Updated 2:20pm PT on 4/24/2024: My $237.77 refund check from American Express arrived in the mail today, 5-6 days after requesting the refund check.
Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. A few days ago, I wrote Contact AMEX if Alaska Airlines Seat Assignment / Upgrade Purchases Do Not Trigger Airline Fee Reimbursement Credit. That post was in preparation of closing my American Express Business Platinum Card after the $695 annual fee posted earlier this month. I had already tried my luck at retention offers via AMEX Chat and calling, but the only offer I received was for 10,000 AMEX Membership Rewards Points after spending $5,000 in 3 months. That retention offer wouldn’t have made a large enough dent toward the $695 annual fee, so I decided to close the card.
I still had a few weeks before the annual fee had to be paid or the card had to be closed, so I was determined to earn as many of the benefits before that date. Through mid April, I was able to get 4 x $10 Wireless Credits, the $200 Dell Credit for the first half of the year, and the $200 Airline Incident Credit with Alaska Airlines (read the blog post at the top of this post for more details).
On the Benefits tab, I was able to use 3 of the benefits, but the other 4 were out of reach or of no use to me ($150 Adobe Credit and $360 Indeed Credit).
Here is the full list of benefits, but I crossed off the ones that did not matter to me.
I called AMEX on Wednesday morning and explained my reason for cancelling: I was not getting enough value out of the card to justify the $695 annual fee. The wait time was about 15 minutes, but cancelling the card only took a few minutes. After the call, I received this cancellation email.
Later that day, the $695 annual fee was refunded back to my card and I had a $237.77 credit balance. The next day, I used AMEX Chat to request the credit balance refund be returned to me via check. The agent offered to transfer the balance to another AMEX card, but I didn’t have a large enough balance on any other AMEX card to justify that option. The $237.77 refund check arrived in the mail 5-6 days later.
The day after that, my card balance showed $0.00. I then went through the process to remove the closed card from my online account. I clicked the link to Remove The Account From Online Account Management.
I selected my Business Platinum Card and clicked the Remove Card button.
I confirmed that I wanted to remove that card and clicked the Remove Card button again.
Success! My closed Business Platinum Card was now removed from my AMEX online account.
It was sad to let go of my last Business Platinum Card, but I wasn’t using the Centurion Lounges much this year and didn’t have many opportunities in the coming months to use the Centurion Lounges either. I don’t like prepaying the $695 annual fee and then jumping through hoops in order to earn back the credits. If I decide later that I want a Business Platinum Card, I can always upgrade my American Express Business Gold Card. If you have any questions about using the credits or closing the card, please leave a comment below. Have a great weekend everyone!