What’s your favorite way to get rewarded for your credit card purchases? Many of us would answer that we enjoy the points and miles we earn on our spending from credit cards we hold. How about your second favorite way? Saving money on purchases would rank up there as well. You can do this through bank savings programs. One popular program available to American Express cardholders is the Amex Offers program. This program offers savings in the form of statement credits on qualifying purchases.
Let’s dig in and explore the American Express Offers program. If you’re already saving with these offers, hopefully you’ll learn something new. And if you haven’t been getting the benefit in savings you could be getting from Amex Offers, now’s your chance to level up and make the program work for you so you earn more bonus points or cash back on purchases.
What Are Amex Offers?
Amex Offers are targeted offers available to American Express cardmembers when they use an enrolled Amex credit card. American Express targets offers to cardmembers differently per card account. That means you may see different Amex Offers across your Amex cards.
Are there limits to how many people get these offers? Possibly. Amex may limit the number of cardmembers that can enroll in a particular Amex Offer. If you see an offer you like and will use, don’t hesitate to enroll. You don’t want to come back later looking for that offer and see that it’s gone.
To check YOUR offers, log into your American Express account. Scroll to the bottom of your account dashboard. You can also browse directly to the Amex Offers & Benefits page. If you have the Amex Mobile App, you can also access and enroll in Amex Offers from the app.
Which Cards Are Eligible For Amex Offers?
Most American Express credit cards issued in the U.S. are eligible for Amex Offers. This includes Membership Rewards earning cards such as The Platinum Card® from American Express as well as airline and hotel co-branded cards.
American Express Corporate cards, gift cards, and prepaid cards are not eligible to participate in Amex Offers. But, there’s an exception to this limitation: American Express Serve and Bluebird prepaid cards are eligible.
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Are Co-Branded American Express Credit Cards Eligible For Amex Offers?
Airline and hotel co-branded cards are eligible for Amex Offers. Typically though, there are fewer offers on these cards.
If you only have co-branded Amex credit cards, you may want to consider other Amex credit cards. This will give you access to more Amex Offers.
How To Get Targeted Amex Offers
The method that American Express uses to target cardmembers for these offers is unknown. However, cards that are used more often and premium cards like The Platinum Card® from American Express seem to be targeted for more offers.
There’s another trick to getting more Amex Offers on your cards. Enroll in Amex Offers! Why does this get you more offers? Because American Express will only show up to 100 available offers at a time. To see more offers in your accounts and on your cards, first enroll in offers, then log out, and log back in. More offers will populate your accounts.
How To Use Amex Offers
Once you’ve enrolled in an Amex offer, use your enrolled card to make a purchase. Take the time to read the fine print for details on each offer. Some of the offers have limitations such as minimum spending requirements or location limitations.
After making a qualifying purchase, you should receive an email from American Express verifying that you just used your offer.
American Express says that it may take up to 90 days for the cash back or bonus points to post to your account. However, more often than not, the statement credits will post to your account in a few week’s time.
What Are The Different Types of Amex Offers?
When you first look at a list of Amex Offers, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. If the list of offers is indeed for 100 different offers, that’s a lot to digest. Try using filters as you search for different categories of offers.
Some of the categories are: Featured, Dining, Services, Shopping, Travel, and Entertainment. You can also filter your search results to see cash back rewards, extra rewards offers, or in-store vs. online offers. These filters are helpful in narrowing down your options.
- Featured Offers—These offers come directly from American Express. They are typically reminders to add an authorized user, use an advertised card perk, or spend more on the card.
- Dining Offers—includes national chains, but some local restaurants will also participate.
- Services—a range of membership, software, and personal service merchants.
- Shopping—these offers are a mixture of offers that don’t fit the other categories. It’s often the biggest category.
- Travel—offers include discounts on hotel stays and sometimes flight deals. Travel offers can vary from one Amex card to another, depending on whether it’s a co-branded card or not.
- Entertainment—mostly focuses on streaming services.
How To Enroll In Amex Offers When You Have Multiple Amex Cards
Remember that you may have an Amex Offer available to you on multiple cards. This gives you options. When you enroll a card in an offer, similar offers won’t be available on your other Amex cards. There is no way to switch enrolled cards. Let’s take a closer look at your options.
