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American Express has brought back one another promotion for adding employee/authorized user cards to Blue Business Plus, Business Gold and Business Platinum accounts: 15,000 Membership Rewards points after $4K in purchases in the first 6 months on each employee card (up to 75,000 bonus points total).
Employee card offers have come and gone over the last couple of years in various permutations, but this offer matches the best that we’ve seen. It’s worth noting that even folks with new business cards can add employee cards and the spend on those employee cards will count as minimum spend towards the welcome offer…effectively allowing for a double dip.
The Deal
- Get 15,000 Membership Rewards points after $4K spend in the first 6 months for each employee card added to a Business Platinum, Business Gold or Blue Business Plus card from American Express (up to 5 employee cards or 75,000 bonus points max)
- Promotion is targeted (see links below to find out if your card is targeted and to register)
Direct Link to Offer (Business Platinum cardholders)
Direct Link to Offer (Business Gold cardholders)
Direct Link to Offer (Blue Business Plus cardholders)
Quick Thoughts
The terms indicate that you can only get the bonus for the first five additional cardholders you add and spend $4K (we’ve seen offers in the past where the bonus is extended to up to 99 authorized user cards). This is a great deal, but it’s especially useful when meeting minimum spend on a new card.
Let’s say that you sign-up for a Business Platinum card with the referral bonus of 150,000 Membership Rewards points after $15K in spend (this is what’s listed on our best offers page). Instead of spending directly on the card, you could add four authorized user cards (I’d actually go ahead and do five, but just for sake of argument let’s say four). The spend on those authorized user cards will count towards the $15K minimum spend. After meeting the $4k on each card you’d end up with 166K from the platinum (150K from the welcome offer and 16k points from the $16,000 in spend). You’d also get the 15K bonus on each of the four employee cards for an additional 60k total. All told, you’d have 226,000 Membership Rewards after $16,000 in spend. Wowza.
In the past, Amex has been fairly loosey-goosey about what it allows for authorized users and whether or not they make any attempt to verify that it is an actual person…there’s some pretty crazy stories out there. Of course, your mileage (and your tolerance for that sort of thing) may vary.
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Links now taking to “page not found” – is this dead?
Yep, these links are. There probably will be new links floating around soon.
I just chatted with Amex on 2 AU cards I received through the Blue Business link. The welcome offers shown on both cards are spend $4,000 receive 7,000 MR, not 15,000 MR as is shown in the offer. I’m told it will take the back office 6-8 weeks to investigate…
I only got 7k too. Did this ever get resolved? I’ll probably just take my 7k and move on rather than draw attention to my account.
There are 3 different links with different offer codes – I am wondering is it possible this means that you can do 5X cards for each offer meaning you could get payouts on 15 different employee cards for a total of 225K add’l MR points for $60k spend?
Doesn’t an authorized user cost $350? This would significantly affect the math if so.
The “employee Expense Card” is $0, while emplyee platinum card is $350.
A bit confused. Do you have to do the employee card with the fee or can you do the other one?
What’s the consensus on adding employee cards under your own name and spouses name, making the 4k in purchases in short order and then not adding SSN. Amex says they will close the card after 60 days. Is it likely they will claw back the points? Or will you keep the points that you’ve earned along with the 15k bonus. Also, I signed up for the Business Gold expense card with no AF, should still be eligible right?
Do they even require SSN for employee cards?
Yup, if one isn’t added in 60 days the employee card is cancelled. I’m just wondering what happens to the points?
The points stay. I’ve met the spend within 60 days and gotten the points to post before amex cancels the card. They haven’t clawed them back yet and I’ve been doing this for a couple years. That said, I should probably slow my roll on doing this. It’s probably more risk (of shutdown) than reward if I do it too often.
Two questions. The links to the offers take me to the page for adding employees, but I don’t see how to check if my card is targeted. Please tell me what I’m missing. Second, I presume the employees’ spend all contribute to the $50,000 spend limit for 2x on the Business plus card?
I had offer on several Plat Biz cards and added 1 user on one of them and the offers all went away so add all 5 on the 1 card you prefer.
I am working on the SUB for the BBP so I just added 5 AU cards. Now I get the play the game of seeing if the cards work when they arrive and if I can put spend on them within 60 days and/or if I can get away with giving my SSN multiple times or fake SSN’s. Let the games begin!
Lol. I like your style.
AU cards must be added by 2/2/24. Gonna push it right to the end because I’m hoping to get retention offers in a few months on some business cards. Might as well try to double dip there.
Thank you Tim, just in time for my planned big spend on my AMEX Plat Business card which I received last month.
Does an employee card count against the employees 5/24 status and show up on their credit report?
Same question. They need to provide their social to actually activate and use the card right? So it does show on credit report?
Yes. No,
If you apply for a business card, you have to give them your social security number. But that, for most issuers at least, including Amex, does not mean that your card is reported to credit bureaus, at least not in the 5/24 counting sense of Chase. So it should not be surprising that the same functional invisibility obtains for Amex employee cards.
Biggie replied below and is correct. Occasionally, someone will get denied by Chase because of an AU card (almost always one that’s attached to a personal card, not a business). It’s always reversed upon reconsideration when that’s pointed out. Business cards in general usually aren’t part of your personal credit report, for both the primary cardholders and AU’s. There are some issuers that sometimes are an exception to that rule, but Amex isn’t one of them. It won’t affect anyone’s 5/24 status.
I clicked the 3 direct offers and the landing page shows up. I see an option to add employees for the 75k points. Clicking on the link shows the add employee page, but no signs of the bonus at all. How do we know if you are targeted? All 3 of the links behave the same way. Thanks!
Oops, replied below before seeing your comment here. That’s normal. You can confirm via chat that the offer is attached to card if you’d like a record of it.
If i apply for a couple employee cards, does Amex issue instant temporary card numbers for these like they do with the main card? Issue being I need to pay quarterly taxes on Jan 15 (in 3 days). I already have a brand new Amex Gold to do this with but if i can double dip that would be even better!
They do not issue instant temp cards for employee IME.
Data point: I just added employee cards about five minutes ago and the confirmation page stated the cards should be received within 2 to 3 business days.
Did the page where you added the employees (where you type in the name) indicate anything about the bonus? I read the terms on that page also and didn’t see anything about a bonus.
That’s normal, as far as I can tell. You can confirm that the offer is attached via chat and then you’ll have a record if something goes awry.
I just used link for my BBP, and immediately chatted to find out if offer was linked to my new cards. The rep said it can take up to 72 hours for the linked offer to show up, and they could not confirm whether or not I would get the bonus. They said to check back in 72 hours.
I did not see the bonus wording on the page where I entered the names of employees. I did take screenshots, although the bonus wording and the actual name-entering page were not on the same screenshot.
Thanks. It being friday now, I don’t think I’d get them in time for Q4 quarterly taxes.
Updated data point: Although Amex system stated that it will take 2 to 3 business days for the employee cards to arrive, I just got the amex notification that the cards are being processed and will not arrive until Jan 24. This is a big bummer because I had plans to make a few large purchases on or before Jan 19.
I wonder if this delay is caused getting business expense cards ($0) instead of the the $350 platinum employee card.
Watch for clawbacks if you buy gift cards with the employee / AU cards.