Oh really, they referred me to a telephone number over chat, but perhaps they meant to apply over the phone?
‘You are most welcome to upgrade/downgrade a different card as per your preference and availablity.’
'To upgrade your car we have dedicated team… they can do it for you.
No worries,it can be easily taken care of. You just need to get in touch with the specialized team, who are authorized and have access of this information, they will review the account and will help you in every possible way and I can locate their phone number for you as they are not available on chat as of now’
Hmm
I’ve actually found it hard to sort out a travel credit card with no fees so at least with this one I’d get something for booking flights or if I had to use a Credit Card abroad in terms of points…
Does it work with any airline so long as you book direct? The x2 points
Also, is it two lounge visits a year with a guest or one with a guest? The person on chat was a bit contradictory about this tbh
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Wouldn’t hold your breath the chat was a bit hit and miss!
I am not 100% but think it should be any transaction that is recognised as an airline.
The lounge visits works be one with a guest, or two individual visits. I think after that it’s £20/22 per visit.
Yes this is correct (I have the gold card).
You also get X3 points if you book with American Express Travel. It’s worth bearing in mind that if you book a flight that’s not billed in GBP, using Monzo is probably better value.
The whole reason why I went for the gold card over the BA cards was because points can be converted to Avios at the same rate or a tonne of other rewards. With COVID ruining travel it’s worked out to be a bit of a good call.
Brilliant. I will call them soon to see if you can ‘upgrade’ I’d rather that than close and open an account if possible
Nope, turns out I’d have to apply
Apparently you can with the BA Cards
You mean from Rewards to Preferred (higher limit?). Is the application process any different as an existing cardmember?
I’ve heard there isn’t a hard search, but bizarrely Amex don’t confirm that anywhere
You can move within a “family” with no check, but you cannot move to another group of Amex without a hard credit check.
I have never fully understood why.
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I think it depends on your internal rating. I’ve only ever had a single Amex hard search done and I’ve applied for the Costco Card, the silver standard cashback one and now the clear rewards low rate one. I applied for one, got them to move my credit limit over to the new one and cancelled the old one at the same time. Even when manually requesting limit increases they’ve never checked again.
Right, so you applied for it. That’s not the same as just automatically changing.
I moved from BA blue to black just online in my account. No applying.
Regardless I’ve always seen, and been told by Amex themselves that any customer wanting a different card would need to apply, not just transfer across, regardless of internal ratings.
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I meant that whilst I couldn’t transfer to any card - I applied for the new ones myself online then got them to transfer the things over and there was only the first original hard credit search and no others since
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If you applied online there would have been a hard search. Not sure why there wouldn’t have been with you, unless you were transferring between family of cards (by family they mean offering the same style of reward).
Explains it fairly well, I think.
During the form it asked for my previous card number etc. and it never did a hard check. It approved immediately also so I guess their internal scoring was enough for them.
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If you were moving within a normal family/type of cashback, sure. If not, then apparently you go against Amex’s own rules so I don’t feel this is something that should be general advice since it shouldn’t be the case by Amex’s own admission.
Well I’ve just checked my Credit Karma and it’s recorded a soft search when I originally got my first card last year. A minefield this is 
This is probably a precursor to a dark mode (since plain white is easier to invert)?
I hope so anyway!
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Literally the most First World comment on this forum evah 
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I don’t think it’s been very well advertised, but Amex cardholders can get a year’s free Premium subscription to Calm, then a half price second year.
I like the stretch and relaxation stuff. Not so keen on the meditation and I just can’t relax to the stories in US accents. Not complaining about free content though
It includes kids’ bedtime stories and relaxation activities, so might come in handy on lockdown days when things are getting stressful with everyone stuck in the house…
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