We’ve known for quite some time not to meet an Amex minimum spend requirement by purchasing gift cards. Beyond the minimum spend, many people have no issues getting points on gift card purchases, though there are select merchants like Simon Mall gift cards which apparently don’t earn points.
At some point, Amex added in the terms on all cards (sample link) to clearly disallow signup bonuses from being earned with gift card purchases.
To qualify for the $250 statement credit, you must make purchases with your Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express that total $1,000 or more within your first 3 months of Card Membership…Purchases to meet the spend requirement do NOT include fees or interest charges, balance transfers, cash advances, purchases of traveler’s checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards, person-to-person payments, or purchases of any cash equivalents. Additional Card Members on your account are not eligible for this offer. To receive the $250 statement credit, your Card account must not be past due or cancelled at the time the statement credit is posted to your Card account.
On various Amex cards, the gift card exclusion shows even for earning ordinary points. It’s not showing on all cards explicitly for ordinary points, but does on some; here are a couple of examples: Blue Business Plus card (link), Gold card (link) Blue Cash Everyday (link). All cards show the gift card exclusion for the bonuses, and many cards show it for ordinary purchases as well.
With your Blue Business® Plus Card from American Express, you earn one Membership Rewards® point for each dollar you spend on your Card for eligible purchases. For the first $50,000 in eligible purchases in each calendar year you also earn one additional point (for a total of 2 points)…Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, balance transfers, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards; person-to-person payments or purchases of other cash equivalents. Additional terms and restrictions apply.
Last we wrote about this was in March 2018 when Amex excluded reloadable prepaid cards and Amex gift cards from earning ordinary points. The pages quoted there still show the same terms with only Amex gift cards being excluded, but on the above-mentioned ‘important information’ pages, many cards show the exclusion for earning points on any sort of gift card, not limited to Amex gift cards.
In all likelihood, places like grocery stores will continue to earn points (unless you get manual reviewed in which case all bets are off), and specific locations like Simon Mall gift cards will continue to be excluded from earning points and rewards. But it’s worth knowing that the terms technically disallow all gift cards from earning points.
The terms would imply that even third party gift cards, such as Amazon gift cards, won’t earn points. Again, I have no doubt that regular, small gift card purchases from Amazon or most retailers will continue to earn points as before. On Prime Day, I bought a few small gift cards on Amazon, and it’s showing as pending rewards in my Membership Rewards account. Larger amounts or easily-detectible amounts, such as $500, do have some risk of Amex not awarding points if they decide to crack down on this, or they can potentially claw back points.
Hat tip to reader R.O.
[Post has been updated to reflect that these terms may have already been around on some cards for a while.]
did any try recenlty to buy gift card from walmart neighborhood and got 6% cashback? Any DP please?
Recent DPs in April 2021:
>EDP:
-Received SUB shortly after 1st month posted and first statement bill paid. Hit min. spend partially by buying VGCs and Amazon GCs in-store, always with other items and not at Level 3 (AFAIK).
-Also, hit 30 transactions on their tracker, partly with Amazon GC balance reloads, mixed in with other purchases. Will have to wait until later to verify the 50% extra MR points on those transactions, though, since they do not post right away.
>BCE:
-Validated that referred offer of 1+4% cash back at Lowe’s works, buying an Amazon GC along with a Mother’s Day card.
Goes to show that the AmEx policies aren’t always strictly enforced.
About 1 year ago I met the SUB with amex almost compltley through giftcards.com. I went in to FR but passed and explained these were gifts for XMAS and I still got the SUB. Maybe I got lucky? I wasnt Iaware at the time AMEX being this strict. Im churning new AMEX cards and took advantage of the staples giftcards and am learning too now they send level 3 data. Unsure if I will get lucky again and get the SUB or not (im mixing in buyers group purchases as well).
does amex earn MRs on giftcards.com? I read many conflicting DPs. looks like it’s good for SUB.
I took advantage of the stop and shop promotion, purchased 5 cards on my amex gold across multiple days. The last 2 purchased on August 28th are not showing up on the points pending page. All amounts were 505.95.
For people who want recent data points – Amex Gold card – at supermarket – I purchased $500 gift card and $5 worth of groceries in mid-June and got 5X. Did the same in mid-August and got 5X. Low level things like this don’t seem to be on Amex’s radar. My spend is NOT related to a sign up bonus so can’t comment whether you’d want to chance gift cards in that context.
Just did a purchase of VGC plus low $ item purchase early September on Gold card, but did not get the 4X grocery bonus. It worked fine in early June.
Using Amex Gold card I was getting 4x MR grocery at Meijer for many months, until mid Sept. 2020. 1 week later it changed to 1x MR pts. I would always buy groceries along with the GC so it was not blatantly obvious. But even a charge for $73.42 a week later for only groceries only received 1x as well. I wonder if Meijer was removed from their approved grocery store list??
Used Amex Gold for Safeway’s Visa Giftcard promotion last week. NO points at all.
That’s very surprising to me as it’s an ordinary grocery store. I guess L3 data does you in.
I just did the same (Safeway $10 off of $500 variable) and 4x points are tracking. Maybe folks aren’t giving enough time for pending MR to show?
https://imgur.com/jFQ185c
My wife just bought a gift card on Raise with an Amex Gold (I told her to use it for anything but gas, forgot about the GC issue). Now that the statement closed, the points are coming up as pending, along with the points for all other purchases. Will track and report back.
Maybe, just maybe, they only care about bonused categories and non-merchant (Visa, MC, Amex) gift cards?
can can amex know I purchased Simon Mall gift cards? I did not receive hilton opening points after meeting spending requirement. About half spending if GC/VGC. Not sure if the account is being reviewed.
I have a mailer from delta and the language is there. Any idea when they’ll start enforcing this? I may skip applying for the card if it’s now.
I get that Amex is huge and doesn’t care about losing my business, referrals, or loyalty to their partners. They probably even relish the fact that I’ll move my net negative business to their competitors.
But if we represent such a small % of customers that they won’t miss us- then we shouldn’t represent a large enough % to warrant spooking shareholders with their penny pinching. Right?
Are we still in the clear on Amex cobranded cards? I.e. Hilton ascend
Nope. Recently MSed with GC.com and GCM to meet all of the 5K minimum spending requirement on a Bonvoy business card. The points for spend the and the bonus show as earned but haven’t posted to the account. Did a live chat with AMEX. Was told the account is being reviewed, and the CSR cut-and-paste for me the T&Cs that refer to the restriction on GCs and reloads. As an experiment I subsequently met the MSR with 100% legit organic spend within the 92 days. Be interesting to see if I get the points.
Do you have an update on if you got the bonus or not?
Any update?