[Targeted] American Express Spending Bonuses

American Express have sent out some more targeted spending bonuses, it’s likely that people that have their annual fee due during the spend period are the ones being targeted. This is basically a pro-active retention bonuses by American Express and something that is becoming more common. Here are the offers we are aware of:

American Express Blue Cash Preferred: 1% Extra Cash Back

Hat tip to reader @MrsGodsSport/

This offer is pretty confusing and in my opinion intentionally misleading. You need to spend $750 or more through November 15th. After you’ve spent $750 or more, you’ll earn an additional 1% cash back on purchases up to $75 in cash back. I think most people would read this wrongly and incorrectly think they are getting 10% back or 1% back on up to $750 in purchases. The card does earn at a high rate on grocery store purchases, so the extra 1% would be useful for that. On everyday spend it doesn’t make sense as you could put the purchases directly on a 2% card.

The card does have an annual fee of $95 now, so it’s hard to warrant that without maxing out the grocery store category. If that’s you, you’ve probably already done that for this year so this offer makes even less sense.

AmEx EveryDay Preferred: Spend $4,5000/$6,000 and receive 4,500 bonus points

Direct link to offer via thebigFATbitch on /r/churning

Two different offers, one requires $4,500 in spending and the other requires $6,000 in spending. This is basically an extra 1x Membership rewards point per dollar spent with a $4,500 spend requirement. Not a great deal considering the high annual fee of $95, but better than nothing if you were going to keep the card anyway.

Our Verdict

American Express must be doing better retention wise with these offers, otherwise I doubt we’d seem them. I’ve always thought that anniversary spending bonuses like this would become more common, I’m sure we will be seeing American Express add them as a permanent card feature in the future when they’ve dialed in the most profitable way to do so.