I write a fair amount about Amex Offers as they are an incredible way to save money and even make some money with your American Express cards. There has been a change at some point recently that is an important detail with Amex Offers to help you in meeting the spending.
A Great Change with Amex Offers
The way that Amex Offers work is that you spend the required minimum and then you will receive the money. You will normally receive an e-mail notification as soon as you hit the spending so that helps to notify you that you have done the spend.
In the past, it used to be that the spending amount had to be in one transaction. That is ok for some things but if you have to meet spending in the hundreds of dollars, that can make it a bit more difficult.
The Newish Language For Meeting Spend
Thankfully, American Express has recently (in the last two months or so) added more friendly language to many of these offers. Instead of requiring that you spend the spend amount in a single transaction, many/most Amex Offers now say “in one or more transactions.” This is a huge, great change to how Amex Offers are processed since there have been many offers that I would have jumped on had it been cumulative spending instead of a single shot – and I know many others have been in the same boat.
It is important to check this in your Amex Offers, especially around this heavy shopping season. If the Amex Offer is cumulative, it will be a help so that you do not have to be careful to hit a $100 minimum at a single time. Instead, you can spread it out over time a bit. This newer language is present on 85 out or 90 Amex Offers showing on one of my cards (mostly generally available offers). This language is even present on the really great offers like Lowes, Office Depot/Max, and Staples. This means it is easier than ever to get those lucrative offers met and even meet some of the really big ones!
Just be careful! Since this makes it easier, we may forget which purchases had put us over the threshold. If you are buying gifts, make sure you only do gift receipts instead of returning the item yourself/giving the actual receipt since it could just be a single purchase returned that would cause you to lose your statement credit.
Summary
Though this new language has been around for a couple of months on the new offers, it is still worth noting – especially during high shopping season – so that you can add more of these offers to your account and be surprised when your multiple shopping trips pay off in a You Used Your Offer! e-mail from Amex! Now, it is more of an exception to have to be used in a single transaction. Good news for us!
That’s not new..
I said in the last couple of months. Prior to that, it was on a few rather than most. It is good to remind people since many are shopping more frequently now.
Some of their offers take a looooong time to credit to your account. Many of their hotel offers for example do not credit right away. They don’t even credit after your hotel stay. It can take a long as 90 days after the offer expires. I booked a hotel in oct that satisfies their offer requirements. It might not get credited until June 2017 because the offer doesn’t expire until March 2017.
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