If you are an American Express Card Member, one of the biggest perks is regular offers for bonus points or cashback when you make purchases at participating retailers. If these offers align with something you were planning to buy anyway, then it sweetens the deal.
What are Amex Offers?
Amex Offers gives you discounts and savings with bonus points or a statement credit when eligible purchases are made. Usually, you need to meet a certain threshold, though bonus points offers are generally on a per-dollar basis.
Participating businesses can range from smaller boutique stores to big brands such as Amazon, Sony, Qantas and Harvey Norman. Keep an eye out for any offers that might be relevant to you.
Popular recurring Amex Offers include:
- Platinum Charge: Spend $200+ and get $200 dining credit back in Australia at participating restaurants.
- Platinum Charge: Spend A$200+ and get A$200 dining credit back overseas at participating restaurants.
- Platinum Charge: Get a credit for the cost of your annual Amazon Prime subscription.
- General: Spend $500+ at Qantas Hotels and get a credit of $30-$150.
- General: Spend $400 at various hotel chains and get a credit of $80-$100.
- General: Spend $500 at Qantas and get a credit of $100.
- General: Spend $2,000 at various airlines and get a credit of $200.
- General: Spend $500 at Webjet and get a credit of $100.
These are just a few examples of what you can expect from Amex Offers, so be sure to check your account regularly.
Here are some key points to keep in mind:
- Not every offer is made available to all members. Some are personalised, so you may see something in your account that another person doesn’t. Spend thresholds and cashback amounts may vary as well.
- You must use the card enrolled in the offer to access the benefit. Additional Card members have to enrol in offers separately with their own account (and may not be able to access the same range of offers as Primary members).
- Make sure you read the terms and conditions for each offer.
- Some business, travel, government and prepaid cards are not eligible.
Amex Offers are usually combinable with third-party cashback sites (such as Cashrewards, Shopback, and Topcashback) and coupon codes, as long as the final amount still meets the offer threshold. But consult the T&Cs for any exclusions.
If you’re an existing American Express Card Member, then it’s easy to register for offers:
- Log in to your American Express account or go through the Amex app
- Scroll down the web until you see ‘Offers’. On the app, look for the ‘Offers’ tab.
- You’ll see the offers your card is eligible for. Click ‘Save to Card’ to activate it.
- Complete your qualifying spend by the expiry date. If you meet all the T&Cs, you’ll get your reward shortly.
According to the terms and conditions, statement credits are processed within three working days but can take up to 90 days in rare circumstances. In our experience, statement credits usually appear within 48 hours or less of the purchase being made.
Summing up
Amex Offers are a handy way to maximise your American Express membership. You can save hundreds of dollars a year on things you might have purchased anyway.
Keeping an eye on the Offers section of the mobile app is an easy way to see where you can score some discounts in the form of statement credits. But the usual rules of discount hunting apply. Don’t go overboard and spend more than you would have done anyway because there’s a deal!
Frequently asked questions
How do I find my Amex offers?
If you have an Amex-issued card, you will find the offers in your account or on the mobile app.
Can I get my Amex fee waived?
American Express does not typically waive annual fees. You should contact Amex for more information or to put in a request.
What rewards does Amex offer?
Apart from these promotions such as ‘Shop Small’, many American Express cards come with other benefits such as bonus points signups and lounge access passes.
Worse, I had travel credits that was refunded to me due to cancelled flights so I have double the amount of credits to spend.
Information regarding Amex Travel credits can be found at https://www.americanexpress.com/au/customer-service/coronavirus/
You may already know but Amex changed its T&Cs since October 2017 (May 2019?) so that you only get complimentary Qantas lounge invitations if you buy directly from Qantas.com.au. This means that if you buy thru Amex Travel (e.g. to claim your $450 flight credit) you will NOT be eligible for a lounge invitation. Perhaps Amex Travel should put a big warning on their site that you may be better off booking with qantas.com.au than with them.
Just a little point hack tip for the shop small and offers and why they are awesome! Offers actually apply per card you register not per account so it is applicable to supplementary cards too that have the offer in the offer section. So in our case my wife and I have an AMEX each and are supplementary holders on each others card which meant in the shop small promo, we had 4 cards with 10 places each. So we actually got $400 worth of credits! Must admit we ate out more than we normally do that month but oh it was worth it!
Also for a Harvey Norman offer they had spend $300 get $100 credit, we purchased 2 x $600 ish items, paid $300 deposit on one card and then balance on delivery on the other card = $400 off $1200 worth of stuff that was already discounted and further reduced because we paid cash (not interest free)
WINNING!!!!
Is this because the number of offers available have already been activated by others and the allocation is exhausted? Or, do different card members receive different offers?
“We’re sorry, the Connect Login/Sign up functionality is currently unavailable. We are working to get this fixed as soon as we can. Thank you for your patience, we apologise for any inconvenience. If you have any other Connect enquiries please contact us using the contact us link.”
Seems to be some teething issues…
Seems to be an issue with bank issued cards?