People often justify keeping an Amex card because “I save at least $XXX each year in Amex Offers”. Whenever I see Amex Offers used as a justification for paying the annual fee, I want to shout, “But you can get those Amex Offers with a fee-free card like the Amex Everyday or Blue Business Plus!”. It hasn’t made sense to me to justify one’s annual fee by the use of Amex Offers. Until now.
Amex shook things up yesterday with awesome new Amex Offers on nearly all of its co-branded cards, including dining credits, wireless credits, and spending bonuses. See the following posts:
- Delta cards: Enhancements for 2021 (dining, wireless, status boost, and Delta spend bonuses)
- Marriott Amex cards: Enhancements for 2021 (dining, wireless, and spend bonuses)
- Hilton cards: Enhancements for 2021 (dining, wireless, and spend bonuses)
The first catch is that you must have had your card open by January 1, 2021. In other words, they are incentivizing existing cardholders to keep these cards as opposed to using these offers to lure in new cardholders (whom Amex has presumably already wooed with an attractive welcome offer).
The more important catch is that those same offers are not available on Amex-branded (i.e. Membership Rewards-earning) cards. In this case, you have to have the co-branded card to have the offer. And in many cases the more expensive co-branded card you have, the better the offer.
This marks a significant departure from Amex’s long-time strategy, whereby they have more often released an offer across many/most cards and allowed customers to choose the card to which they would prefer to sync an offer. Sure, there are occasionally offers targeted to business cards or ones that are only found on some accounts, but until COVID credit card enhancements began last year, we hadn’t often seen offers that are broadly applicable (like spend $20 on dining anywhere and get $20 back) so narrowly targeted to a specific card.
What began with enhancements on the Platinum and Delta cards last year has now spread to include Marriott Bonvoy and Hilton Honors cards. I think this new method is really smart for Amex. I would personally much rather have seen an offer for $20 back on $20 at restaurants pop up on all of my cards so that I could choose to load it to the Gold card, which is where I typically prefer to put my restaurant spend. Instead, Amex is going to tie that benefit to having the Amex Aspire card open. That is a smart play to add value to that specific card and give cardholders a reason to keep it open even if they aren’t traveling right now.
In the case of that dining credit, it makes the Aspire card continue to be a highly compelling value. I have long argued that the Hilton Honors Aspire card is the most valuable Amex card on the market in an ongoing sense (it definitely doesn’t have the most valuable welcome bonus but arguably does have the best set of ongoing benefits). That is because the card includes the following significant annual perks (along with others that I value less):
- $250 in airline incidental fee credits
- $250 in Hilton resort credit
- 1 free weekend night at any Hilton property
- Hilton Diamond status (the main benefit over Gold is guaranteed lounge access)
I continue to be amazed that the card offers that much for $450. In a normal world, the free weekend night can be worth more than the annual fee on its own. Assuming you value the annual credits at even 50% of face value, the card is a big net win in my opinion.
Now add to all that the $20 monthly dining credit for 11 months and you’ve got another $220 back this year. That’s pretty ridiculous for anyone who spends at least $20 per month on dining. Obviously the dining credit alone doesn’t mitigate both the resort and airline credits if you feel like you are unable to use them, though we maintain a guide for what triggers Amex airline incidental fees and the Hilton resort credit can be useful even if you’re not staying at a resort in 2021. As I personally still value the resort and airline fee credits and I’m happy to put this year’s free weekend night with last year’s toward a stay sometime next year, I just couldn’t justify closing the Aspire this year. I’d have already felt good about keeping it, but at this point I just can’t see myself even seriously asking for a retention offer.
Add on top of the above the new Amex Offer for 10,000 bonus Hilton points with each $5K spend. Unbonused spend will therefore earn 5x everywhere on the Aspire card assuming you do your spend in $5K increments. Given that our Reasonable Redemption Value for Hilton points is only 0.45c per point, that’s a return of about 2.25% in Hilton points. Hilton frequently sells their points for half a cent each, meaning that with a card like the Alliant Cashback Visa, which earns 2.5% back everywhere (albeit a dubious 2.5%), you could earn the equivalent of 5 Hilton points per dollar spent every day. Still, 2.25% back isn’t bad for anyone who doesn’t have one of a select few cards that earn a better return on unbonused spend. That assumes that you like and want Hilton points — but if you do, this is a nice bonus opportunity.
