Update 11/14/2018: As mentioned briefly in this post the Business Gold Rewards card is offering 20,000 Membership Rewards points when you refer FROM that card to another card. This is the new highest, previously it was 15,000 on the Platinum card. This means you can now get up to 30,000 points on the BBP.
Original Post: American Express recently updated their referral program so that you could refer people to cards you don’t currently hold. We speculated that self referrals would work, we now have confirmation that this does work. It had also previously been confirmed by American Express directly that ‘in general’ the referral bonus you get will be based on the card you referred from. This means if you refer yourself from your Platinum card to another American Express card you’ll receive the sign up bonus + 15,000 Membership Rewards for the referral.
Contents
Data Points
Below are are a list of datapoints, the first card listed is the card you’re referring from and the second card listed is the card you’re referring to. For example:
- Platinum:
- Gold
Would mean somebody has successfully applied for a Gold card, using a referral link generated from a Platinum card and has received the referral bonus the Platinum card normally gives (currently 15,000 points). Now onto the actual data points:
- Personal Platinum:
- Business Gold:
- Blue Business Plus: 1,
- Business Platinum:
Opportunities
This presents some opportunities. The most obvious is that referral for the Blue Business Plus. Currently that is offering a bonus of 10,000 points after $3,000 in spend within three months. If you referred from a business platinum card you’d get a further 15,000 Membership Rewards points for a total of 25,000 points. This is $2,000 less in spend than the 20,000 points bonus and 5,000 more points.
View Comments (93)
When I applied today, I got a message that I can't refer myself. I reapplied with a referral link from this forum and it was approved. So apparently self-referrals do not work now.
I tried to apply by self referring, I got
We're sorry, *****. We can't approve your application.
You'll receive a letter within the next 10 business days explaining the specific reason. Thanks for your interest in an American Express card.
dont self refer. end of story
DP: platinum -> delta gold; got 15k MR a few days after approval.
Anybody experiencing failures with Amex referral links today? I'm seeing "Apologies, This service is currently unavailable. Please try to complete your request later." when selecting a referral link (my own or someone else's). This is specifically for the SPG (now Marriott Bonvoy) Amex cards. This only started happening today (2/13) ... was working yesterday. Thanks.
I currently hold an SPG business card, can I self refer to the BBP and then using the BBP self refer to the Personal Platinum card? Wondering if this would work? I've been waiting to sign up for the Platinum hoping to get a 100k offer but have had no luck.
Any data points that you still get self referral bonus even if you get the dreaded ineligible pop up? 20k points on BBP for $0 min spend seems like nice offer even without the 10k sign up bonus particularly given that it's a great daily driver and I need to take a break and let my reports cool off a bit.
Would really like some feedback on this as well, as I'm in the exact same situation. Any data points?
I decided to take the risk and be the datapoint I wanted to see in the world. Referred my wife to the Blue Business Plus from my Business Gold Rewards. She was ineligible for the 10k referral offer, but I got 20k points two days after her approval. Definitely a solid option to get some 2x while hopefully getting off the RAT radar, and making a little bit of a bonus in the process.
Does anyone have advice on how to go about doing self-referral?
1. Would I need to refer to a different email than the one I use for my current account?
2. Do I need to set up the new card under a different profile than the one I have the referring card under?
Reading some of these comments makes me nervous, but so far I have yet to hear that anyone has been caught. Thanks!
1. No
2. No
here's what you need to do:
1. Login to your account
2. Copy referral link
3. Logout
4. Paste your referral link in the browser and select the card for which you want to apply. Use your regular email while applying. Once approved, you can add the card to your regular account on AMEX.
Wish I saw this post before I self referred the BBP.
I self referred from Biz Plat to BBP while still logged in. It's been approved, but Amex forced me to create a new account for the BBP. So now the BBP is off on an island with its own login and I'm assuming there is no way to transfer points between my accounts. Will report back if I get the referral bonus or the MSR bonus.
You can call them and have the new account added to your current account.
Thank you! :) Doing this were you able to successfully get both the referral bonus and the advertised bonus on the new card? I had heard some stories of them not honoring the new card's bonus.
got the referral bonus...still working on the MSR.
Data points:
Self-Referred from Personal Platinum to Personal Gold. 15k points posted 2 days later.
Self-Referred from Business Gold Rewards to Business Platinum. 20k points posted 2 days later.
Just noticed that there is now a referral offer for Schwab Platinum. you can refer from Schwab platinum to any other amex card and get a $100 referral bonus