American Express launched a new Shop Small Amex Offer last week which gives a $5 statement credit when spending $10 at eligible small businesses.
There have been numerous data points recently of statement credits unexpectedly being received for purchases, with perhaps the most interesting being gift card purchases in the Fluz app.
In case you’re not familiar with Fluz, it’s an app that offers cashback for gift card purchases. One benefit is that you can buy gift cards for specific amounts (e.g. $11.73) rather than having to buy whole dollar amounts (e.g. $25, $50, etc.). Another benefit is that the gift card is issued immediately, meaning you can use the app in-store while standing at the checkout.
Fluz also offers new users 3 vouchers that can be used to save up to 35% on 17 different gift card brands including Chipotle, Uber Eats, Starbucks, CVS, Netflix and more. Each voucher offers maximum cashback of $3.50, so it’s not like you can earn 35% cashback on a $200 CVS gift card, but it means signing up for the app can save you up to $10.50 on gift cards for services, stores or restaurants you’d likely be spending money at anyway.
If you’re new to Fluz, here are our referral links. As mentioned above, you’ll received 3 vouchers when joining, while we’ll earn 1 voucher after you make your first purchase.
Those vouchers aren’t the only way you can save with the Fluz app though. Doctor of Credit noted a few days ago that purchases in the Fluz app were triggering a confirmation email for the Shop Small Amex Offer.
Upon reading that, I tried testing it out by buying a $15 Amazon gift card, but didn’t receive an email from American Express stating that I’d used the Amex Offer. A data point I saw said that they’d received the email after buying an Uber Eats gift card, so I bought a $17.50 Uber Eats gift card (to max out the savings from using a voucher) but I didn’t receive an email about that either.
The pending transactions showed up on my card as ‘Fluz’, whereas some other people reported it showing for them as ‘FluzPay’. I’d wondered if the name difference was affecting the Amex Offer being triggered, but it turns out that me not receiving an email didn’t mean anything because a statement credit appeared on my account yesterday.
Even better, it seems like statement credits from the Shop Small Amex Offer work cumulatively. I made two purchases of $10+ and so only expected to get 2x $5 statement credits if the Amex Offer was triggered by Fluz purchases.
As it turns out, I received $15 back. That’s presumably 3x $5 statement credits due to spending just over $30 across those two transactions. That means you should be able to buy $100 worth of gift cards using the Fluz app to get $50 back quickly and easily. While that’s not the intended use of the Shop Small promotion, it could be a useful option if you don’t have any eligible local businesses near you that you want or need to make purchases from.
Update: Based on other people’s data points in the comments below, it seems like cumulative purchases aren’t triggering more statement credits than expected. If you make 2x purchases for $15, it therefore seems likely that you’ll receive 2x $5 statement credits, rather than 3x $5 credits for spending a total of $30. For whatever reason, my data point seemed to be an isolated case of it happening.
If you’d like to learn more about how the app works, I put together a user guide for Fluz over on GC Galore which goes into more detail.
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Not sure when it stopped, but i’m not seeing “limited time stores” in fluz anymore
They never seemed to be in stock in the app, so I wonder if they’re only available on the Power Portal now.
My recent purchases for same items as of July 20 are no longer coding as “FLUZ PAY” and now code as “FFLLC Giftcard”. I also noted new categories such as FFLLC TRAVEL, FFLLC GROCERY, FFLLC DINING, and possibly more.
Notable Data Points:
1. FFLLC TRAVEL codes as travel
2. FFLLC GROCERY codes as grocery
3. FFLLC DINING does code as dining on AMEX Platinum and therefore receives the 10x or 15x bonus for restaurants if signed up for the card with either offer
4. FFLLC GIFTCARD does not code as any bonus category to my knowledge
These 4 vendors do not code as small business and so based on these data points, I believe the small business portion of FLUZ Pay is dead for bonus through AMEX. I have verified through both Apple Pay and direct credit card purchase through the FLUZ app. Would love to hear if someone has other experience.
[…] maxed out the offer, don’t forget that the offer is triggered when buying gift cards from Fluz, eGifter and Samsung […]
Is anyone else having problems with multiple credits posting for several same-day purchases? My wife and I both have the offer on the same account for the Hilton business card (so, $100 back total with her as an authorized user on my account). We both made 2 fluz purchases on the same day a few days ago (so, 4 total purchases on one day), but we only got one $5 credit. Maybe we need to stagger our purchases so only one of us makes a purchase each day?
[…] has previously reported about how gift card purchases through cash back app Fluz and through eGifter have been triggering Amex small business purchase credits. That has been an […]
[…] already shared that gift card purchases in the Fluz app have triggered the statement credits, but there had also been data points that buying gift cards […]
[…] update: Based on comments below and over on Frequent Miler, it looks like the cumulative value of your spending doesn’t count – you’ll only […]
Bought $20, received $5 only.
Same here – I made 4 different $15 purchases and only got $20 back. If they were counting cumulatively, it should’ve been $30 back
Thanks for the additional data points – I’ll update the post saying that I might have been a one-off.
Does anyone have any idea why all my payment methods are greyed out when i go to pay? Trying to buy an Amazon GC through Fluz and I already linked my AmEx card AND verified it through temporary deposit….
Based on the fact that they are all popular brands, and with the Amazon minimum rising, my bet is that those gift cards have been hit hard by Amex people buying tiny amounts, and they ran out. I’d keep an eye out and hope they restock before the Amex offer ends
The minimum Amazon GC is now $50. You can’t just buy $10 or $15 anymore
And Netflix, Hulu, Spotify all have predefined GC value you have to buy. Plus several other merchants have minimum amounts. So you can’t really buy whatever amount of GC you want
I spent $35 on a small business (a restaurant) and only got back a $5, not $15 as might be implied if they were coding it on a cumulative basis (each $10 gets you $5 back). Maybe just a Fluz thing.
Interesting. What happened to you is exactly what I thought would happen, so I’m confused how I ended up with $15 then!
Just made two $15 Fluz purchases, will let you know if I get the $15 back. Note if you make too many purchases, Fluz temporarily freezes your account (it’s usually back up within the hour). Why I was hoping the $100 purchase would work! Let’s see!
I saw a similar symptom on my card, but I don’t think this is happening for fluz or any other merchant. Look carefully at all your small business purchases on that one day. You probably had 3 purchases, and amex just rolled the $15 into one merchant at random. That’s what happened to me.
That’s a great point – I can’t believe that didn’t occur to me! I did use my card elsewhere that day, so I think that’s what it must’ve been.
Does the amazon gift code have to be used while you are checking out on a purchase or can you just load to your account.
It’s just a regular gift card, so you can load it to your account.
I think I know what the next clawback is going to be…
While that’s certainly a risk with Amex, I’d actually be fairly surprised if that happened in this instance. Fluz is an eligible small business and the only thing they sell is gift cards, so for Amex to claw back statement credits would be far more unfair than them clawing back bonus points for MSing at grocery stores, especially seeing as you’re capped at $50 in statement credits.
Gift cars purchases are excluded regardless of merchant. You’re touting a violation to the terms of this offer. Not smart given AmExs recent history of claw backs. But Bloggers will do anything for clicks right?
or we could just support real local small businesses (who need our help), as amex intended?
Yep, I mentioned that in the post.
Nice find! I used your referral link and made 3 purchases ($10, $10, and $17+ to redeem the previous cash back savings). Got 3 AMEX app notifications and emails for the Shop Small deal 🙂
Thanks for using my link! It’s great that you got the notification straight away too 🙂