American Express Blue for Business Upgrade Results
I have one of the old Blue for Business cards from American Express. I originally got the card a little over a year ago. The offer was for 10,000 Membership Rewards points after your first purchase, 10x points at restaurants up to $2000 in spend, and 2x MR on your first $50,000 in spend. They were even nice enough to give you a 30% bonus on your base earnings on your one year anniversary. This card essentially earned 2.3 MR points per dollar for non bonused spend for the first year.
After the first year it drops down to the standard 1 MR point per dollar with a 30% bonus at the end of the year, or 1.3 Membership Rewards points per dollar. With the year being up I decided to try to upgrade to the Blue for Business Plus card.
Blue for Business Plus Card
American Express released the Blue for Business Plus card last year to much fanfare. It even made it on our top 5 biggest wins for 2017 list.
The Blue for Business Plus card earns 2x Membership Rewards for every purchase. That makes it the best non bonused spend card on the market. I wanted to get in on that with the loss of my 2x MR earning a few months ago. With the loss of 5x Ultimate Rewards points earnings on PayPal Digital Gifts purchases I needed something that would get me extra points there.
When American Express first launched the card it came with a 20,000 Membership Rewards sign up bonus. That was a short lived bonus and I had been waiting for it to return. It hasn’t resurfaced and I couldn’t wait around any longer for something that may never come back. I decided upgrading my current Blue for Business card would be the way to go. This would save me the hard pull on my credit report and since there was no sign up bonus I wouldn’t be missing out on anything.
For more info on this card and other business cards click here!
Contacting American Express
The first place I went was Amex chat via their website. After explaining what I was looking for they checked my account and said it wasn’t possible to do a product change. I thought for sure the chat rep was mistaken. Why would Amex not let me product change from a now defunct card.
I decided to call in to see if they would give me a different response. After checking my account I was informed that there were no product change offers on my account. She then offered to transfer me to applications to apply for the Blue for Business Plus card. I said no thanks and hung up.
Conclusion
I find it very strange that American Express would not allow me to do a product change/upgrade. Especially when the card I have essentially was replaced by the one I want. It has been over a year so that wouldn’t be a reason. There is no sign up or upgrade bonus so it doesn’t really matter for them either way.
They essentially are asking me to cancel my current card and then hope I reapply for the plus version. I plan on canceling my card and then using the credit card spot for the new Hilton Diamond card they will be releasing in a few weeks. Hopefully a Blue for Business Plus sign up bonus will reappear in the future.
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Thanks Mark. I’ll check again, but thats what the Amex rep originally told me.
I think they will say that to cover their ass but from most of our personal experience they don’t do the hard pull. I haven’t had one the last 3 years or so with multiple applications. Not saying it is guaranteed but that is most people’s experience.
I too have an original Amex Blue for Business card. Had it for more than a decade. I too thought I could make the switch, card for card. No app, no nothing. After all, I’ve been with Amex for 45 years. Excellent payment history, high FICO. No dice. I would have to apply from scratch, and to add insult to injury, there would be a hard pull credit inquiry. This was a deal breaker. This from the same company who has been begging me to take their Amex Platinum Card offer for over 15 years. I’ll stick with Amex Gold for now. As I am a heavy Amazon user, and am flying a lot less now, i saved that credit inquiry for a new Amazon Signature Visa. So far, so good.
Amex rarely does a hard pull these days for current cardmembers. Something to consider as it is one of the better cards out there.
[…] throw one more card out there that we haven’t yet discussed, and one I’ll be trying to [unsuccessfully] product change to: The American Express Blue Business Plus card. This card is *really* good for […]
If you have an Amex business card, do they even pull your credit for another card app? I thought they didn’t…
I think it is hit or miss. They do that for personal and business if you have another account with them. I don’t think there is anyway to know for sure until after the fact though.
I’ve got both the Blue for Business and the Blue for Business Plus cards. There isn’t much good reason to keep Blue for Business except for the AMEX offers. The offers on the Business Plus card have been lacking compared to my other cards.
True – it is worth holding for the free Amex offers if you don’t need the Amex credit card slot for something else.
Thanks for this post. I don’t know why, but I had assumed the 2X MR was for $50K EVERY year – not just the first – on the Blue. I’m almost at my anniversary so I’m in the exact same shoes at this was my daily driver.
Official Reply (:P). I just found the document AMEX sent to me with the card. It said: 2X Membership Rewards points on the fist %50,000 in purchases EACH YEAR, then 1x points thereafter. Hope this helps.
Sorry, should be $ not %…
That is for the Blue Business Plus not the Blue For Business.
Ah Yes, My comments is for Blue Business Plus, 🙂
No problem David 😉
You can still get 20K bonus offer for Blue Business Plus by applying via Phone. At least I did just 3 weeks ago, if got informed there’s no offer, just hang up and try again.
Blue Business Plus indeed a super card, especially with everything 2X, “real” MR earning and no AF. The only downside now, is the inability to show AMEX offers, that really doesn’t make sense and hopefully AMEX can fix that soon…
Awesome info – thanks David. I am going to have to check that out!!!
Dang sorry to read this as my one year mark with the Blue for Business card is in early March and I had been planning to do as you wanted and product change. I maxed the restaurant deal and have been working the card pretty well so the 30% bump ought to help a bit anyhow.
Keep us posted as to any decent offers on the Blue for Biz Plus card. If I can’t swap over, guess for a while is back to maxing the EDP Preferred as much as possible. Love me them MR points!
Same here! My stash has gotten low so I was looking to pump them back up! I’ll let you know if I see anything. Also check out David’s post below – may be possible to get the offer over the phone!
I’m in the same situation as yours. I read from other blogs that this card cannot product change to anything else. I’ll wait for my 30% annual bonus to post first before I cancel it and then apply for the new Hilton card. Have your received your 30% annual bonus. I was told I’ll get it on my 1 year anniversary, but what is your experience?
I got mine about a week after my anniversary. I would wait for that to post for sure.