Here’s the scoop on AMEX Offers.
American Express’ loyalty program, Membership Rewards, is arguably the best bank loyalty program available if you’re building up your stash of rewards points and planning to use them to fly in premium cabins.
The points can get you to virtually any destination worldwide on any of its 17 airline transfer partners. That includes side-door access to reasonably-priced Delta award inventory.
From time to time, AMEX partners with its merchants to offer incentives for shopping online or in-store through a partner program called AMEX Offers.
AMEX targets its cardholders’ account(s) with these offers—not every offer is made available to every cardholder.
After you apply the offer to your account and spend the minimum required amount at the merchant, AMEX awards you cash back and/or bonus Membership Rewards for participating.
Team MilesHusband routinely hammers takes advantage of these deals on the family assortment of AMEX cards.
Here is a look at some of the offers we’ve redeemed on our AMEX EveryDay Preferred Card since 2017:
Back in 2018, AMEX tightened the rules to limit offers to one offer per merchant per cardholder. Prior to this you could apply offers to all of your cards indiscriminately, without thought as to which card is best to use for which partner merchant. With this new policy restriction and incorporating recent knowledge of program nuances, we need to apply a few principles in order to maximize our miles earning potential for each offer:
1.Uncover the “hidden” Offers
AMEX limits its partner offers to 100 “Available” (i.e. unattached) offers at any given time.
BIG TIP: Occasionally, AMEX buries the juiciest offers just outside of cardholder’s view by placing that offer in the #101-120 slot. Just this week, my 10% off cable and phone bill offers were buried in slots around #111-113.
To get around this limitation, scan the Offer list for 10-15 offers you do NOT plan on redeeming and apply these Offers to your account, then log off, log back on to your AMEX account. This will release additional Offers to your account not previously made visible under your AMEX logon.
2. Apply the most lucrative offer to your highest points-earning AMEX card
Because AMEX restricts applying its offers to a single credit card per cardholder, searching for offers using your highest points earning card is important for maximizing your earning potential. Once an offer is attached to your card, it is NOT possible to detach the offer from that card.
For example, AMEX Gold earns 4 points per dollar at restaurants. A $25 off Offer at your favorite $75 seafood restaurant bill that pays out at 4 points per dollar will earn you 200 reward points. However, if you apply that offer to your AMEX Platinum, you’ll only earn 50 Membership Rewards points for that purchase, since AMEX Platinum earns only 1 point per dollar on restaurant spending.
3. Know when Offers are typically released; attach immediately
While not as consistently predictable recently, AMEX has tendency to release the offers Sunday night/early Monday AM, which positions East Coasters nicely (and disadvantages West Coasters) to search for and attach the Offers to their accounts. Most of the lucrative offers are capacity-controlled, so first-come, first served. After max capacity is reached, the offer is no longer available
Which techniques for AMEX Offers have worked for best for your family? Please drop a note in the comments.
