The Amex Once-per-Lifetime Rule, Explained

American Express pays each welcome offer once. Not once a year, not once every four years: once per person, per card, for as long as Amex keeps your history. If you held the Gold Card in 2019 and closed it, the Gold Card offer on the page today is almost certainly not for you.

That one rule shapes the order in which most churners open Amex cards. Here is what it covers, what it doesn't, and how to check where you stand before a hard pull.

What the terms say

On US cards, the offer terms say in close to these words that the welcome offer is not available to applicants who have or have had this card. “Have had” is the part that matters. Closing the card doesn't reset anything, and there is no published waiting period after which you qualify again.

Some US offers go further and name related cards in the same family. The list differs by card and has changed more than once, so read the terms on the application page on the day you apply. The terms are the rule; forum summaries of them go stale.

What counts as a different card

• Each product is its own card. The Gold Card and the Platinum Card are separate products, so having earned one bonus doesn't stop the other, unless that card's family terms name it.
• Business cards are separate products. The Business Gold Card is not the Gold Card. Each business card has its own lifetime bonus, under the same rule.
• Co-brands count by product too. A Delta SkyMiles Gold and a Delta SkyMiles Platinum are two products with two bonuses. The same goes for the Hilton and Marriott cards Amex issues.
• Each person has their own history. Your partner has never held your Gold Card, so their offer is theirs. That is most of two-player mode.

The message before approval

Amex checks your history during the application. If it decides you won't get the welcome offer, it says so on screen before the card is approved, and you can stop there instead of opening a card that pays no bonus. Churners call this the pop-up.

The pop-up is not only about the lifetime rule. People who have never held a card sometimes see it too. Amex doesn't publish its criteria. Reports point at a history of opening cards, earning the bonus and closing them within a year, or of spending little outside the bonus. If you see it, the usual move is to put real spending on the Amex cards you already hold for a few months and try again later.

The other Amex limit: 2 credit cards in 90 days

Separately from the lifetime rule, Amex approves at most 2 new credit cards in 90 days. Charge cards, which in the US means the Platinum, Gold and Green cards, don't count toward it. So a Blue Cash Preferred and a Hilton card in the same month uses up the window, but a Gold Card the following week does not.

The 90 days run from each card's open date. Churn's rules page counts them for you and gives the date the next slot opens.

How to plan around a rule that never resets

1. Wait for a good offer. You get one bonus per card, so the size of that one offer matters more than with Chase or Citi, where you may see the card again. Amex offers move up and down through the year. Churn's deals page lists offers that have changed.
2. Check the terms, then the pop-up. Read the family language first. If the pop-up appears anyway, stop.
3. Keep the card a year. Amex's offer terms let it take back a welcome bonus it decides was gamed, and opening a card, earning the bonus and closing it within months is the pattern churners most often report trouble with. Keeping the card past its first year and planning any downgrade or cancellation for month 13 is the cautious plan; read the terms on your own application. Our guide to downgrading instead of cancelling covers the options when the second fee comes.
4. Use your partner's lifetime too. A referral from your card to theirs usually earns you points as well. Check the referral terms on your account.

Amex Canada

Amex Canada writes its own terms for each card. The terms Churn has on file for the Cobalt Card read: “Current or former Cardmembers with this Card are not eligible for this offer.” That is the same idea as the US rule. Reports from Canadian churners suggest Amex Canada sometimes approves a bonus again after a long gap, but nothing in the terms promises it. Read each card's terms before you apply, and see our Canadian rules by issuer for the other banks.

The short version

One bonus per Amex card, per person, ever. Read the family language on the application page, stop if the pop-up appears, keep each card past its first year, and keep your closed cards in your wallet history so the warning shows up before the hard pull, not after.