American Express has quietly updated its Membership Rewards Terms and Conditions for October 2026, killing off one of the ecosystem’s best user-friendly features: automatic points pooling.
Going forward, when you open a new Amex card that earns Membership Rewards, the points will no longer automatically combine with your existing MR balance. Instead, they will sit in an isolated account tied only to that specific card.
The Policy Change
Historically, Amex tied your Membership Rewards account to your SSN. If you held an Amex Gold and applied for a Platinum, the Sign-Up Bonus (SUB) and daily spend from both cards dumped into one single, unified MR bucket.
Under the new terms:
- New Cards are Isolated: Any new MR-earning card you open will create its own separate MR account by default.
- Manual Linking Required: To pool your points, you must now manually link the new card to your primary Membership Rewards account via the online dashboard or by calling customer service.
- Existing Cards are Safe: This change only affects newly opened cards. If your current cards are already pooling into a single balance, they will remain linked.
The “Cancellation Trap”
Previously, if you closed your Amex card, your points were safe as long as you still held another MR-earning card. Now, if you forget to manually link a new card to your primary pool and subsequently cancel that card, you will instantly forfeit all points earned on it
Why is Amex Doing This?
Amex has not provided an official reason, but the churning community and historical data point to two clear motives:
- Passive Trap: It acts as a passive trap for churners who open cards just for the SUB. If a user forgets to link the accounts and cancels the card, they lose all MR mapped to that card.
- Tiered Transfer Ratios (The Citi/Chase Model): By separating point buckets, Amex is likely laying the groundwork to introduce different transfer ratios based on the card you hold. Chase currently does this (Freedom points cannot transfer to travel partners without a Sapphire card). It is highly probable Amex is preparing to release lower-tier, no-fee MR cards with inferior transfer ratios, and breaking the automatic pooling prevents users from seamlessly cashing out low-tier points at premium rates.
The Verdict
Whenever you open a new American Express card, do not assume your points are safe. Make it your immediate step zero to manually link the new card to your primary Membership Rewards account before you put a single dollar of spend on it.