In the comments of my post about no annual fee credit cards with no foreign transaction fee, reader blue9 was looking for a list of all the American Express cards with free authorized users, in order to maximize access to Amex Offers. This is a comprehensive list of all cards with access to Amex Offers, along with the number of authorized users you can add per card and any fee for doing so. It is organized by type of card, and quasi-ordered within how I saw fit (a combination of AF, name, or program name, depending on the situation).
Note that an offer can only be added to an eligible card once per unique americanexpress.com, Facebook, or Twitter account. Most people have no problem circumventing this restriction using a single americanexpress.com account by opening new tabs for each card and adding them that way.
Also note that an excessive number of AUs for the purposes of Amex Offers has the possibility to draw unwanted attention from AmEx, per reader Lela.
An archive of all Amex Offers covered by Doctor of Credit is available at this link.
Contents
American Express
All American Express consumer cards issued by American Express, business cards from American Express OPEN, or registered American Express Serve or Bluebird Cards are eligible for Amex Offers through an americanexpress.com account, through Facebook, and through Twitter.
Personal Charge Cards
You can find details about the different flavors of Platinum cards at this link. According to this comment, your fee for the Ameriprise Gold may be different than displayed in the table.
| Card | Annual Fee | # of AUs… | …for $… | …and thereafter |
| Green | $95 | 5 | $30 | $30 per |
| Gold | $160 | 5 | free | $35 per |
| Ameriprise Gold | $160 | 5 | free | $35 per |
| Premier Rewards Gold | $195 | 5 | free | $35 per |
| Platinum | $550 | 3 | $175 | $175 per |
| Platinum – Gold Card AU | $550 | 5 | free | free |
| Ameriprise Platinum | $550 | 3 | $175 | $175 per |
| Goldman Sachs Platinum | $550 | 3 | $175 | $175 per |
| Mercedes-Benz Platinum | $550 | 3 | $175 | $175 per |
| Morgan-Stanley Platinum | $550 | 1 then 3 | free then $175 | $175 per |
| Schwab Platinum | $550 | 3 | $175 | $175 per |
Personal Credit Cards
Remember, you can only hold four or five credit cards issued by American Express at one time. Cards suffixed by an asterisk indicate that I could not find mention of the fee for AUs on the American Express website and have made an educated guess. If you have confirmation of the AU fee, please let me know in the comments!
| Card | Annual Fee | # of AUs… | …for $… | …and thereafter |
| Blue | None | 99 | free | |
| (Old) Blue Cash | None | 3, 5, or more 1 2 3 | free | |
| Blue Cash Everyday | None | 99 | free | |
| Blue Cash Preferred | $95 | 99 | free | |
| Blue Sky | None | 99 | free | |
| Gold Delta SkyMiles | $95 | 99 | free | |
| Platinum Delta SkyMiles | $195 | 99 | free | |
| Delta Reserve | $450 | 1 | $175 | $175 per |
| EveryDay | None | 99 | free | |
| EveryDay Preferred | $95 | 99 | free | |
| Hilton HHonors | None | 99 | free | |
| Hilton HHonors Surpass | $75 | 99 | free | |
| Mercedes-Benz | $95 | 5 | $30 | $30 per |
| Morgan-Stanley* | None | 99 | free | |
| Plenti | None | 99 | free | |
| Schwab Investor* | None | 99 | free | |
| Starwood Preferred Guest | $95 | 99 | free |
Business Charge Cards
Correction: employee cards are eligible for Amex Offers!
The Membership Rewards earning business charge cards (i.e. excluding the Plum) allow you to add lower tier employee cards. For example, if you had an Enhanced Platinum Business Card, you could add an employee card that was a Business Green Rewards Card for no fee, or an employee Business Gold Rewards card for $45. As a bonus, certain benefits of the Enhanced Platinum Business do carry over, such as reimbursed Global Entry (but not Priority Pass). This table references the cost to add an employee card of the same type.
