Just a quick PSA about Amex Offers which was originally noted by FreequentFlyer on Twitter. (Be sure to follow him on Twitter, if you don’t already. If nothing else, your day will be more interesting.)
If you ever get a replacement card number on an Amex account, most commonly due to a fraud problem, be sure to unsync the old card number from the Twitter account and sync the new card number in its place.
It didn’t occur to me or to FQF so I’m guessing it wouldn’t occur to some others as well. File this away for the future.
All saved offers on the card will not work on the new card number, unless you register for the offer again after syncing the new card number. This also means that if any of the offers are no longer available (“sorry, max number of cardholders…”) then you won’t be able to get the offer on the new card.
Note that this is only when the card number itself gets changed (e.g. due to fraud). There’s no need to resync when getting a new expiration date or security code on the card.
I just got a new card number on one of my Amex cards and used it for a $75 charge at Home Depot. No ‘Congrats’ email came, but as we know those aren’t reliable…no reason to sweat. Upon seeing FQFs tweet it hit me that I may have messed up on this one.
The $15 credit for the Home Depot offer never came (already been 10 days). Luckily it was only $15, and it may not be worth the time to try reaching out to Amex to have it credited manually.
When I now unsynced my old card number and synced the new number in its place, the system treated all offers subsequently saved as new and gave the ‘Thanks for enrolling’ message as opposed to the ‘You’ve already enrolled’ message.
It seems, though, that on ‘real’ Amex cards, they transfer over the offers. It’s only on third-party cards or prepaid cards that this won’t work. Even on ‘real’ Amex cards, you still probably have to re-sync the new card number to Twitter for future offers; it’s only previously saved offers that get carried over, presumably.
Note that Amex Offers are tied to the 15-digit card number, so if you get a replacement card with a new expiration or security code you should be fine since the card number is the same. Only if the 15-digit card number is new can that create a problem
