Improvement to Amex SPG Personal Signup Bonus (25k for $3k spend)

The Offer

Direct Link

• Signup for the Starwood Amex personal card and receive 25,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 in 3 months. This is the standard offer that’s currently available via the Amex website.

 

The old offer was to get 10,000 points after your first purchase and 15,000 after you spend $5,000 within 6 months. This offer is still the one being shown by those with affiliate links. (I don’t mean to bash, just they don’t have the updated offer yet; probably will come soon.)

old offer

The Fine Print

• As always, the $65 annual fee is waived for the first year.
• With Amex personal cards, you can only get the signup bonus once in a lifetime.
• This signup bonus change only affects the personal SPG card. The business version still has the same 10k/15k split bonus terms.

Our Verdict

It’s likely that Amex was pushed to do this to equate the SPG card to most other cards which typically only require $3,000 or less in spend in order to get the bonus. It also could be that they found the $5,000-spend intimidated more people. Since all of us who sign up for the card go on to complete the full spend, this change is a net positive in that it now requires less spend.

The main question here is whether this means the end of the temporary 30,000-point signup bonuses that comes on occasion. Personally, I’m optimistic that it’s an unrelated change. The jump from 25k to 30k is small and is likely not something they sweat too much; rather something they keep in their pocket to be able to hit the blog headlines a couple times per year when they have a need/desire to increase their numbers. For this reason, we’d recommend waiting out this offer to see if you can get the 30k offer sometime in the future.

HT: Mileswhip via noobtraveler

Questions about applying for an Amex card? See 15 Things Everybody Should Know About American Express.