Wells Fargo to Shutter Propel, Move Existing Users to New Cards
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The Wells Fargo Propel American Express® card has reached the end of the line.
The once-popular $0-annual-fee travel credit card hasn't been accepting new applications since 2021, but Wells Fargo now says the card will be discontinued entirely, even for existing users, starting Aug. 4, 2023.
Current cardholders will be moved to the similar Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card or the Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card, depending on their recent Propel usage. Customers who haven’t used their Wells Fargo Propel American Express® card in the past six months will receive the $0-annual-fee Active Cash. Everyone else will move to the Autograph, which also has a $0 annual fee.
If a user already has a Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card or Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card, they will get the other card to avoid having duplicates, according to a Wells Fargo spokesperson.
The Propel and Autograph were already close cousins, which should ease the transition for some cardholders. Both cards feature 3x points on travel, transit, gas stations, popular streaming services and restaurants for no annual fee.
As a cash-back card, the Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card has a different value proposition, earning a flat 2% cash back on all purchases.
The move will present at least one inconvenience to existing Propel cardholders: Their card account numbers will change. That's because while the Propel runs on the American Express payment network, the other two Wells Fargo cards run on the Visa network. Generally speaking, American Express cards begin with the number "5" and have 15 digits, whereas Visa cards usually start with the number "4" and have 16 digits.
Practically, this means holders of the Wells Fargo Propel American Express® card who may have stored that card as an autopay method will likely have to manually update that information, potentially across multiple services or accounts, to reflect the new card number.
One thing that won’t change amid the three-card shuffle, though, is cell phone insurance. The Wells Fargo Active Cash® Card and Wells Fargo Autograph℠ Card boast the same cell phone protection benefit that the Propel features: Loss and damages are covered up to $600 minus a $25 deductible.
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