Amex is continuing to tighten up the welcome offer restrictions on some of its cards. Recently we saw new restrictions added to welcome offers on Delta Amex cards and the welcome offer on the Amex Gold Card, and now we’re seeing new restrictions added to the Amex EveryDay Card.
In this post:
Amex adds limits on Amex EveryDay Card welcome offer
The Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card (review) and Amex EveryDay® Credit Card from American Express (review) are two of Amex’s better cards for earning Membership Rewards points.
Card issuers have different policies when it comes to getting approved for and earning welcome offers on cards. Historically it has been possible to earn the welcome offer on each of these cards, as long as you don’t have (or haven’t had) that exact card. This is in line with Amex’s “once in a lifetime” policy.
Well, that’s no longer the case, at least for the less premium of the two cards. The terms of the welcome offer on the Amex EveryDay Card now state the following:
You may not be eligible to receive the welcome offer, intro APRs, and intro plan fees if you have or have had this Card, the Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card or previous versions of these Cards. You also may not be eligible to receive the welcome offer, intro APRs, and intro plan fees based on various factors, such as your history with credit card balance transfers, your history as an American Express Card Member, the number of credit cards that you have opened and closed and other factors.
So now you’re not eligible for the welcome offer on the Amex EveryDay Card if you have the Amex EveryDay Preferred Card. However, you are still eligible for the welcome offer on the Amex EveryDay Preferred Card if you have the Amex EveryDay Card. Note that even with this restriction, you can still apply for and be approved for the card, you just can’t earn the welcome offer.
If it’s any silver lining, historically neither the Amex EveryDay Card or Amex EveryDay Preferred Card had great welcome offers. Rather, these are cards that offer a good return on spending, and Amex doesn’t invest too much in the upfront acquisition rewards.
What’s the logic for this new restriction?
Essentially Amex is stating that if you have a more premium version of a card, you can’t receive the welcome offer on a less premium version of the card. Obviously I don’t like to see more restrictions on credit card welcome offers. However, I think it’s easy enough to make sense of the logic being used by Amex here.
If you have a more premium card and you’re picking up a less premium card, odds are that your primary motivation is the welcome offer, since you’re not otherwise getting many incremental perks. If you just decide you no longer want to pay the annual fee on the Amex EveryDay Preferred Card, it’s generally possible to just downgrade your card.
Meanwhile if you’re picking up a more premium card, odds are at least decent that you’re trying to increase your relationship with Amex, and plan to spend more on your card.
So going forward, you’ll definitely want to be strategic with the order in which you apply for some Amex cards, especially as these restrictions spread to more cards…
Bottom line
American Express is rolling out new restrictions on several of its cards, and the latest card to get new restrictions is the Amex EveryDay Card. You’re now not eligible for the welcome offer on the Amex EveryDay Card if you have the Amex EveryDay Preferred Card, or have had it in the past.
I wouldn’t call this change as big of a deal as the changes we saw to the Amex Gold Card and the Amex Delta SkyMiles products, but it’s still worth being aware of.
What do you make of these changes to the Amex EveryDay Card welcome offer language?
If you haven't yet had the Green Card, apply for it now before the family-language gets added to its welcome bonus as well.
From there, you can upgrade to the Gold or Platinum if you are ineligible for their welcome bonuses. You may even get an upgrade bonus in the process.
One thing I think Amex is courting trouble with, long-term, is that they're eventually going to lock out folks who walk away for a while (e.g. the DL folks who dump their cards in response to that whole disaster area). A more sensible policy would be to lock folks out who had the "fancier" card for a few years, but not permanently.
I redid my AmEx cards as part of the SkyMiles changes. Interestingly, I had a better offer to upgrade an existing AmEx card to the Everyday Preferred (25K MR points) than for applying for one outright (15K MR points). And they gave me the choice of upgrading either the old AmEx Blue card I was only keeping for credit score purposes since I’ve hard it since 2007 or an existing no fee Everyday card, So...
I redid my AmEx cards as part of the SkyMiles changes. Interestingly, I had a better offer to upgrade an existing AmEx card to the Everyday Preferred (25K MR points) than for applying for one outright (15K MR points). And they gave me the choice of upgrading either the old AmEx Blue card I was only keeping for credit score purposes since I’ve hard it since 2007 or an existing no fee Everyday card, So seemed like a logical choice to upgrade said generally useless AmEx Blue to the Everyday Preferred.
Why are they trickling these it there? they're just prolonging the pain.
I mean, Delta "pulled the band-aid off" and that's gone over /so/ well...
This was a card I had on my radar, but after getting pop-up jail for the deal Amex had on the green card, my guess is they are really trying to restrict the bonuses to existing customers and work to bring in new customers. I have a sneaking suspicion that economic factors, as well as regulatory and legislative factors may be significantly restricting the ability for everyone to earn bonuses.
While this doesn't affect me directly, their multiple recent changes show the direction their management is heading.
Time to reconsider how much expenses I need to charge on a different card.
Any strategies with getting new cards while cancelling older cards to get under the 5 limit? Trying to get some bonus before it's not a thing anymore.
Oh, they'll probably lighten up if/when either the economy turns or interest rates drop.