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American Express Product Change


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If your needs change or American Express makes undesired changes to a card that you hold, you may decide to either close a card or product change it to a different card.
A product change changes the terms and conditions of a card account from that of the old card to that of the new card.
This webpage will present product change options for charge cards and credit cards issued by American Express.
Other financial institutions such Navy Federal Credit Union and Wells Fargo have licenses to either issue new credit cards or continue servicing previously issued cards that run on the American Express payment network.
The information on this page does NOT apply to credit cards that run on the American Express payment network but which were not issued by American Express.
Whether any particular product change makes sense for you is an exercise for you the reader.

Product Change Process

For a downgrade you will need to contact American Express by phone or perhaps by using the chat option on the American Express website.
I have not requested a product change by chat so you will need to see whether a product change by chat is an option for you.
Lateral product change options for American Express issued cards are not common, but I am aware of one.
Changes between the American Express Blue Cash Everyday and the American Express Cash Magnet card could be considered lateral product changes.
Neither of those two cards has an annual fee.
Both of those cards earn cash back for rewards.
The rate at which those two cards earns rewards is different.

Product Change Rules

You cannot abitrarily product change between any two American Express cards.
Different issuers have different rules for product changes.
Specifically for American Express cards, the following requirements apply to the card that you want to product change from and the card that you want to product change to:

You might come across a case of a discontinued product having slightly more flexible product change rules.
According to rules for existing American Express cards:

Card Act

The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act was a law passed by the United States Federal Government in 2009.
The aspect of the law relevant to this page is that a credit card issuer cannot increase your annual fee during the first year of having a credit card.
That means that even if the three initial bullets on this page would otherwise allow it, for a personal charge or personal credit card you will not be able to have a request for a product change approved to a charge or credit card with a higher annual fee during the first year of having the card account.

Sign Up Bonuses And Upgrade Bonuses

When you sign up for a new American Express card there may be a sign up bonus.
When you upgrade an American Express issued charge or credit card, there may or may not be an bonus for upgrading.

Clawbacks

If you received a sign up bonus for opening an American Express account consider waiting a year after the account opening before closing or downgrading the account.
If you do not, American Express may attempt to clawback the bonus.
If you received a bonus for upgrading an American Express account, also consider waiting a year after the upgrade before closing or downgrading the account.
As with an account opening bonus, American Express may attempt to clawback the account bonus in such a case.

Exercises

Exercise 1

You have had the entry level no annual fee American Express personal Hilton co-branded credit card for 2 years.
You are considering product changing the entry level American Express Hilton card to the American Express personal Hilton Surpass card.
Is such a product change likely to be an option?
Why or why not?

Solution 1

While I cannot speak for American Express, I would expect that American Express would happily offer you this product change option.

Both cards are in the same product family and both cards are personal cards.
At any one point in time, American Express may or may not even provide a upgrade bonus if you accept the upgrade.
For an American Express co-branded credit card, rewards and bonuses will be in units of Hilton Honors point.
If there is an upgrade bonus, it will be to a receive a given number of Hilton Honors points for spending at least a given amount of money on goods and services on your card with a given number of days after accepting the upgrade.
The Hilton Honors points awarded as part of an upgrade would be in addition to any points awarded for ordinary spending.

Exercise 2

You have lived in New York City the last decade.
For several years you had a personal American Express Platinum charge card but then you closed it when the annual fee was raised to its current $695.
Six months ago you opened a personal American Express Gold charge card.
In late 2022 it was announced that the $300 Equinox credit on the personal American Express Platinum charge card will become much easier to use, such that for you from 2023 going forward the value of that benefit will be the full $300.
That change makes the personal American Express Platinum charge card worthwhile for you.
Would you be able to product change your personal American Express Gold charge card to a personal American Express Platinum charge card.

Solution 2

While I cannot speak for American Express, I do not think such a product change would be possible.

Credit Reallocation

Instead of product changing or closing a credit card you might decide to reallocate credit limits between cards.
There may not be enough to say about credit reallocations to merit its own page, so I will address it on this page.
You may or may not have the option to reallocate credit limits between American Express issued credit cards.
If you have the option to reallocate credit limits, you might be able reallocate credit limits between personal credit cards and between small business cards.
You may have the option to reallocate from a personal credit card to a small business card but I am not aware of a case of anyone being able to reallocate from a small business credit card to personal credit card.
Perhaps there may or may not have ever been an edge case of someone having been able to undo a personal to small business credit reallocation but it would be safer to assume that is not possible.

My Takeaway

This webpage introduced the concept of American Express product changes and provided some examples of what is and is not possible.
In your own life you may or may not encounter edge cases that I have not covered.
Also, bear in mind that the product change rules for other credit card issuers may be different than those for American Express issued credit cards.