American Express further tightens sign-up bonus eligibility

American Express has historically been far more lenient than other card issuers when defining who qualifies as a “new customer” for welcome offers. It used to be that you could cancel AMEX Card A today and apply for AMEX Card B tomorrow — and be considered new-to-AMEX!

However, this has changed significantly over the past year. In July 2025, American Express not only tightened the new-to-AMEX criteria to exclude anyone who recently cancelled any principal card (instead of just the same product), but went even further by excluding current and recent supplementary cardholders — making it the only issuer to do so.

Evidently, that still wasn’t enough, because it’s introducing even stricter eligibility rules from today…

American Express tightens new-to-AMEX welcome offer eligibility

From 17 June 2026, American Express has revised its definition of a new-to-AMEX customer as follows:

The key difference is that the timeout period has been doubled from 12 months to 24 months. Holding any principal or supplementary American Express card in the past 24 months will render you ineligible for the new-to-AMEX welcome offer. 

In other words, you’re “sabo-ing” a friend or family member by giving them a supplementary card, because it renders them ineligible for a new-to-AMEX welcome offer for the next 24 months!

How has the new-to-AMEX definition evolved?

As I mentioned earlier, American Express was historically very generous with its new-to-AMEX definition.

Up until 30 July 2025, a new-to-AMEX customer was defined as anyone who:

• Did not hold any principal AMEX card at the time of application
• Had not cancelled the same principal AMEX card in the past 12 months

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 Platinum Credit Card tomorrow — or any other AMEX card besides the Ascend — and still qualify as a new customer.

However, from 31 July 2025, American Express tightened its eligibility language to define a new-to-AMEX customer as anyone who:

• Did not hold any principal or supplementary AMEX card at the time of application
• Had not cancelled any principal AMEX card in the past 12 months

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

With the doubling of the timeout period to 24 months, American Express now has the strictest definition of a new customer among all issuers in Singapore by far.

I mean, 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 don’t enjoy any sort of welcome offers or bonuses, so it’s much harder to understand why they should be excluded.

What about existing customers?

While American Express also has welcome offers for existing AMEX cardholders, but it has doubled the timeout period here too.

For example, if you want to apply for the existing customer offer for the AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend, you must not have cancelled a principal AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend in the past 24 months (previously: 12 months).

What are the current AMEX welcome offers?

It would be one thing if American Express were tightening its eligibility criteria because it was rolling out some incredibly generous welcome offers. But if anything, these are among the weakest I’ve ever seen.

	New-to-AMEX	Existing customer
AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend Apply	25,000 bonus miles (S$8K in 180 days) + 20,000 bonus miles (Pay 2nd year AF)	15,000 bonus miles (S$8K in 180 days) + 10,000 bonus miles (Pay 2nd year AF)
AMEX Platinum Credit Card Apply	40,000 bonus MR points (S$4K in 90 days)	20,000 bonus MR points (S$4K in 90 days)
AMEX Platinum Charge Apply	100,000 bonus MR points (S$15K in 180 days) + 100,000 bonus MR points (Pay 2nd year AF)	60,000 bonus MR points (S$15K in 180 days) + 60,000 bonus MR points (Pay 2nd year AF)

It’s bad enough that the minimum spend requirement has increased dramatically. The AMEX Platinum Credit Card has gone from S$1,000 to S$4,000, the AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend has gone from S$1,000 to S$8,000 (!), and the AMEX Platinum Charge has gone from S$8,000 to S$15,000.

But it gets worse. The AMEX KrisFlyer Ascend has now adopted the “two-year split” format, where only half the welcome bonus is awarded upfront. The remainder is  held “hostage” until the 15th month of card membership, pending the payment of the second year’s annual fee. To put it another way: you must pay two annual fees to enjoy one welcome bonus!

To illustrate how bad things have become, take the AMEX Platinum Charge. New-to-AMEX customers now spend S$15,000 and pay S$3,488 worth of annual fees to get 200,000 bonus MR points.

As recently as May 2025, spending S$8,000 and paying S$1,744 of annual fees would get you 150,000 bonus MR points and S$100 cash — and let’s not forget that MR points were more valuable back then before the devaluation.

AMEX Platinum Charge
	May 2025	Current Offer
Min. Spend	S$8,000	S$15,000
Bonus MR points	150,000 MR points  (93,750 miles)	200,000 MR points (100,000 miles)
Cash Gift	S$100	None
Annual Fees	S$1,744	S$3,488

So yes, it’s pretty grim.

Conclusion

American Express has further tightened its sign-up bonus eligibility by doubling the timeout period to 24 months, for both new-to-AMEX and existing customers. This is a remarkable turn of events, given that less than a year ago, it had the most relaxed eligibility rules on the market. 

In any case, it’s not like the current crop of welcome bonuses are particularly lucrative, so if I were you, I’d hold off for now and hope for something to change down the road.