Use Benefits Immediately After An Amex Upgrade
I figured I would do a quick PSA style post letting you all know that I just tested it and you can use benefits immediately after an Amex upgrade. I finally took Amex up on their upgrade offer to a Business Platinum, I mean they just kept begging me too. I did the upgrade right before black Friday and wanted to take advantage of some stacking opportunities. In the past your old card has always worked as if it were the new upgraded card with Amex. I wanted to make sure to to test that once again and verify it is still working.
My Experience After An American Express Upgrade
I upgraded to the Business Platinum the night before black Friday. Normally on black Friday there are some pretty nice portal payouts and this year was no different. Rakuten had 15X – 20X payouts at many stores and Dell was one of them. The Amex Business Platinum has a $200 credit on Dell purchases every 6 months too. My plan was to stack the two offers. Earning Membership Rewards on “free” spend is hard to beat after all. The problem was my new card wouldn’t be here until early the following week.
I logged into my account and saw that my Amex Business Gold had already been switched over to a Business Platinum in my account. The credit card number stayed the same too, only the 4 digit code on the front and the expiration date changes after upgrade. Since it had already changed in my account I figured I was safe to go ahead and use the benefits of the card.
I selected some Nintendo Switch games for my son for Christmas and made my purchase. I earned 15X Membership Rewards via Rakuten and the credits should post on my Amex Business Platinum a few days later. It took a few days longer to credit than expected, mainly because the charge took a while to settle, but the credit did come as expected.
Final Thoughts
I figured it would be good to confirm that you can use benefits immediately after an Amex upgrade. Especially with all of these upgrade offers floating around and with it being the end of the year. You should be able to take the upgrade offer and potentially triple dip the benefits if you play it right. That means you could earn a credit in 2021, 2022 and early 2023. Being able to use your old card before your new one arrives makes these feat a little bit easier. You don’t need to wait the few days for your new one to arrive if you wait till the last minute to apply. That comes in handy if you see a good deal on Dell or an increased portal payout etc.
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I recently upgraded a personal Amex Gold to Personal Platinum for the same reasons and would agree with your data points. Even before I got the new card I was able to redeem the Saks credit and several others. The only issue I’ve had has been with Hilton not matching my status to Gold, weird.