#\/cshop\">led to a garbage page<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The card was great because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It had no annual fee<\/li>\n<li>It allowed you to deposit Membership Rewards to a Morgan Stanley account at 1.0 cents per point<\/li>\n<li>It had bonus categories for spend<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019ve tried unsuccessfully to find zombie links to the card, and I\u2019ve asked American Express directly about the card. I was told it\u2019s now end-of-life and that if you didn\u2019t get it before you\u2019re out of luck. They do have a replacement product in its place though, the <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/apply.americanexpress.com\/amex-morgan-stanley-credit-cards\/\">Morgan Stanley Blue Cash Preferred<\/a>, which carries a $95 annual fee that can turn into a -$5 annual fee with spend. The interesting attributes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>$300 sign-up bonus<\/li>\n<li>Waived annual fee the first year<\/li>\n<li>$100 statement credit after spending $15,000 in a calendar year<\/li>\n<li>6% back on grocery stores up to $6,500 in spend per calendar year<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Notably though, this card <em>does not<\/em> allow you to cash out Membership Rewards, so it\u2019s really just a co-brand with no direct benefits from the co-brand. If you spent exactly $15,000 in a calendar year with at least $6,500 at grocery stores, you\u2019d get $575 back including the statement credit which makes it a 3.8% cash back card averaged over the total spend for a $95 annual fee. Worth it? I guess, but it\u2019s not exciting.<\/p>\n<p>One of the best direct cash out for Membership Rewards is now gone, but there are <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/13\/reminder-cashing-out-amex-membership-rewards\/\">still other options<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-editorskit-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4655\" height=\"200\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 307px) 100vw, 307px\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/jamie-dimon.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/jamie-dimon.jpeg 307w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/jamie-dimon-300x195.jpeg 300w\" width=\"307\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Chase\u2019s Jamie Dimon mocks the lack-luster offerings of a competitor\u2019s credit card offerings with a \u201cgood job, kid!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several months ago an astute reader (MattyB) let me know that the Morgan Stanley no-annual fee American Express card, a Miles Earn and Burn Unsung<\/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-4654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4654","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=4654"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7015,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4654\/revisions\/7015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}