It has been reported that Amex is cracking down on issuing points on purchases made to buy gift cards. That is a major blow to us churners, as they appear to have expanded their previous policy of not crediting gift card purchases for minimum spending requirement. I understand it is already showing up in the terms and conditions of some cards. Time will tell if it will be enforced.
Here’s how it will affect the continuing use of this manufactured spender:
American Express Gold Card
The Amex Gold card is one of the cards where the wording is already showing up. My wife and I have already completed the $25,000 max grocery spend allowed each year by buying Visa gift cards and our normal grocery spend. We don’t spend near that amount on actual groceries.
The annual fee on this card is $250 and last week we lost the ability to use buy airline gift cards for the $100 airline credit. All that’s left for us on this card is now dining spend at 4X. This one is probably history. Hmm? 4X Amex Gold dining or 2X Sapphire Preferred UR points?
If I can’t earn that $25,000 x 4 for an easy 100,000 points on the Gold card, why am I keeping my Schwab Platinum card, which allows me to invest my rewards in my Schwab account at 1.25 cents per point?
Hilton American Express Cards
And if it extends to the Hilton Ascend card as well, not being able to MS Hilton points at the grocery store for 6X? Well, there is not much sense in renewing that card either.
As far as the Hilton Aspire, I can no longer justify that $450 annual fee just for the $250 resort fee credit. Especially with the loss of the airline gift card trick.
American Express Platinum for Schwab
I moved my investment account from Schwab to Merrill this year, so lost the $200 annual fee reimbursement. That, along with the loss of airline gift cards for $250 credit, makes it pretty tough to stomach that monster annual fee of $550.
This latest move that eliminates my main source of earning Membership Rewards to convert to cash puts the nail in the coffin for this Schwab Plat. And along with it, the Amex Gold is on thin ice, as that MS helped us swallow that $250 annual fee.
Final thoughts
Big changes for us with this move by Amex. They will lose four annual fees from each of us, totaling $1,345 each and we will no longer be adding to our investment account from our manufactured spending activities.
So I guess instead of cash back, the few remaining MR points we’ll be earning will now be converted to “Delta Miles???”
Wow. Does that seem strange.
How will you be affected if Amex decides to enforce the new gift card policy?
I think it is hard for supermarket to code differently a loaf of bread from visa gc or other third party gc
It is really easy for AMEX to know actually. I have a family of 5, and I never spend more than $200 on a trip to the grocery store once a week. However, if you buy GCs is at least $505.95. I know some people don’t buy $500 GCs or some people spend more than $200 in a single trip or do groceries once a month instead, and might spend more than $1,000. The point is that AMEX will be well aware of each transaction and if you as a customer buy a gift card in the grocery store with one card you will probably buy GCs in other places with other AMEX card.
I think it’s just easy for AMEX to “guess”, if they don’t really pull the level 3 data from the grocery store. Amex can say your $500 spend is “suspicious”, but they can not really do anything if they don’t have a firm evidence.
I see you didn’t do much research, it’s the initial bonus they are chasing. Gift card still works. Simon does not.
And self referring worked until they clawed back all those points 10 months later. Amex not shy about enforcing things retroactively. I’d imagine large grocery purchases will now come under scrutiny. The RAT has to justify their existence somehow, the more points they can clawback from people the more money they’ve saved the company & the better their dept looks…
Supermarket doesn’t show level 3, not sure how this would be enforced. points are still showing for gift card mall to.
Fake news lol
You don’t think Amexmwill clawback points from gcm…? Good luck
No luck required. Just strategies and alternative plans.
No luck required earn and burn. You don’t think chase and every other provider will do the same.
So it’s not fake news then? The point is that the T&C now specifically exclude gc purchases. Other issuers haven’t gone that far yet, but yes I would expect them to eventually
Another reason to only use this card for when I get discounted offers from them.
If Amex does stop gcs from earning points, I have zero reason to pay any annual fees and I’d all but abandon Amex in lieu of cashback cards. There goes 7-figures of yearly spend to their competitors…
Plats are a joke now and my 2 personal and 1 biz were already getting cancelled this year. And I’ll also dump my Surpass, Delta Reserve and OBC. With my SO, we were scheduled to pay over $2K per year in annual fees. Only card I’d keep is the Blue Biz Plus that gets 2x everywhere.
Today Data Point: My wife added 3 authorized users to her Amex Gold card for a 5K MR point bonus each. We met the required $500 spend on the cards with gift card purchases from Staples, and the bonuses posted today. It may take awhile for them to enforce it across the board.
You bought gc from a L3 merchant for an Amex bonus…? Ballsy
And it posted and I immediately transferred to Schwab account and then checking Immediately
With the Hilton Aspire, you also get a free night, so with the $250 resort credit, it’s probably a break even. My fee just came due, so I’ll probably use the free nt and credit , then downgrade to no fee Hilton to get back some of the $450
NEW UODATE 7/25 Doctor of Credit is now reporting Citi Double Cash card has added wording on gift card purchases not earning rewards as well
Well pooh – I have a delta amex mailer i’ve been thinking about applying for. I was thinking I could buy GC through giftcardmall dot com and rack up some delta miles.
Any idea when AMEX is going to start enforcing this?
I would NOT buy GC to meet minimum spend with Amex no matter what is changing. That’s pretty much a no no
I had no problems buying GC’s at the grocery store before to meet minimum spend, but it’s been about a year since I’ve done that. Has that changed too?
Amex started cracking down on MS to meet signup bonuses about a year ago. They seem to audit all signup bonuses to check if there’s any MS, and will pull back bonuses if they see non-organic spend.
Odd data point. I bought a few GCs from staples this week. I didn’t get the base points for the purchases, but I got the cash ($10 off $40, and $5 off $25) and points (extra 1 MR per $) associated with the Staples offers under the Amex Offers program.
The terms do state that the rebate won’t apply to “bulk gift card purchases”. Nothing about non-bulk purchases.