(EXPIRED) 2 Shop Small Amex Offers – 1 For Apparel & Accessories & 1 For Dining (Up To $70 In Statement Credits)

Over the last week or so a couple of new Shop Small Amex Offers appeared, both of which seem to be targeted. They each give $10 statement credits but in different categories, with a total of $70 in statement credits available if you’re targeted for both offers.

The Deals

There are two Shop Small Amex Offers:

• Spend $100 at “Apparel & Accessories” stores on the Shop Small Map & get $10 back with an Amex Offer
• Spend $20 at “Dining” locations on the Shop Small Map & get $10 back with an Amex Offer.
  • Direct link to dining offer.

Key Terms

• Apparel & Accessories offer
  • Expires December 27, 2022.
  • Limit of $20 in total statements credits per Card Member.
  • A “qualifying purchase” means a purchase made at a merchant location featured within the “Apparel and Accessories” filter under the “Shopping” Category on the Shop Small Map in the US or US territories available, at americanexpress.com/us/onlineaccessoriesandapparel, or the “Apparel and Accessories” filter under the “Shopping” Category on the Online Directory, available at americanexpress.com/us/in-storeaccessoriesandapparel, with your enrolled Card [or with Pay with Points linked to an enrolled Card] on or before 12/27/2022 in accordance with these terms.
• Dining offer
  • Expires December 31, 2022.
  • Limit of $50 in total statements credits per Card Member.
  • Valid only on purchases made in US dollars.
  • Valid when making a single purchase of $20 or more at any business within the “Dining” Category on the Shop Small Map (or Online Directory) in
    the US or US territories.

Quick Thoughts

The “Apparel & Accessories” Shop Small Amex Offer seems like it might be more widely available in the regular Amex Offers section when logging in to your account. However, it will likely have niche appeal given the category as eligible stores will likely be ones you haven’t heard of due to them being small shops.

The potentially useful aspect of that offer is that it’s valid for online purchases. In at least some of these cases, the stores have affiliate programs which means you can also earn cashback via shopping portals. For example, Sheex is one of the eligible retailers in this category and you can, at the time of publishing this post, earn up to 5% cashback via shopping portals in addition to the $10 statement credit when spending $100+ from the Amex Offer.

The Shop Small Dining offer is a much more enticing offer considering it a) only requires $20 of spend to trigger the $10 statement credit, b) can be used up to five times and c) should be much easier to use provided you have participating restaurants near you.

If you have participating restaurants near you, make sure your enrolled Amex card(s) are added to a card-linked dining program for one of the many airlines or hotels that offer those dining programs. That’s because there should be overlap with many of these restaurants in that they’ll be a Shop Small Dining-eligible restaurant while also being part of Rewards Network to earn miles or points on that dining spend.

The downside with the Shop Small Dining Amex Offer is that it appears to be highly targeted as my wife and I didn’t have it on any of our accounts. The Amex Connect site has the offer listed (link provided above under “The Deals”), but when trying to enroll cards that way it still didn’t work. It might therefore be that this Shop Small Dining Amex Offer is only available for Amex cards issued by other banks like Wells Fargo. If you have a number of third party-issued Amex cards, you’ll hopefully be able to add the offer to all those cards.

If you don’t think you’ll be able to max out this offer by the end of the year, there might be a way of working it to continue taking advantage of the offer into 2023. Some participating restaurants will sell gift cards in-store; if they do, you could buy $20 gift cards in separate transactions to lock in the multiple $10 statement credits now, then redeem those in the future long past December 31, 2022. That’s not necessarily going to be ideal for the dining establishment seeing as they’re going to have to pay credit card processing fees on multiple $20 transactions. Having said that, if it makes it more likely that you’ll dine there in the future when you wouldn’t have without this Amex Offer and the ability to buy their gift cards, they may well come out ahead nonetheless.

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