American Express Referral Bonuses Now Cross-Over to Include Entire Card ‘Family’

Update 10/4/18: Now, most cards cross over to ANY other card. More details in this dedicated post.

Update 9/21/18: Amex is now officially sending out the news of this change to some people via email: “New! When you refer, your friend can now choose any card in the Hilton portfolio” (ht: runningwithmiles).

Some Reddit members noticed that most American Express referral offers no longer limit you to referring someone else to the exact card you have – you can now refer someone to any card within that card ‘family’. This applies to SPG line of cards, the Delta line, and the Hilton line. This is true for both personal cards and business cards. Amex business charge cards support this functionality as well.

We noticed this first on the SPG cards, and now it’s showing for Delta and Hilton as well. For quite some time it’s been this way for American Express business charge cards; for example, if you have the business Amex Platinum you can refer someone to the business Amex Green or Amex BGR.

To create a referral for another card:

• Find your referral link, here’s a direct link to find it within your Amex login. You’ll see a short referral link there.
• Click that link to see your referral on the web. That link will now become a long link which begins with mgmee.americanexpress.com. Either of these links are valid referral links for you to share with someone else.
• If the card is part of a ‘family’: scroll down to find the other card you’re looking to refer and click on that card.
• Next, copy the URL link (beginning with “mgmee”) and that’s your referral link for the card.

You can alternatively send them the short link and tell them to scroll down to find the specific card type you were telling them about.

A few notes:

• You can’t cross over from personal to business or vice versa. Personal can only refer to personal and business can only refer to business.
• Each card still retains it’s full 55,000 points referral limit. For example, if Amex is offering a 10k referral bonus on your Delta card, you can go to your Delta Gold card and refer 5 people to any of the Delta cards and get 50k bonus, then you can go to your Delta Platinum card and refer 5 people to any Delta card and get another 50k bonus.
• Amex non-branded credit cards still do not have this functionality, so you won’t be able to refer people from your Blue Cash Preferred to get a Blue Cash Everyday or from your Amex Everyday to the Everyday Preferred.
• As noted, Amex personal charge cards (Platinum, PRG, Green) don’t work to generate referrals to other cards. Only business charge cards can do so (Platinum, BGR, Green).