Amex Separates Points Accounts for New Cards

A new account for each card

American Express has changed how Membership Rewards points are organized when a customer opens a new U.S. card. Rather than placing fresh earnings into a cardholder’s established points balance by default, Amex now creates another rewards account and attaches the newly opened card to it. The change was added to the last page of the company’s October program terms and became effective immediately.

Cards that were already open remain connected to their existing Membership Rewards accounts. The revised arrangement applies when another card is opened. Customers may still merge their balances by linking the rewards accounts through the Amex website, mobile app, or customer service by phone. The key distinction is that consolidation now requires action from the member instead of occurring automatically.

Having several cards visible under the same online login does not establish that their points belong to one rewards account. A customer who opened a Blue Business Plus while already holding personal Membership Rewards products saw a distinct balance for the new card. The linking control did not appear in the app at first but became available later. Although the process displayed a possible wait of as much as 24 hours, that customer said the balances came together within minutes.

Cancellation carries a new risk

The practical concern appears when a cardholder closes a card. Amex’s rules base forfeiture on the products attached to each individual rewards account. If the canceled card is the final product linked to its account, the points remaining there are lost immediately. Another Membership Rewards card elsewhere in the customer’s login does not preserve that separate balance.

Consider a customer whose Gold card is connected to 50,000 points and whose newly opened Platinum earns 150,000 more. If the Platinum and Gold rewards accounts are never joined, canceling the Platinum could mean forfeiting its entire 150,000-point balance. Keeping the Gold open would protect only the account to which that card is actually linked. Under the earlier automatic pooling approach, customers could easily retain points by continuing to hold another eligible product within the shared account.

Before closing a newly opened Membership Rewards card, members therefore need to check the rewards-account connections rather than relying on the card list displayed in their Amex profile. Combining balances and verifying that the cards are linked can prevent the cancellation of one product from eliminating points that a customer expected another card to protect.

Limited redemption exceptions

Some cardholders receive extra time after the last linked product is canceled. If a connected card carries a New York billing address, state law provides a 90-day period in which the points may be redeemed. When the final product attached to the account is a Corporate Card, the available redemption window may extend for as many as 30 days. Outside those situations, the stated policy calls for immediate loss of the account’s remaining points.

One option for maintaining access without paying a premium-card annual fee has been the Blue Business Plus, which has no annual fee. On eligible spending, it awards 2 points for each dollar across the first $50,000 in purchases during a calendar year. Spending after that threshold earns 1 point per dollar. Its usefulness as a points-preservation card now depends on making sure it is attached to the rewards account containing the balance a member intends to keep.

What separate balances may enable

Amex has not provided an explanation for the U.S. change. Separate accounts can help customers who prefer to distinguish business rewards from personal points, while online linking gives those who want a unified balance a way to create one. However, the default introduces an additional task for customers accustomed to automatic consolidation, and overlooked balances may go unused or disappear after cancellation.

The revised terms also state that a point’s value can differ according to which products are connected to a rewards account. Amex already varies some redemption features by product, including the Business Platinum rebate available for qualifying airline reservations made with Pay With Points. Maintaining separate accounts could support further card-level differences, though no future changes are specified.

A related shift is occurring in India, but with a stricter result. Rewards balances there are also being separated, and transfers among cards are scheduled to stop on November 15, 2026. The U.S. policy does not remove the ability to link accounts, leaving American cardholders with a consolidation path as long as they complete it before closing the card that currently holds the points.