American Express has started showing a pop up box when you’re not eligible for the sign up bonus, there are two variations:
- One that says you’re not eligible as you’ve held the card before
- One that says you’re not eligible based on your history with American Express
Readers have been asking if it’s possible to by pass this and still get the bonus. My answer has always been no, but reddit user bplturner. They were able to call in and request the bonus be manually added to the account:
We called the “back end” and the woman verified that I had never had the card so I was eligible for the welcome offer. After that she applied the card and doubly confirmed that I would be getting the bonus points.
I don’t know what the other verbiage is about: “your eligibility will depend on card usage, open and closing cards, blah blah blah”. It only seems to depend if you’ve had the card or not. The woman said “this has been happening a lot–I think there’s some glitch in the system.”
I’m still skeptical this will result in the bonus actually posting to the account as it seems that the front line representative didn’t understand a new qualification rule had been added. If it does work it looks like it would only work on cards you haven’t held before (or American Express’ shows as not being held).
