Update 2/11/23: There’s an alternative theory put forth on Reddit that the Amex internal spend tracker only begins a little after card approval. So while the card might work fine, it might not yet be internally tracking toward the spend requirement. (Perhaps until midnight of approval day? but I’m totally making that up.)
Original Post 2/9/23:
At this point there are too many grumblings about this to ignore. It appears that purchases made using the American Express temporary card number (which they issue instantly upon approval) is not counting toward the minimum spend requirement. (1, 2, 3)
That is to say: the system is not counting it. Of course it should be counted. And so you’ll have to call in for a manual adjustment if you want to use the instant card number toward a spend requirement.
Points on purchases using the instant card number should work just fine, and I assume Amex Offers would be triggered fine as well. Only purchases necessary toward a spend requirement seems to be the issue.
Again, none of this is confirmed and it might somehow depend on the person or on the purchase. Let us know if you’ve ever seen an temporary instant card number purchase that definitely counted or didn’t count for you. I’m curious if there are more confirmations of this issue and also curious if we can get any clear counter data points.
At one point we posted about the possibility that tax payments won’t trigger minimum spend requirements, but in fact it seems to be more tied to the instant card number rather than the tax payments. Typically someone can call in to get manual credit, but in the case of tax payments or gift card purchases an Amex rep might decide not to count it. The automated system does seem to always count tax payments toward a spend requirement.
Update: Most readers in the comments confirm that temporary card spending has been working for the spend requirement, including recent data points. However, there are some reports of it not working. YMMV
Missing bonus points for tax payment made using the temporary card on same day as application. Now customer service claims that tax payments don’t count for meeting spend requirements.
What are my options? More tax payment again or get some other spending or try to fight it out with Amex?
My card worked fine. I used the instant number for $1,700 of the $3K spend on my new Biz Green. Points posted once the transaction completed pending.
Worked for me at the end of December (Business Platinum)
Amex is becoming Citi
Been using them fine for the last 6 months on 5+ cards. Sometimes I still only use the temp number. No problems including tax payments
Amex regularly has quirks. To be expected–rare but expect it at some point. I’ve had bonuses not post over the years during periods like this where batches didn’t work for whatever reason. I resolved them by tweeting to askamex, resolved same day–done that like three times now in five years. Been dealing with cards not linking to main MR account recently. And now most recently, not instant approvals and when calling in they have no idea what happened. Just the way it is with Amex.
DP got a temp card no. for hilton aspire and used it, totally counted though I am not sure if it was already in the first few hours
This doesn’t make much sense, all my instant card numbers are the same as the regular card number, the only thing different is the exp date and cvv.
cvv isn’t required everywhere, and exp date is always 5 years with amex, so not sure how this theory makes sense.
I guarantee you the temp and permanent card generation are two separately distinct systems. How they connect and communicate with all the other interfaces are probably way different. It’s why you see problems as the temp card system is newer tech compared to the perm card,
last december hit the 15k biz plat with the instant, bonus points posted before I touched the card
Thanks for linking my Reddit comment. To be more specific, my hypothesis (and this is pretty much wild speculation at this point) is that the SUB *sometimes* isn’t properly attached right away and that this correlates with the internal spend tracker not kicking in right away for those unfortunate enough to fall victim to this IT failure. Or maybe it’s just the tracker and unrelated to the SUB being attached. I don’t think a delay in spend tracking is universal; I think some people can spend immediately and be fine (there are DPs of this, I believe).
Since Amex reps sometimes can’t see the SUB attached immediately after approval, I wonder whether this is related…
Makes sense. Nearly all banks operate from mainframes on the back end, meaning many inputs from the user/rep-facing applications and databases are going to wait to be processed in batches. Issues of a reference to a newly created item not leading anywhere temporarily aren’t uncommon.
There could be other factors muddying the waters, too, like whether a new account is created in association with an existing user profile (with associated MR pool, etc.).
Good insight, one of the few times we shouldn’t laugh at seeing “…an alternative theory put forth on Reddit…” in a headline.