How to Keep Your Points Active Without Annual Fees: Best Cards from AMEX, Chase & Citi

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As credit cardholders look for ways to decrease their annual fees while still keeping their hard-earned points intact, changes to American Express (AMEX) card offerings have shifted the landscape. AMEX has recently removed its Everyday cards from the lineup, leaving many with fewer options to park Membership Rewards points without paying an annual fee. If you’ve been thinking about downgrading your high-fee AMEX cards but still want to maintain the ability to transfer your points to airline and hotel partners, this shift could impact your strategy.

But don’t worry – there are still plenty of options from the three major banks—AMEX, Chase, and Citi—to help you preserve your points while cutting down on fees. In this post, we’ll break down the best no-annual-fee cards from these banks that allow you to keep your points active, offering flexibility and value no matter your rewards program of choice. Let’s look at what remains and how to navigate these changes to get the most out of your points while saving on annual fees.

Chase

If you’re holding onto Chase Ultimate Rewards points and looking to ditch the hefty $550 annual fee of the Chase Sapphire Reserve, you’ve got some important choices ahead. Unfortunately, Chase doesn’t offer any no-annual-fee personal cards that allow you to transfer your points to travel partners. Without a premium card, your points can only be redeemed for cash back or used for travel bookings through the Chase portal, limiting their value.

You do have the option to downgrade to either the Chase Freedom Unlimited or Chase Freedom Flex, both of which come with no annual fee and offer attractive earning rates. However, the trade-off is that without a premium Chase card, the points earned will only be worth cash back or equivalent travel credit, which means you won’t be able to take full advantage of the flexibility Ultimate Rewards offers when transferred to airline and hotel partners.

If you have the Chase Ink Business Preferred Card with its $95 annual fee, you can consider downgrading to a no-annual-fee Chase business card. While it’s an option to cut costs, you may want to reconsider if you’re making the most of the Ink Business Preferred’s high rewards earning potential. It’s a top-tier Ultimate Rewards card that justifies its annual fee with substantial point-earning value.

For those looking to save, you could downgrade to Ink Cash or Ink Business Unlimited. These cards also have no annual fee, but like the Chase personal no-annual-fee cards, points can only be redeemed for cash back or used for travel credit within the Chase portal. If you want to preserve the ability to transfer your points to partners for better redemption opportunities, you need to keep a premium card linked to your account.

Citi

Citi’s approach to rewards is a bit different, especially when it comes to keeping your ThankYou points active without an annual fee. Citi doesn’t offer any business cards that allow you to earn or transfer ThankYou points, so your focus will be on personal cards. However, only two Citi cards allow you to transfer your ThankYou points to airline partners: the Citi Prestige, closed to new applicants, and the Citi Strata Premier.

If you want to downgrade a Citi card, you’ll need to know some rules that differ from AMEX and Chase. Citi doesn’t allow you to easily transfer points to a partner when you close a card, so you’ll need to make sure you use or transfer your points before closing it. With Citi the clock starts ticking for you to use or lose the points. This is why downgrading is a better option than canceling a Citi card outright. While you can downgrade to various cards, the options for keeping your ThankYou points active without paying an annual fee are limited.

The best options for no-annual-fee Citi cards that allow you to keep your ThankYou points active are:

• Citi Rewards+ Card: This card offers no annual fee and allows you to earn points that can be used for cash back or transferred to select partners (JetBlue and Sears). It’s an excellent choice if you want to keep your points active without paying a fee.
• Citi Preferred Card: This card doesn’t have an annual fee, but you’ll lose out on some of the transfer capabilities to airline partners.
• Citi AT&T Access Card: Another no-annual-fee option, but also with limited point transfer possibilities.

Of these, the Citi Rewards+ is the only card open to new applicants.  You could downgrade to a cash-back card, but you will lose the ability to transfer points to partners unless you upgrade later to one of Citi’s premium cards.

You can get the other cards by doing a product change, which will keep your points, but you can no longer transfer them to partners without upgrading the card again or signing up for a premium Citi card.

American Express

American Express pools the points from all of your Membership Rewards earning cards into a single account. Therefore, you only need to keep one card open to have access to your points as well as points transfers. However, it’s important to note that for AMEX cash-back cards, you cannot transfer rewards earned from those accounts into Membership Rewards.

So, if you want to cancel your high-fee American Express card and keep your Membership Rewards points, the options have changed. AMEX has removed the Everyday cards from their lineup, so the only way to keep your points is to have one of the remaining eligible cards. If you already have an AMEX Everyday card, you can still use it to transfer points, but if you don’t, you’ll need to explore other options.

The only viable alternative to downgrade from the Platinum or Gold cards is the AMEX Green Card, which has a $150 annual fee and offers bonus points on travel and restaurant spending. This card also includes a yearly CLEAR credit, making it the next cheapest option if you want to keep your Membership Rewards points active. However, I’d reevaluate the benefits from the other AMEX Membership Rewards cards to see if you’re maximizing value before committing to this downgrade.

For business cardholders, the Blue Business Plus card is still available and has no annual fee, making it a great option to park your points if you’re eligible for a business card.

While removing the Everyday cards limits your options, there are still ways to maintain access to your Membership Rewards points with AMEX’s remaining offerings.

Final Thoughts

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