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One of the biggest selling points of the new Amex Gold card is that it earns 4 points per dollar at US restaurants. A number of readers have reported, though, that the 4X benefit doesn’t always work. When restaurants use Square (and other similar services) for credit card processing, Amex doesn’t give bonus points for those purchases even when the establishment is accurately coded as a restaurant.
For example, here are a number of recent purchases on my wife’s Gold card:
As you can see above, Taste Kitchen, Knight’s Steakhouse, and Zingerman’s Deli all earned 4X, as expected. Two restaurants, though, didn’t earn 4X: Juicy Kitchen and Tomukun Korean BBQ:
When clicking into each of the non-4X restaurants, you can clearly see above that they are appropriately coded as restaurants. They show “Category: Restaurant – Restaurant.” This part is important: It is common for restaurants using Square readers to be categorized incorrectly. In those cases, cards like Chase Sapphire also do not give dining bonuses. When they are coded correctly as restaurants, Chase cards do correctly offer dining bonuses. Apparently Amex does not.
What you can do
Some readers have reported success with contacting Amex to ask for bonus points for these charges. Personally, I haven’t lost too many points so far due to this bug, so I’ve just let it go. I really don’t want to be in the business of checking up on Amex’s restaurant coding every month.
Is this big deal?
There are three reasons why I’m not too concerned about this issue (Your situation may differ though):
- Most of the restaurants I go to frequently have coded correctly. Obviously if I ate out at Juicy Kitchen or Tomukun more often I’d be more worried about it.
- The Citi Prestige card will start offering 5X for dining in January (soon!). I’m pretty sure that Citi will do a better job bonusing restaurants than Amex does. Plus, Citi won’t limit 5X to only US restaurants. I have a Prestige card with which I recently paid my $350 annual fee. It looks like I’ll be charged the full $495 next year, but I have quite a while before having to worry about that.
- I think that the Gold card pays for itself with 4X for US grocery stores (up to $25K spend) even if I don’t use it for 4X restaurants.
Your situation may be very different though. If you’ve made the decision to keep the Gold card instead of the Sapphire Reserve (see: Did Amex’s new Gold card kill Chase’s Sapphire Reserve?) you may want to revisit the decision to see if this changes things at all for you.
For more about the Gold card, see: Is 4X worth $250 per year? How much are those Amex Gold 4X categories (grocery & dining) worth?
Please also see: How to view Amex category bonus success.
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I opened up a complaint through the CFPB, and got a response today from Amex as to why I’m not receiving 4x for several restaurant charges:
“You referenced several restaurants which were not receiving 4X points for your purchases. During our review of your account, we confirmed your purchases made at La Farine Bakery, Bartavelle Coffee & Wine Bar and Waystone do not qualify for additional points as these merchants submitted the charges using a wireless card reader.”
“We explain at americanexpress.com/us/rewa… that in most cases, a purchase made through a third-party payment account or an online marketplace will not qualify for additional points. Also, purchases may not qualify for additional points if the merchant submits the purchase using a mobile or wireless card reader.”
First, that URL doesn’t work (404). Second, nowhere in their terms and conditions does it say anything about mobile or wireless card readers.
Eric, ignore my response in a separate post where I wrote: “It often seems like reps make up excuses for why things don’t work rather than just admitting that they’re imperfect. I bet this is an example of that. Have you tried simply calling or online chatting with customer support to see if they’ll credit you the extra points for those purchases?” I see here that you clearly did try a number of times. I can’t fathom why others have success asking for the bonus points and you don’t. I really doubt it has anything to do with using a wireless card reader!
Now that I’ve had the card for several months, I’m seeing about 25% of eligible restaurant charges getting rewarded incorrectly (1x instead of 4x).
I’ve tried disputing these several times through Amex CSR chat and phone. Each time, it gets escalated, I get a case ID, but nobody every follows up.
I just filed a complaint with the CFPB (Consumer Finance Protection Bureau) and I encourage you to do the same. https://complaint.consumerfinance.gov
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I’m looking at my door dash purchases and they have 4x earning.
But it’s taking forever to get credited the $10 dining monthly credit for my in-restaurant cheesecake factory purchase.
“Is this big deal?”
Absolutely. If you promise something and write it into your terms of service, then you need to keep that promise. It is a matter of principle; if you let AMEX get away with little things like this, no telling what else they’ll try to slip past unwitting customers
Agreed. When I called, at least one rep pointed out that restaurants not in the US or part of larger non-restaurant establishments are excluded. I reiterated multiple times those particular terms don’t apply as these transactions were at standalone restaurants in the US.
Hold Amex to what the T&C says. If the T&C stated certain Square transactions may be excluded, that would be different.
I think, though, that Amex quietly excluded Square terminals because Square may have lower swipe fees than restaurants with direct relationships with Amex.
Either way, it should be clear. If Square continues to be a problem, I’ll move those transactions back over to Chase to get at least some bonus.
How do you dispute these transactions that didn’t receive 4x bonus? I used chat to bring it up a few times after I first got the gold card but they told to wait for my statement. Nothing has changed but I now no longer have the ability to chat. Even when I go to “Contact Us” there is a loading icon under the chat section that never loads. Am I supposed to email them with every transaction that is missing the bonus?
I called Amex and worked with Membership Rewards department. It took several calls to get it all done. They credited me missed points. And, they adjusted the adjusted the categories on all the retailers I reported so they would continue to get 4X points.
I recently saw a gas station transaction not get the 2X points. So, I’m going to call them on that, too.
Finally got on Chat but it is only working via the Amex app. They were extremely unhelpful and just kept telling me it wasn’t eligible for every transaction they checked even after me pointing out the inconsistency of the way they categorize things and which ones earn a bonus. I will try to call but this is exhausting work to have to do this. You sir, are doing the good work to make everyone’s experience a little better hopefully.
Got the popup for Amex Gold, so I signed up for Ameriprise Gold instead, hoping that they will soon align the benefits with the standard gold…so hoping I can experience such problems soon!