My friend Chris Hutchins mentioned recently on his podcast All The Hacks that the American Express Business Checking account can not be opened again once closed. Irrespective of any sort of bonus, his experience was that Amex would not allow him to open a business checking account using the same EIN given that he’d previously had an account.
Readers in the comments here confirm this as well. Regardless, you should be able to open a Amex business checking account using a separate EIN. I assume you can then get a signup bonus as well since it’s a different EIN.
I’ve used the Amex Business Checking account in the past as a way of redeeming Membership Rewards points at 1 cent per point when holding a Business Platinum card. Many others prefer using points to transfer to travel partners, but I don’t travel a ton and usually prefer cashing points out.
Every few months, Amex emails that my account has gone inactive, and I make a $.01 ACH in order to bring it back active. A reader wrote in that after just a few weeks from that ‘Inactive’ email their account got closed out, so keep that in mind. (This is especially relevant if the Amex business checking if your only AmEx account which is keeping your Membership Rewards account alive.)
I’d always wondered about closing down a dormant business checking since that could potentially facilitate a future signup bonus. Given that it’s not possible to open an account again, then obviously the bonus question is moot.
Since you can’t churn this and there are no fees on the account I’m not sure what the rush is to close after getting the bonus. It’s a pretty basic account and I wouldn’t use it for a bunch of transactions in case something fails and gets eyes on your account, but it seems like a good backup to have for cashing out MR for those without a Schwab account (or if you need to cash out above the $11K annual limit).
From the standpoint of bonuses AMEX is just really bad whether it is signup bonuses for credit cards or anything else. They always offer a low percentage payout and the terms are often very punitive such as once per lifetime. I tend to stay away.
Not really, with one NLL sub after the other.
Completely disagree. Between P1 & P2 we’ve earned over a million MR points in less than two years and that is without hitting account openings that hard. We’ve yet to open a second card we already have via NLL offers, only do a single AU card for bonuses, and P2 doesn’t open business cards. Even better a good chunk of the points come from partner referrals, upgrade offers, and AU bonuses, so you can limit account openings and get back under 5/24 easier.
I have to disagree with many on this account being useless. I use it as my primary business account ever since they finally made an app for Android (it did take a while). It has no fees, earns interest, has fast transfers and deposit availability (usually one business day), and high transfer and check deposit limits. Plus, it’s been a fairly reliable DD source for me with no need to verify the external account when sending as a “payment” – R.I.P. Brex 🙁 .
might replace my chase biz with it then. keeping 2k in chase to avoid fees costs me like $50 in oppurtunity cost
Just recently signed up for an easy 70K MR without any hits a credit bureau…..but man, no intention of keeping this long term……….
70k MR! That’s a great offer. I only receive 50k offer. Think I will wait and see I get the 70k later on.
Do you still have the 70k link?
I had an account a couple years ago and when I talked to them to close it, I was told this was the case. No great loss.
I read somewhere on DoC (can’t find it now).. but we’re allowed 1x lifetime EIN, and 1x lifetime SSN (sole prop).. is this true? And if we incorporate a business maybe allowed another time? I’ve done it 1x with EIN.. and have been waiting for the bonus to increase so I can open another one with SSN.
A question for anyone who knows.. say we already have the AmEx Biz checking open with our EIN.. do we need to close it first in order to be eligible for opening an AmEx Biz checking with our SSN (sole prop)? Or can we leave the first one open and still be eligible for the bonus on the second one? Would love to know if anyone here knows this
The cashing out points has been down for a while now. They said known issue and no idea how soon it’d be back up.
You can chat to cash out.
I just did one. MR deducted, but the deposit hasn’t been posted to my biz checking. In the past, it was instant.
Is it still at 1x or is it 0.8x now?
1x since I have amex biz plat.Otherwise, 0.8x
It works for me.
I just did it and it was nearly instant.
no loss – when I 1st opened one, there was no app to deposit checks ? WTF – I was told to use the US post office to make deposits!
Unless they improve features/existing user perks, this should not cause anyone to loose sleep. Get the bonus and close should still be the course of action.
Strong disagree. That account can be a savior in the event of an Amex SD (and ofc there’s the 1 cpp cashout if that interests you).
Second.
Can confirm, closed mine. Tried to reopen it/open another a year later and was told they could not for the same EIN. I tried another userid but still no, the EIN was the issue.
I noted below that Amex checking is very basic. Recall the time when a person could not have both a personal checking account and a business checking account. And, it used to be that only individual accounts and not joint accounts were possible — still the case? My sense is that the current issue might stem from the same cause. The checking infrastructure that Amex inherited from its Green Dot acquisition is incredibly limited.
In the old days, there was Amex International Payments. I used it for my business for years and it worked fine. Reasonable pricing on forex. After the acquisition, Amex sought to integrate international payments into the new operation. I’ll leave to say that I no longer use Amex for international payments. The point is that Amex’ banking side seems to have significant limitations and the one-and-done account might be a function of those limitations.
Amex personal accounts still shutdown from 9:30pm – 1:00am each night and you can’t do transfers between them lol