PSA: American Express tightens eligibility for sign-up bonuses

American Express has historically been more lenient than other card issuers when it comes to defining who qualifies as a “new customer” for welcome offers. 

While most banks require that new customers must not hold any principal credit card now or in the past 12 months, American Express only applied this restriction to the same principal credit card.

For example, if you currently held an AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend, you couldn’t cancel it today and reapply for the same card tomorrow as a new customer (which makes sense). However, you could cancel it and apply for an AMEX KrisFlyer Credit Card — or any other AMEX card besides the Ascend — and still qualify as a new customer.

That always felt like a bit of a loophole, so it’s not surprising that American Express has finally closed it. What is surprising, however, is that they’ve gone even further and introduced new restrictions, making their “new customer” definition the strictest on the market!

How has the new-to-AMEX definition changed?

Previously, American Express defined new-to-AMEX customers as those who:

• do not hold any principal AMEX consumer card at the time of application, and
• have not cancelled the same principal AMEX consumer card in the past 12 months

To illustrate, here are some possible scenarios for an individual applying for a principal AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend.

With effect from 31 July 2025, American Express defines new-to-AMEX customers as those who:

• do not hold any principal or supplementary AMEX consumer card at the time of application, and
• have not cancelled any principal or supplementary AMEX consumer card in the past 12 months.

This is a much narrower criteria. First of all, even holding a supplementary AMEX consumer card would disqualify you from the new-to-AMEX definition. Second, cancelling any principal or supplementary AMEX consumer card in the past 12 months will disqualify you, not just the same principal AMEX consumer card.

Let’s revisit those seven scenarios again, for someone applying for a principal AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend.

As you can see, we’ve gone from being eligible in 6 out of 7 scenarios to being eligible in just 1 out of 7 scenarios!

Now, I could understand if American Express aligned its new-to-AMEX definition with the rest of the market by excluding anyone who held a principal AMEX credit card in the past 12 months. But they’ve gone even further by requiring that your past 12 months be completely free of principal and supplementary AMEX cards.

As far as I know, the only other bank which has excluded supplementary cardholders from their new-to-bank definition is BOC, and that’s not a category you want to be grouped with. I can only hope that other banks don’t follow AMEX’s lead, because if anything, it seems unnecessarily punitive.

I can understand placing restrictions on principal cardholders as an anti-gaming measure, because you don’t want people signing up for cards, enjoying the welcome offers, then cancelling those cards and reapplying for more.

But supplementary cardholders generally don’t enjoy any sort of welcome offers or bonuses,  so it’s much harder to understand the grounds for restricting them from the pool of new-to-bank customers (other than to benefit AMEX, obviously).

What about existing customers?

When American Express initially published its new T&Cs on 31 July 2025, there was also a change to the definition of an existing customer.

You do not previously hold a basic or supplementary consumer Card from American Express that was terminated or otherwise cancelled in the last twelve (12) months prior to the application

Needless to say, this would have been extremely restrictive. For example, if I cancelled a supplementary AMEX Platinum Credit Card six months ago, I wouldn’t be eligible to enjoy the existing customer welcome offer for an AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend!

Thankfully, common sense prevailed, and a couple of days later, American Express reverted its existing customer definition to exclude only those who cancelled the same principal card in the past 12 months.

This is basically the status quo for the AMEX Platinum Credit Card and AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend, but it’s actually an improvement for the AMEX Platinum Charge, because the timeout period was previously 24 months.

However, after many months of offering the same welcome offer for new-to-AMEX and existing customers, American Express is now offering a smaller welcome offer for the latter group (see below), so it’s a case of win some lose some.

What are the current AMEX welcome offers?

	New-to-AMEX	Existing customer
AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend Apply	15,800 bonus miles (S$1,000 in 60 days)	15,000 bonus miles (first spend of min. S$1)
AMEX Platinum Credit Card Apply	23,750 bonus MR points (S$1,000 in 60 days)	15,000 bonus MR points (first spend of min. S$1)
AMEX Platinum Charge Apply	80,000 bonus MR points (S$8,000 in 90 days)	45,000 bonus MR points (S$3,000 in 90 days)

It would be one thing if American Express were tightening the new customer definition because it was rolling out some incredibly generous welcome offers. 

But the new-to-AMEX bonuses are now weaker than before. For example, the previous AMEX Platinum Charge welcome offer gave new-to-AMEX customers 150,000 bonus MR points with a minimum spend of S$8,000. That’s now been cut by almost half to 80,000!

Likewise, the previous AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend gave new-to-AMEX customers 37,600 bonus KrisFlyer miles with a minimum spend of S$2,000. The offer is now 15,800 bonus miles, with a minimum spend of S$1,000.

If anything, it’s the existing customer welcome offers that now look more attractive, as the AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend and AMEX Platinum Credit Card are offering 15,000 bonus miles or MR points with a minimum spend of just S$1.

Conclusion

American Express has significantly tightened its eligibility rules for welcome offers, now excluding even supplementary cardholders from qualifying for new-to-AMEX bonuses.

This is a very unwelcome development, and hopefully it won’t last. For what it’s worth, the current crop of new-to-AMEX bonuses are the weakest I’ve seen in a long time anyway, so it might be worth holding off to see if American Express backtracks on this policy — and adds more lucrative offers — later in the year.