American Express has increased the sign up bonus on their Starwoods Preferred Guest credit cards to 35,000 points ($3,000 spend for personal card and $5,000 spend for business card). This is good news for people that haven’t applied before (you can only get the sign up bonus once per lifetime now), but bad news for people that recently applied under the 25,000 offer or 30,000 point targeted offer.
American Express’ official policy is that they don’t match sign up bonuses, but they’ll will offer courtesy points. Here’s what you should do to receive some courtesy points.
- Don’t message, online representatives do not have the ability to award courtesy points.
- Call and say you’re disappointed that a new higher bonus became available so recently after you applied.
- The first representative will probably offer you 3,000 points. Ask politely to be escalated to a manager and repeat your disappointment in American Express due to the bonus change.
- The manager has the ability to award the 10,000 point difference, they won’t always offer it but they should offer at least 5,000 points. Remember to stay polite but push for the 10,000 point difference.
No guarantees it’ll work, but that’s your best chance of getting the additional points. The courtesy points should post within a business day. If they say they’ll add a note to your account and the points will post when your minimum spend posts, ask for the points to be added instantly as the notes are basically useless. You can view other credit card issuers matching policies in this linked post. You can also share your SPG referral links in this linked post, just make sure you read the post carefully otherwise your comment + link will be removed.
Report how you went getting matched in the comments below.