Different Offers on Different Cards
Amex Offers for the same merchant may vary from one Amex card to another. On one card you may be offered bonus points, while on another card your offer could be for cash-back after your purchase.
For the most part, Membership Rewards earning cards will be targeted for cash-back offers in addition to some bonus-points offers. However, Amex will almost exclusively offer cash-back offers on airline and hotel co-branded cards.
Picking Which Card To Enroll In Your Amex Offer
There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing which card to enroll in an Amex Offer.
If you’re spending toward an Amex welcome offer, you’ll want to prioritize enrolling and using Amex Offers on that card. That way you’re still working toward the spending requirement. You’ll also be earning bonus points or cash back from using the Offer.
Remember to check your Amex credit cards to see if you have any cards that offer more than 1 Membership Reward point per dollar spent.
For example, The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express earns 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar on everyday business purchases such as office supplies or client dinners up to the first $50,000 in purchases per year. After that it’s 1 point per dollar on all other purchases.
Another option applies to the Amex EveryDay® Preferred Credit Card. This card earns 50% bonus points when you use your card 30 or more times in a billing cycle. Using an Amex Offer on this card will earn you bonus points as well as count as another transaction toward the monthly requirement.
Is there a spending threshold you’re working toward?
Some American Express credit cards, such as the Delta or Hilton co-branded cards, offer perks and elite status for reaching these thresholds. Using these cards for your Amex Offers can help you reach those thresholds.
Pay Attention to the Small Print
It’s essential to pay attention to the terms and conditions for each Amex Offer. Some offers require that you use the offer in-store or online.
American Express also limits some Amex Offers to participating locations or countries. This is most common with travel-related offers. Many Amex offers are only available for locations in the U.S. Some offers, however, are available in Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean.
How To Combine Offers With Shopping Portals
Because of the way American Express tracks spending on the Amex Offers, it is possible to stack these offers with shopping portal offers.
After enrolling in an Amex Offer, don’t go directly to the merchant’s website to make the purchase. Head over to Cashback Monitor’s website to check the current shopping portal bonuses.
Remembering to take this one action step can earn you extra points, miles, or cash back per dollar spent in addition to the bonus Membership Rewards points you earn through the Amex Offer.
Let’s recap a few important things to know about using Amex Offers.
American Express adds a wide variety of offers to Amex credit cards. They offer cardholders opportunities to save money. Amex Offers rewards you for shopping, dining, and travel spending. There are always new offers, so it pays to regularly check your accounts to find offers available for you.
Here’s how it works:
1. Log in to your American Express® online account at americanexpress.com or use the Amex® Mobile app to view your offers.
2. See an offer you want? Add it to your card with one click. Offers are added all year long so continue to check back to see what’s new.
3. Use your enrolled card to pay and then receive the savings in the form of a statement credit.
4. View your savings in your American Express online account or the Amex Mobile app.
How do you add Amex Offers manually?
Cardmembers need to enroll in each offer manually. No offers are automatically added to your account. You can review your available offers and enroll on this dedicated Amex Offers page.
How often do Amex Offers change?
American Express constantly adds new Amex Offers. Once available for enrollment, individual these offers don’t change. The offers are rarely extended beyond their initial expiration date.
How can you check for Amex upgrade offers?
Amex will sometimes offer card upgrades, new card offers, or bonus point offers for adding a new authorized user through these offers. These are classified as “featured” offers. You can check by logging into your Amex account.
Final Thoughts
Why not get rewarded for purchases you were going to make anyway? It’s a silly question, really. The Amex Offers program is a great way to get rewarded. The program offers incentives for saving money. Take some time to look at the offers on your cards, check the offers and fine print carefully, and learn how to make the program work for you!
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2 comments
Good post on this topic. I might add that enrolling in as many offers as you can helps to add more offers as you point out. This approach also works with other credit cards like Chase and BofA and I suspect Citi as well. The more you add the more you get.
Thanks Dan. You make a good point. More, in this case, leads to more, not less!