September 11, 2016

American Express Business Gold Upgrade to Platinum Offer

Emily's had the American Express Business Gold card for nearly a year.  She met the minimum spend to earn 50,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $5,000 in 90 days.  While the annual fee was waived for the first year, her card anniversary is coming up later this month.

I logged in to her Amex account over the weekend to see if the fee had posted yet.  I found this offer below in the "Offers" section.


The offer provided 50,000 Membership Rewards points after upgrading to the Business Platinum card and spending $10,000 in the first 5 months.  While $10K in 5 months is a lot, it's doable.  So we basically have three options.

1)  Cancel the Business Gold card to avoid the upcoming $175 fee
2)  Call Amex for a fee waiver (or some other MR point earning offer)
3)  Upgrade to Business Platinum and work towards meeting the $10K minimum spend

Yes, $450 is not an insignificant annual fee.  But for that fee, we'd earn a $200 airline credit in 2016 and in 2017.  So that would reduce the out of pocket (valuing airline credit as cash) to $50.  And after spending $10,000 over the next 5 months, we'd have an additional 60,000 Membership Rewards points.


I value the bonus at near $1,000 so I'm leaning towards upgrading her account and working on the minimum spend.  What do you guys think?

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