Cardless prior bonus rule

What it does

Cardless writes one eligibility sentence and reuses it across the five airline brands whose terms we have read, changing only which products it names. The Avianca version reads: "This product is not available to either (i) current cardholders of any avianca lifemiles American Express® card, or (ii) previous cardholders of any avianca lifemiles American Express® card who received a new cardholder bonus for any avianca lifemiles American Express® card." The second clause is the one that matters most, and it has TWO conditions joined together: you must have held the card AND received its bonus. Having held a Cardless card without ever earning the bonus does not bar you. None of the five brands publishes a waiting period, so a bonus you have already received does not become available again.

How it works

• The scope is set per brand, not per issuer. A bonus on either Avianca card blocks the other, and a bonus on either LATAM card blocks the other. Qatar Airways, TAP Miles&Go and Avelo each bar only their own card, so a Qatar bonus leaves the TAP bonus available.
• The second clause needs both halves. Cardless bars previous cardholders "who received a new cardholder bonus", so an account you opened and closed without earning the bonus is not a bar. This is where Cardless is more forgiving than Bilt, whose clause bars previous holders outright.
• No waiting period is published by any of the five brands. Treat a bonus you have already taken as permanently used up on that brand.
• Cardless also writes that these products are not available to people who CURRENTLY hold one of them. We do not treat that as a bonus bar. It sits in an offer document rather than an approval policy, and acting on it would mean telling you to close a card you already hold in order to earn a bonus, which is further than Cardless went. So check with Cardless before applying while your existing card is open.
• The wording varies slightly by document age. The 2023 to 2025 terms say "This product is not available"; the newest one, Avelo's, says "This offer is not available". We read all five as bonus rules, and Avelo's wording is why.
• A separate clawback applies to most of these bonuses. If the account does not stay open for at least six months from opening, Cardless and its airline partner reserve the right to take the bonus miles back. Avelo is the exception and publishes no such term.

What to do

• Pick your tier before you apply on Avianca and on LATAM. Each pair pays one welcome bonus between the two cards, so the one you take first is the one that pays.
• Treat Qatar, TAP and Avelo as independent. Taking one of those bonuses leaves the other two untouched, and it leaves the Avianca and LATAM bonuses untouched as well.
• If you held a Cardless card and never earned its bonus, you are not barred. Tell us so, because the answer changes the verdict here.
• Keep the account open six months if you want to keep the miles. The clawback runs from account opening, not from when the bonus posts.
• Read the offer terms on the page you apply from. Cardless publishes them as a linked document rather than in the page body, so they are easy to miss.