Last week, Miles Earn and Burn posted about a recent delay in the posting of coupon credits from various American Express card benefits. We’ve also received a couple of anecdotal reports of delays in the posting of welcome bonuses. We see this happen almost every year (sometimes a couple of times per year). The moral of the story is always to relax: your stuff will post.
A few years ago, I wrote a post titled Relax: Your elite stuff will post. That one was in response to many comments and messages we had received upon the dawn of a new year about the delay in posting expected elite night credits, rollover miles, etc. We often see the same thing regarding Amex coupon credits, airline incidental fee credits, welcome bonuses, etc.
Many Amex benefits tend to post like clockwork…..until they don’t. That is to say that you’ll often see a qualifying charge receive its corresponding credit (assuming you’ve enrolled where enrollment is required and made a qualifying charge) within a few days. It may have reliably been 3-5 days after the charge for months or even years. We inevitably see a period where some stuff just starts posting slowly and some folks panic about why they haven’t received a credit on day 4/5/6/etc and some will start chatting with support or declaring that this has died or that no longer works, etc (sometimes after being given inaccurate information from a chat representative). Almost without fail, the solution is to just wait a week or two or even three — we sometimes just see a delay in credits and bonuses posting. It is very unlikely that there has been any change in the way things work but rather we sometimes see a bottleneck.
Unfortunately, chat representatives may dole out incorrect information, either because they are answering based on what they think is true or based on what someone else thought was true and passed on to them as though it is infallibly true. Remember that the average chat representative has probably never had the exact card that you’re calling about and probably hasn’t made the type of purchase you’re making and therefore isn’t speaking from experience but rather a script. They may legitimately (but mistakenly) think that your qualifying purchase doesn’t qualify.
I’d always give it a minimum of 2-3 weeks (and more likely a month or more) before I worry about a benefit or welcome bonus that hasn’t posted on the timeline I expected. These things almost always work themselves out within that window. If a month goes by without receiving a credit of some sort that you expected, then it might be time to either reach out to the issuer or ask around in Facebook groups, etc. Before that, it’s probably just a temporary slowdown that will resolve itself.
For what it’s worth, my own wireless services credits haven’t posted for this month, but my $20 flexible business credits have. Your mileage may vary, but your patience should remain constant.
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Funny you mentioned this. I just contacted Amex because I’m still waiting on my Amex Delta discounts from food purchased on board a month later. I’ve contacted CS and they said to wait up to six weeks even though they usually post in a couple days.
I made two charges to a Hilton resort on 2/21/25, one using my Surpass card and the other using my Aspire card. Neither the $50 Surpass nor the $200 Aspire credits have posted yet.
Is the delay just for coupon credit? Or it’s also happening to welcome bonus, retention offer? I have friend paying tax for Biz plat welcome bonus and waiting the bonus for almost 2 weeks.
thank you!!
My NYT, walmart, and dunking credit all posted normally.
my saks, goldbelly, marriott restaurant and marriott free night haven’t posted
The couponification becomes increasingly frustrating when you have to track everything to make sure you’re getting it
At least twice a year I get a random check in the mail from Amex about how they fudged up a credit but never are clear what exactly happened.
Just FYI AmEx doesn’t always get it right. I do almost always get the proper credits, but twice did not and no amount of proof was good enough for the chat people (I eventually gave up because neither credit was worth enough to merit the time I was spending). It is especially frustrating when they are so slow because I never know if I need to complain or just be patient, which absolutely matters when faced with a time-frame issue such as the monthly restaurant credits – if I’m patient and later find the restaurant wasn’t properly coded or whatever then I miss out on using the credit elsewhere before the end of the month). Maybe AmEx could just be competent?
What’s odd to me is I recently paid for a Hilton stay with both an Amex Biz Plat and a Hilton Surpass card. The $50 Biz Plat credit was credited a day later, but I’m still waiting on the Surpass $50 credit. One would think it’d be similar time frame …
My Aspire free night cert is 3 weeks later than usual as well, lol.
Clear credit posted next day. United travel bank from Jan.25th, still nothing.
I need mine to post so I can cancel a card to not pay the AF. In the chat a rep told me he can manually push the credit once it has been 2 weeks from the charge.
Thank you for the extra data point Nick! I saw the Miles Earn & Burn post and appreciate having the backup perspective. My wireless credit hasn’t posted after paying February. 19, and I’m also waiting on a 15K bonus for Amex Blue Business employee card for a couple weeks.
That’s a bummer…. I am also waiting for the bonus of employee card offer, which I need to close the main account in next 7 days..