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The Offer
I’ve received a lot of e-mails from readers asking about a new targeted business card offer they received. It’s for the American Express SimplyCash Plus card and the offer is as follows:
- $300 cash back after $300 in spend
- No annual fee
Card earns at the following rates:
- 5% cash back on purchases made in the following categories combined: U.S. office supply stores and on wireless telephone services purchased directly from U.S. service providers (on up to $50,000 in purchases per year, then 1% on purchases made thereafter)
- 3% cash back on a category of choice from a list of eight categories including (on up to $50,000 per year then 1% thereafter):
- U.S. gas stations
- U.S. restaurants
- U.S. purchases for advertising in select media
- U.S. purchases for shipping
- Airfare purchased directly from airlines
- Hotel rooms purchased directly from hotels
- Car rentals purchased from select car rental companies
- U.S. computer hardware, software, and cloud computing purchases made directly from select providers
- 1% cash back on all other purchases
Our Verdict
You can’t apply for this card directly unless you have a targeted offer like this. There is a few things you should keep in mind:
- You can only get the sign up bonus once on every American Express business card now
- Card will officially launch in Spring of 2016 (aka very soon)
- They have sent out other targeted offers of $500 & $1,000 (requires spend of $5,000 & $10,000 respectively)
- Chase Ink Cash (no annual fee) & Chase Ink Plus ($95 annual fee) both earn 5x Chase UR in similar categories
- SimplyCash card usually comes with a bonus of $250
When the card officially launches I suspect the sign up bonus will be $300 after $3,000 in spend. Given that American Express bonuses are now once per lifetime for business cards, I’d wait for a higher targeted bonus or an increased public bonus. They will be trying to compete with the Chase Ink Plus with this card and that currently comes with a ~$600 bonus ($505 after the annual fee, although you can get that waived by applying in branch), so I suspect they will offer increased bonuses on this SimplyCash Plus card on a somewhat regular basis.
Only way I’d be tempted was if I needed more spending power in one of the bonus categories.
If I already got a sign-up bonus on the non-Plus card, will you get the bonus again on the Plus? (since we can only get the sign up bonus once on every American Express business card now) Do the non-Plus and the Plus considered the same business card?
No, different products so you can get the bonus again.
I agree with this post 100%. With amex, always wait tool you know you have the highest offer possible, because they don’t match and there are no second chances.
Will gyft via PP count as office supplies for 5%?
No, probably not (only INK)