That all presents a good argument for keeping the Hilton Aspire card if you also value the other benefits, but let’s consider a card where the offer alone makes the card a simple keeper: the Marriott Bonvoy Business card popped up with an offer for $15 back each month on wireless services. For those who can make use of the credit, that’s $165 in credits on a card that costs $125 per year and comes with a free annual night. That’s a trade I’ll take all day long. I should note that some folks won’t find this credit useful because they would need to forgo auto-pay discounts when using a credit card to pay their bills, but if you can use the credit without sacrificing any discounts, this is a great deal. And yet again, as with the Hilton Aspire card above, I just can’t even pretend to make the argument as to why I would consider canceling this card in 2021. As a T-Mobile customer, I can easily pay $15 toward my bill without losing my auto-pay discount, so this offer is an easy $40 win plus a free night certificate. You win, Amex. And so do I.
The bonus point spending offer for Marriott feels less compelling. We talked about this on a previous Frequent Miler on the Air because Amex offered similar spending bonuses on Marriott cards last year. The issue on these spending offers (which also applies to the Hilton offer above!) is two-fold:
- You have to thread the needle to get optimal return. Any extra spend drops your return. Keeping track is a pain.
- Amex doesn’t care for certain types of purchases which might make it easier to track how much you’ve spent
The second bullet point is likely to ward off the manufactured spenders among us, and Amex is obviously fine with that. A bigger issue is where they draw the line. If Bob Jones starts using his Marriott Bonvoy Business card or Hilton Honors card everywhere to trigger the spending offer and as such he buys some gift cards for gifts along the way (for personal use / gifts or maybe to fund a college 529 plan), I would expect that to be acceptable use. Where is the line? Will Bob have any risk of inadvertently finding the line? It is annoying in my opinion.
Of course, at this time of year, tax payments come to mind as a potentially easy / good use of a spending bonus like this. One could pretty easily thread the needle and spend the perfect amount on taxes and effectively earning 3x Marriott points or 5x Hilton Honors points on tax payments. But for the average person, I’m not sure that a spending threshhold of $7500 at a time (on the Bonvoy Business card) will move the needle and get this card in their wallet. If you have an option like the Bank of America Premium Rewards card with Platinum Honors or you are working on meeting a new card welcome offer or other big spend bonus, it is hard to imagine the Marriott card being your best option here.
Still, Amex is making some move to make it rewarding to spend on the card on an ongoing basis. However, this is essentially what the Barclays Arrival Premier tried to do with its welcome bonus a few years ago and it was quickly and resoundingly panned across the blogosphere (except for one guy who was accused for being a shameless shill for finding the positives in it). I just don’t think it is going to resonate much better this time for Amex than it did for Barclays (though this ongoing spend offer is obviously different than trying to attract new customers with an ongoing spend bonus as Barclays attempted).
However, I do think that the monthly wireless and dining credits are very likely to resonate with customers in a way that (I bet Amex is hoping) will convince cardholders to keep their Amex cards open. That is perhaps the most interesting part of the strategy here in my opinion. While Amex had only been lukewarm on retention offers for years, particularly on the co-branded cards, things have seemingly swung in the complete opposite direction during the pandemic. Last year, we started hearing reports of great retention offers on cards that earn Membership Rewards points (upwards of 30K or 50K points with no spend required for some people on the Platinum card and 20K-30K with no spend on the Gold). Now Amex seems to be aggressively going after retention on the co-branded cards in a proactive way.
That is an interesting shift in strategy. In the past, most card issuers would hold off on offering retention credits and extra spending offers unless a cardholder expressed interest in canceling. Now, Amex seems to be offering these types of things up-front to show that these cards have fantastic value before cardholders get around to thinking about canceling them. And they aren’t alone — Barclays threw out some amazing spending offers late last year that resembled new card welcome offers and clearly were meant to proactively offer customers a reason to not only keep their cards but spend regularly on them. I find this type of behavior from credit card issuers to be an interesting strategy and one that excites me. While I didn’t necessarily mind getting on the phone or pulling up the chat tool to discuss my options when thinking about cancelling, I am happy to receive these proactive offers to enhance the value of holding a card — particularly one like the Aspire that I was already likely to keep.
