[Update 7/8/19: Reader Alex lets us know that the same idea of adding the offer immediately after the purchase works for Chase Offers as well. Should work for Bank Amerideals and the others like that as well.]
Amex Offers can be very lucrative, yet they are difficult to track across multiple accounts. The best bookkeeper might find themselves trying to use an offer and realizing that they’d forgotten to save the offer to the card.
The good news is that if you save the offer soon after swiping the card, it should still work to trigger the offer credit. This is true even for in-store purchases, and certainly for online purchases which don’t always process immediately. I know of a few cases where this worked for friends, and a report on Reddit indicates the same.
This information is particularly useful since Amex usually sends out confirmation emails at the time of purchase. If you don’t get the email, double-check that the offer was saved. If it wasn’t, save it immediately and it should still work. Also, if you make a purchase and find out about an offer soon after, try adding it right away and see if the offer credit posts.
We reported a similar thing regarding the Amex travel credit; if you choose your airline soon after making the incidentals purchase, it’s been working to trigger the airline credit.
Most likely, this trick will only work if you save the offer the same day as the card was swiped. For online orders, it might even work a bit longer since it takes them time to process the order. See also these 14 Things to Know about Amex Offers.
