Save The Amex Offer Or Chase Offer After Making the Purchase

[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.

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Xylotoxin
Xylotoxin (@guest_783272)
July 15, 2019 16:15

I just made a Best Buy online purchase with my Amex Gold and then realized there are 2 Amex offers available to my card. Added the offers to my card 15 minutes after the purchase. Hopefully the points/statement credits will post.

Millennial Outrage
Millennial Outrage (@guest_780096)
July 8, 2019 19:13

Can confirm this has worked on a Chase Offer for Airbnb earlier this year. Posted the DP on my old username; comment #705006 .

Maisel
Maisel (@guest_784171)
July 17, 2019 05:44

Millennial Outrage how long after making the Airbnb purchase did you activate the Chase offer?

Millennial Outrage
Millennial Outrage (@guest_784191)
July 17, 2019 08:53

Within a day I believe. The charge was still pending on my CSR.

enigma
enigma (@guest_780052)
July 8, 2019 17:25

worked on amex offers when done the same day after the hotel checkout. Charge was showing as pending transaction when I added the offer.

Matthew
Matthew (@guest_780010)
July 8, 2019 16:00

I successfully did this on a Chase card two weeks ago-added the offer in the evening to P2’s card which was swiped in-store that day.

Ryan
Ryan (@guest_279498)
July 29, 2016 05:26

I’ve had offers “magically” disappear too after adding them to my card. Added the Exxon $10 off of $30 offer to my card, got gas, no email. Went to my account and the offer was no longer saved to my account nor was it available to add to my account.

Otherwise, I’ve had awesome success with Amex offers. I’ll have to try this out if I ever find that I forgot to add the offer to my card.

Sam
Sam (@guest_279332)
July 28, 2016 13:35

Forgot to add Bestbuy amex offer. Made a purchase. Realized it after few days. When I tried saving it on the card later, the offer was already gone. Bummer!

Ariel
Ariel (@guest_279294)
July 28, 2016 12:14

” If you choose your airline soon after making the incidentals purchase, it’s been working to trigger the airline credit.”

I did a $75.00 MPX purchase about 2 weeks ago for the Platinum airline credit. Forgot to set my airline to United before, so I did it about 20 minutes after. Credit never posted, unlike with PRG where I did it twice with no issues (having set United first). So this isn’t always the case.

Granted, it’s a purchases that isn’t supposed to get the credit in the first place. Perhaps if it was luggage or something it would have worked better setting after-the-fact.

Miles
Miles (@guest_780087)
July 8, 2019 18:54

edit: deleted

Credit
Credit (@guest_279258)
July 28, 2016 10:24

I save offer get the credit and the offer still didn’t show a redeemed. Amex system is not as sound as it should be. But still a very robust system.

Albrecht
Albrecht (@guest_279252)
July 28, 2016 10:09

Can confirm that saving the offer does not necessarily saves the offer. At least 3 times by now I had an issue of enrolling, making a purchase and then – no credit. The offer would be magically gone from the list of my saved offers. Multiple attempts to point the issue to the Amex CS resulted in them being incredulous and ignoring the issue. Usually I would get a credit after “don’t worry, Amex is not going to leave you with no bonus”, but it would be nice if they recognize the issue and fix it.

Jags
Jags (@guest_779977)
July 8, 2019 15:01

Don’t add every offer. If you add over 100 offers usually the best ones fall off the end. It doesn’t mean they aren’t applied to your account, it just means they aren’t visible by you or the CSR agents. If something doesn’t post its almost impossible to get it credited in this case.

Mikey
Mikey (@guest_779996)
July 8, 2019 15:38

The opposite can also be valid. It has been suggested that even if nothing is of interest to add at least a few offers in order to get targeted for more. I do this by adding any offer that is expiring soon so the list doesn’t get cluttered. There are reports that if you don’t add any offers (because they’re all irrelevant to your needs) you won’t get the “good” one that finally surfaces.

LAG
LAG (@guest_780021)
July 8, 2019 16:14

+1 to Jags comment.
It sounds like Albrecht is having the same issue. I had this issue and noted that the offers would show up under the saved offers section only when I first added them, but would disappear the moment I logged out.

I went through the issue with 2 different AMEX reps and they confirmed the offers are in fact saved on the card, but they were not able to provide a reasoning for why the system did that nor did they provide any sort of fix or status of internal communications about the error.

I would also add this was years ago that I had discussed this with them, so I don’t expect to see any updates on this in general since it’s been so long without correction.

AA
AA (@guest_785825)
July 20, 2019 12:25

I just had a similar thing happen:
1. Loaded offer to card
2. Made qualifying purchase
3. Didn’t get email confirming my use of the offer (I usually get it right away or within a day, even when the transaction is still pending)
4. After the transaction posted, the offer stopped showing as “Added to Card”
5. Chatted with AEMX rep and they confirmed that the offer had been loaded to my card a few days ago

When I asked the rep about making sure my account is set to send an email when an AMEX Offer is redeemed, he said, “It is generally sent and the notifications are not stopped from any card, however sometimes it skips automatically, but please be assured, your charge is eligible for the offer.”

So in other words, their system doesn’t work consistently and they know it.

Celia
Celia (@guest_785834)
July 20, 2019 12:39
  AA

The emails confirming offer redemptions are less and less. Some offers never send them, like Sam’s offers. Best bet is the make sure you have added the offer, make the purchase, and wait a day or two after the charge posts.