Now that Amex has really unleashed that strategy in a more widespread way, will we see Chase or Citi respond? Citi has always been particularly generous with retention offers and Chase became unexpectedly generous in that regard last year, but I would love to see some competition to enhance cards with credits we can easily use. Hopefully this is the mark of good things to come.
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The only real perk this year that is useful is the PayPal credit. It is annoying, however, how Amex tends to divide the credits into monthly installments, but I guess they are banking on some people forgetting, etc. This said, the other “Amex Offers” are only good if you use those merchants, so it being not as general is not as useful. The other credit cards last year primarily competed on use of travel credits OR bonus points, but Amex was the leader in having general cash back credits.
Just remember these are not dining credits, they are $20 off $20+. You can’t spend $5 here, $15 there. I’ll probably just be throwing the full amount the 1st of each month on some restaurant app like chick fil a.
Per the Amex offer terms: “you will earn one $20 statement credit each month after spending $20 or more in combined eligible purchases on your Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant™ American Express® Card at US restaurants per month.”
The way I read it, you can do a $5 & $15 purchase. You just have to reach the $20 threshold.
I got the Aspire about a year and a half ago. Even with my limited travel it has been well worth the first partial year AF and the next full year $450 (counting the two award nights I have ready for use). The only area where we differ is I’m not sure that for me any one night stay is worth $450 on it’s own, but I’m sure it is for some.
I am thinking using the $15 wireless monthly credit to get a new line. Can anyone recommend something? I really do not care much since this is just going to be the first phone for my kid that may occasionally call us. Thanks
Ultra Mobile.
Regarding your first paragraph–while I mostly agree, I have noticed that certain cards get better Amex offers. Specifically, I notice that certain high value offers tend to get targeted to that card, such as Delta offers, insurance/utility offers, superstore offers, etc. This is true both when compared to the other cards I have, and compared to the offers I received prior to having the card.
Same here. My Platinum card gets much better Amex Offers than my Surpass or BBP. Those get useful offers as well, but most of the offers that overlap between them and the Platinum are junk that I’ll never use anyway.
It’s a nice addition/offer re. the $20 monthly restaurant rebate, much like last year’s restaurant credit in lieu of the resort credit (stay)…but for the 2nd straight year I won’t be able to utilize the airline credit, in part due to decreased travel but also due to reduced options where spending is allowed (e.g. onboard food and beverage). As an elite member in my airline’s FF program, I was already getting many of the ancillary spend options. And coupled with reduced was to get the credits due to restrictions, that is another ‘value’ of the card that will sit idle. Wish AMEX would introduce some new/other option for these credits.
Amex Plat Consumer Card holder – received a $500 statement credit retention offer with no spending requirements in January 2021. Only took one call to Amex desk.
Yeah, they’ve been quite generous with retention offers in the past few months, particularly on the Platinum card. I’ve also heard DPs of 50K points (which could be even better assuming you value the points at better than 1c each).
Is the chase thing dead now? I called once last year. Should have been more proactive about calling right away.
I saw someone mentioned getting a $250 credit from Chase on the CSR recently. I tried a second time and struck out about a month ago. I intend to try again when my Ritz annual fee posts any day now.
Lol Im still mad at Chase for not matching the 80K csp last fall when I got the card literally 1wk before that
Typo. Must be open by Jan 1 2021
Retention I got two last year on co-brands. Delta Reserve 60K no spend and Delta Platinum 30K and I think no spend (last spring & I’ve slept since then). However, Delta Business Platinum no retention and I canceled. All Delta co-brands (2) will probably go this year. I need the slots to stay within the “reported” maximum of (4) co-brands. Oh, I received $100 off my Reserve ($450 and not current $550) to retain and $50 on the Platinum. Yeah, at one time I was putting a lot of spend on Delta co-brands so obviously helped AmEx’s decision to keep me.
Yes I do find it somewhat ironic Amex has retention credits and attractive incentives while at the same time being so strict on the 4 card rule even for me who has been a customer for 20 years. I would have kept the delta reserve open but for the four card rule.
Also having business cards included in the 4 hurts. I thought I was OK until a few months ago when I took out the Business Blue Unlimited card which I love. On the surface it looks like a charge card. However, it carries a preset limit (didn’t know or aware when I took it out) which of course we all know charge cards don’t as in published. So now I’m @ 4 and when 24 months are up in 2022 on my Chase Marriott, I want an AmEx Marriott card too. The games one has to play.
