American Express offers increased sign up bonuses on a regular basis. One thing that’s interesting with American Express to other card issuers is that they seem to offer these via some unusual methods. I thought it would be helpful to create a list of places where you might see an increased offer/ways to trigger increased offers.
Contents
AmEx Offers
Sometimes American Express will throw a targeted sign up bonus into the AmEx offers section, such as this 100,000 point bonus on the Business Platinum cards.
Call In – Business Only
Often times it’s possible to get a higher than normal bonus by calling in and asking for it. This is especially true on the Business Platinum card where you can get a 100,000 point bonus, also seems to work for a 75,000 point bonus on the business gold card. As far as I know this is only possible with business cards.
Domain Registration – Business only
Greg at Frequent Miler has a great post on this. Basically it seems as if American Express scraps business information from WHOIS data and sends out targeted offers based on that. Frequent Miler points out that there is often a long lead time (e.g 6- months before you receive your offer).
LegalZoom – Business only
LegalZoom is a legal technology company that creates legal documents. One of the most common uses of LegalZoom is setting up an LLC. After setting this up, people have reported receiving special offers from American Express for ‘LegalZoom’ customers only. Unfortunately the offers themselves are nothing special. Reddit user AmericaninMexico received an offer of $250 statement credit after $2,000 in spend on the Business Gold Rewards card, lower than the normal sign up bonus.
American Express is known for sending targeted offers via the messages feature on LinedIn. Shawn from Miles to Memories has a great post on this as well.
Pre-Approved Offers
There are two main ways to check for pre-approved offers with American Express:
- Check on the American Express website
- Check on CardMatch. This was recently offering people a bonus of up to 100,000 points on the personal card.
Incognito Mode Offers
American Express seems to target people for higher offers when they aren’t logged into their account/are coming from a specific website. These are commonly referred to as incognito mode offers. This post lists a number of different ways to trigger these offers.
Final Thoughts
I’m sure I’m missing some methods, so let me know what they are in the comments below. Hopefully some of the above help you get some good increased bonuses in the future.
I have the AMEX BIZ PLAT card (going to cancel it soon as my AF is coming up) but was messaged through LINKEDIN an offer for 100k AMEX BIZ PLAT. If I apply for it then will this circumvent the once-in-a-lifetime rule?
Well, there is also the Baidu/Naver/Asian search engine method, although I haven’t heard much about it the last year or so. The last time I got an Amex (last February or so) I used Naver to snag a higher bonus for the Blue Everyday, chosen over Baidu because I can read Hangul to some degree making it easier than following a script in Chinese. Interested folk would have to check and see if the offers are any better than the US site at this point.
Yup, similar to the incognito mode method. Will add this to the post
.”One thing that’s interesting with American Express to other card issuers is that they seem to offer…”.
Missing. ‘compared’?
Thanks, Sam. Fixed this now.
I’ve seen the Amex Plat personal 100k/$5k offer every time I sign into creditSesame.com. I think that’s high? Not positive, haven’t hit amex at all yet as I’m wrapping up chase.
Will, Amex incognito offers! They’re the best. Sometimes people say “they’re back” but there’s always at least one card for which incognito pulls up a higher offer than logged in.
This. I’ve gotten 50k PRG & 25k Green card sign up bonus offers in the past 2 months with incognito. Routinely see 30k SPG too.
To follow up, using incognito at work today I’m seeing: $200/$1000 BCED, 15k/$1000 ED, 50k/$2000 PRG, $250/$1000 BCP, 30k/$3000 SPG, 35k/$1000 Delta Gold(thats a terrible offer), 25k/$1000 Green. All minimum spends with 3 months of card opening; AF’s on the PRG, Green & SPG cards waived the 1st year.
Yeah, not sure how I forgot those. Will add them tomorrow.
When I registered my LLC, I received a targeted physical letter for the BGR (75/5) within a few weeks. First AMEX card though.
I called and asked for the 100K business platinum offer for $10 K spend in 90 days. Accepted and approved right away. Sometimes you just have to ask I guess.
Which number? What did you say. I must have called ten times. Given my address. The offer won’t show up. Athe all!
My $15 ubereats credit did not work. Uber CSR are just completely clueless. They say working on it while letting the charge through.
Amex says it’subers problem. I disputed the charge with Amex for $15. Said woould apply the credit, don’t see it.
And my Amex spg points for A HAVE not posted even though I opened am investigation two months ago.
So Uber = shitty customer service
Amex = getting there
AMEX IS ABSOLUTY CORRECT when they said “It’s Uber’s issues”. Actually it’s operator error. 🙂 You MUST add Amex Platinum personal card to your Uber profile as FOP. Or you can log in to your Amex acct, then go to “BENEFIT” tab, then click “ADD MY CARD”, it will take you back to your Uber’s acct, add Amex Platinum personal card to your Uber’s acct. Your dispute will NOT go thru because you didn’t add your amex card to your profile properly.
How do you know? It worked for me in December and suddenly stopped working for me and it’s my fault?
Same for me.
edit: but what does that have to do with this post?
Way to comment on something completely irrelevant to the post’s content, as is the norm for you. To your “credit”, at least this time it wasn’t your normal unhinged off-topic political mudslinging. Good luck getting your $15 windfall, seems like that’s big money to you. I like Amex and Uber even more now.
Stay on topic
Just so you know the credits are really meant for Uber rides and not UberEats. It’s another issue that they happen to work on Eats. Start complaining when they don’t work on your Uber rides.
In future it’s best to post this in a relevant thread, not just the newest post. There is a post discussion the Uber credit here: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/amex-platinum-uber-credits-now-live-48-hours-use-first-one/
In that post and comments section you’ll also notice a frequent tip is to log in and out of your account to get the credit to appear.