| Card | Annual Fee | # of employees… | …for $… | …and thereafter |
| Business Green Rewards | $95 | 99 | free | |
| Business Gold Rewards | $175 | 1 | $50 | free |
| Plum | $250 | 99 | free | |
| Enhanced Business Platinum | $450 | 1 | $300 | $300 per |
Business Credit Cards
| Card | Annual Fee | # of employees… | …for $… | …and thereafter |
| Blue | $0 | 99 | free | |
| Gold Delta SkyMiles | $95 | 99 | free | |
| Platinum Delta SkyMiles | $195 | 99 | free | |
| Delta Reserve | $450 | 1 | $175 | $175 per |
| Lowe’s Business Rewards | $0 | 99 | free | |
| SimplyCash Plus | $0 | 99 | free | |
| Starwood Preferred Guest | $95 | 99 | free |
Prepaid Debit Cards
Note that the Target Prepaid REDCard (commonly known as REDbird) is not eligible for Amex Offers. You can find Chuck’s post about the various flavors of Amex Serve at this link.
| Card | Monthly Fee |
| Serve | $1 (waived with $500 direct deposit) |
| Serve OneVIP | $1 (waived with $500 direct deposit) |
| Serve FREE Reloads | $4.95 |
| Serve Cash Back | $5.95 |
| Bluebird | $0 |
Third-Party
American Express cards issued in the US by a licensed third-party bank licensed to issue American Express-branded cards are only eligible for Amex Offers through Facebook and Twitter.
As noted in Will’s List Of Third Party American Express Credit Cards, authorized users will not have unique numbers for third-party American Express cards, so it is only possible to enroll one card in Amex Offers. As such, I will let Will’s post serve as more comprehensive resource for third-party issuers than it would be reasonable to provide here. If you know of an exception to this rule, please let me know and I will include a table in this post.
Questions? Missing cards? Wrong information? Reply below!
View Comments (50)
Amex Platinum now has the ability to add up to 5 AU Gold cards at no additional cost.
This post is great and needs to get filed under credit card reference pages under American Express. I just went to reference it regarding my new Amex Bus Platt to see if AU cards cost anything and saw it not there... Very useful reference material!
Added
If I gave an employee green card to someone with my Biz Plat, does it count toward their Amex limit of having 5 max cards at a time?
Also, adding an employee card doesn't affect their 5/24 ability correct?
No, employee cards do not count and shou;dn't count towards 5/24 either
Are you talking about the AmEx credit card limit? That doesn't apply to charge cards.
Since it is an AmEx business card, it will not show up on their personal report and won't affect 5/24, yes.
Each post by you drives one more nail in the coffin.
DoC has become more circles and arrows than Mr. Bowtie.
Lol, you might have a screw loose if you think this type of post kills deals.
I have no idea what that means, but my guess is that you are wrong.
That person is wrong and nobody cares.
You can add Employee Business Green Rewards Cards on Business Plat and BRG for free, up to 99 I believe.
Can you get free Green cards on the personal Plat as well?
Unfortunately there is no free AU for the Plat. Best you can do is to add 5 AUs as Gold Cards for $45. Each AU after the first 5 would be another $45
Wow, I had no idea you could do that, but there it is plain as day on the AU screen. I guess no one talks about it because...why would you??
Would someone be so kind and explain what the benefits are of having other authorized users on an account?
It depends on the card. In general, more authorized users means you can link more of the same Amex Offer.
In the case of the Platinum, authorized users get their own lounge access & global entry credit, as well as some other perks. That's why it costs so much!
One can request a green card for the AU on a Business Plat MR charge card. It comes with no annual fee. The downside, no lounge access. But everything else is the same. One more thing the agent told me is that Business plat allows AU to get reimbursed for global entry as well (even green). Haven't tried it though...
You might consider a footnote that utilizing larger numbers of AUs for Amex rewards is sometimes believed to result in, or increase one's chances of an Amex review, and/or possibly attention from the RAT...
I'd love some remote idea on how much is safe...
I don't know what the limit is, but in my family of 3 I have a total of 35 Amex. Mix of cardholder and AUs. No RAT or review so far.
Good idea; I'll put that at the top.
Just wanted to say, I've really enjoyed your posts, thank you!
Thank you for your kind words; you're very welcome.
OBC only allows 3 AU. Additional AU request will be denied (I learned it the hard way).
Blue for biz allows up to 5 AU at application. I am not sure what will happen afterwards.
I'll add my data point: I tried adding a 4th AU on OBC and got a rejection letter. I'd guess OBC used to be able to add up to 99 and now they limit it to 3 AUs (4 cards total).
My OBC only let me add 3 AUs too, but my wife's has 5 and could probably add more.
Thanks, Ted!