There isn’t a card called the Business Blue Unlimited. Do you mean the Blue Business Plus? That’s the card that earns 2x everywhere on up to $50K per year in purchases. If yes, that has always been a credit card since it launched.
With Amex, the “pay over time” cards (what has previously been called a charge card) have an image of the Centurion in the center of the card — the Amex Platinum, Gold, and Green cards and the Plum card. The Blue Business Plus has a different look.
You can always tell what type of card an Amex card is on our card page. Underneath the offer, there is a section that says something like:
“Card Type: Amex Pay Over Time Card” or “Amex Credit Card”.
Hopefully that helps you in the future!
Excuse me as I nicknamed the card blue because of the blue center on clear background. Yes, Business Plus I assumed incorrectly when applying because it was not co-branded.
You say “The first catch is that you must have had your card open by January 1, 2020.” I have not read this anywhere else. Does this mean if I accept an upgrade for example from Hilton Honors card to Hilton Surpass card I won’t get the $10 a month dining credit for the Surpass card? Does this mean If someone gets the Hilton Honors card today that he or she won’t get the $5 a month dining credit? thanks.
Greg linked to the press release in the posts yesterday:
https://about.americanexpress.com/all-news/news-details/2021/American-Express-Introduces-New-Limited-Time-Offers-for-U.S.-Consumer-and-Business-Delta-SkyMiles-Hilton-Honors-and-Marriott-Bonvoy-Card-Members/default.aspx
That press release explicitly includes the January 1st requirement.
In terms of whether you’ll get the $10 monthly dining credit if you upgrade to the Surpass today, I don’t know. I certainly wouldn’t count on it as that Amex Offer obviously isn’t in your account right now and I would be surprised if an upgrade triggers the offer to suddenly show in your account.
It definitely means that someone getting the Hilton Honors card as a new account today will not get the dining credit. As has been the case with most of the recent Amex enhancements, these seem to be targeted toward people who already have the card rather than being an incentive to get the card. In theory, the welcome offer is the incentive to get the card as a new customer, so Amex presumably doesn’t feel the need to further incentivize a new cardholder.
Nick, the post above should read January 2021, not January 2020.
It absolutely should have. Fixed, thanks!
Any ideas to trigger restaurant credits for overseas clients? Would gift card purchases through the website (DunkinDonuts.com, for example) code as a restaurant purchase and be eligible? I could eventually use US restaurant GCs or gift to friends and family back in the US.
I’m sure there is likely a dining merchant or two that sells their own gift cards directly online, but I’m not sure which do. Many restaurants use something like Cashstar to process gift card purchases, which most likely won’t trigger the dining credits.
Last summer the Hilton Aspire resort credit could be used for restaurant purchases. I only had a couple weeks to use mine (since my card anniversary was in August), so I did a $200 reload on my Starbucks gift card balance, and that did get reimbursed as a restaurant expense.
Load up your account on apps like Starbucks, Chick fil a, etc., for later use.
Seems I was credited for a gift card purchase on the Potbelly app. Any other data points? Something more upscale might be nice. We have a bunch of these credits to burn.
It just takes one pricey phone to die to realize how valuable the Citi Prestige cell phone protection insurance is. Although without any extra benefits, the cost is starting to outweigh the benefit. However, other cards offer less coverage for a lower cost. Perhaps an article calculating the cost of the insurance when factoring in the card cost?
If I pay part of my cell phone bill with this Amex offer will I lose my cell phone protection I get from using my Chase freedom flex(I would pay the balance with the Freedom flex)?
And if so, Is it worth the risk?
Yes and yes in my opinion. You can always get cell phone protection again in the future by paying a monthly bill entirely on the Freedom Flex. I’d take the $15/mo plus rewards on the rest of the cell phone bill. Your decision certainly may differ.
As Nick mentioned, you would lose your insurance. But regarding your second question, think of it this way. If your cell phone provider offered cell phone insurance for $15 a month, would you add it on? I think most people would say no. But if you have 6 people on your plan, including teenagers with new-ish iPhones, your answer may be “Yes!”. If you are in the latter category, there may be a friend or relative of yours who wouldn’t mind you paying $15 on their cell phone bill, so the credit does not go to waste.
Thank you NK3, you make some great points. I have 4 people on my plan(2 teenagers with newer phones). Might just use credit towards better insurance like square trade family plane or let someone else use the credit and keep paying with my freedom flex.