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Amex has been on a tear lately with huge new welcome bonuses, bonuses for expanding your membership, bonuses for adding authorized users, and more. It’s like they’re showering us with points! But there’s a catch… a big catch. Each of these bonuses requires significant spend. Welcome bonuses, for example, typically require anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000 spend in 3 months. If you don’t have enough regular spend to meet the offer’s requirements, you won’t earn the advertised bonus points. What can you do?
American Express has terms in their welcome offers that exclude some manufactured spend techniques from counting towards the minimum spend requirements for the welcome bonus. For example, most new cardmember bonuses have terms like this:
Eligible purchases to meet the Threshold Amount do NOT include fees or interest charges, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards, person-to-person payments, or purchases of other cash equivalents.
Fortunately, there are many options for increasing spend which do not run afoul of Amex’s rules. In many cases, you’ll have to pay a fee to use your credit card. For example, you have to pay a fee of nearly 3% to pay bills through Plastiq. But, in most cases, it’s well worth it. If paying that fee means that you can earn a big bonus that you wouldn’t have otherwise earned, you’ll still come out ahead… way ahead.
Buy a Car
If you buy a car from a dealership, it’s worth asking them if you can pay by credit card. Most dealerships allow credit cards up to a fixed amount such as $2,500 or $3,000, but some allow the full payment by card. If the dealership doesn’t allow you to pay as much as you want by credit card, it can be worth negotiating. Offer to pay a fee on the extra credit card spend if it will mean the difference between being able to meet minimum spend to earn a welcome bonus.
Family & Friends
If you have trusted friends or family members with significant spend who do not use credit cards, you could offer to pay some of their bills by credit card in exchange for cash. If you really trust them, you could give them an authorized user card to spend as they like on the condition that they pay you back for any spend incurred.
Fund Business Loans
Kickfurther is a platform that lets you use a credit card to fund short term business loans primarily to fund the production of items for sale. You are technically, sort-of, buying their product to sell on consignment and so the charge counts as a purchase rather than a cash advance. There is no fee to pay by credit card, but there is a 1.5% fee to withdraw the money once it is paid back. If all goes well, you can get your money back, with interest. Kickfurther only offers loans that are fully backed by verified purchase orders. That is, to seek a loan from the Kickfurther community, a business must prove that it already has a buyer for its merchandise. Still, things can and do sometimes go wrong. You can lose your money, so tread carefully.
If you’re interested in trying this out, my referral link will get you started with $10 to loan (for the record, there’s no material benefit to me for you to use this link).
Fund Microloans
Kiva is a service that lets you use a credit card to fund micro-loans. Most loans pay back in 6 to 12 months, but with no interest. There is no charge to use a credit card to fund loans. Kiva provides filters which can be used to filter out risky loans. As a result, in my experience it is easy to limit loan defaults to less than 2%.
For more details, see:
Fund Education or Pay Student Loans
Gift of College gift cards can be used to fund college savings accounts (529s) or to pay off student loans. This is a great deal when you find stores that sell these gift cards loadable up to $500. Each gift card can be bought with a credit card and each has a $5.95 fee. When loading each card with $500, the fee is a very reasonable 1.19%.
Gift of College gift cards are available regionally at H-E-B and at Cumberland Farms as well as select other chains. There is no fee to apply the value of the gift card to a student loan or 529 college savings plan. More details can be found here: Miles for College.
Amex Risk: Amex does not officially allow gift card purchases to count towards minimum spend requirements. That said, in practice Amex usually does count these purchases when you buy gift cards at a local store such as a supermarket, convenience store, or drugstore. To reduce your risk, I recommend buying one gift card and then waiting to see how that purchase shows up in your Amex account. If you click through to see the purchase details within your Amex account, does it show that you you bought a gift card? If not, your purchases a probably safe (no guarantee!).
Pay Business Services
If you own a business, there are many business services that can be paid through the Plastiq bill pay service with your American Express card. These include (but are not limited to):
- Accounting services
- Computer services
- Construction services
- Employment agencies
- Graphic design services
- Janitorial services
- Legal services
- Rental services (appliances, furniture, equipment, trucks, etc.)
- Security services
- Shipping services
- Video production services
Plastiq currently charges 2.85% in fees.
Pay Rent
You can use your Amex card to make residential rent payments with the Plastiq bill pay service. Plastiq currently charges 2.85% in fees. Before using Plastiq, check with your landlord to see if they accept Amex credit cards directly. If they do, and if the fee is less than Plastiq’s fee, then you would obviously be better off paying directly.
See also: How to Earn Rewards by Paying Rent
Pay Taxes
You can pay federal taxes (including quarterly estimated taxes) with an Amex card through any of 3 tax payment services for approximately 2% in fees. If you overpay, the IRS will issue a refund after you file end of year taxes.
To pay state or local taxes, you may be offered that option directly, or you can pay with Plastiq through Plastiq’s dedicated tax payment URL: plastiq.com/us-taxes. Plastiq currently charges 2.85% in fees.
For complete details about paying taxes with credit cards, see: Pay taxes via credit card.
Pay Tuition or Daycare
Payments to daycares, private schools, universities, etc. can be made through the Plastiq bill pay service. Plastiq currently charges 2.85% in fees. Before using Plastiq, check with the school or daycare to see if they accept Amex credit cards directly. If they do, and if the fee is less than Plastiq’s fee, then you would obviously be better off paying directly.
Pay (and Pre-pay) Insurance, Phone, Utilities, etc.
Many regular bills can be paid by credit card with no fee. That’s always an easy way to increase credit card spend. If you need more spend in the short term, you can also pre-pay many bills. For example, you could pay for a full year of insurance instead of paying monthly or quarterly.
Paying your cell phone bill with an Amex card can make a lot of sense too for Amex’s cell phone protection. Cell phone protection is available with the following Amex cards: Centurion cards (consumer and business), Platinum cards (including the business Platinum and co-branded consumer variants), Delta Platinum (consumer and business), and Delta Reserve (consumer and business).
Other Ideas?
Do you know of other safe ways to increase Amex spend? Please comment below!
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Any DPs on how HEB codes for Gift of College GC purchases? I can do up to 12k more this year to get the state tax benefits. Getting just one or two is fine but would like to get more if it won’t get flagged.
Codes as groceries with AMEX. H-E-B has a $2k max per transaction.
I called amex today ro ask if paying property taxes count for earning SUB for amex business gold card. The amex rep said its will not be counted toward SUB .is this true? I dont see it in the fine print of amex.
That’s not true – they’ve made that up and are incorrect.
For some reason, Amex reps keep saying that property taxes don’t count, but there are hundreds of DPs on Reddit and Flytertalk that prove otherwise, myself included.
I just paid $20k in property taxes this April 2024 to earn the Biz Plat and Amex Gold subs. Subs deposited quickly with no issues whatsoever (besides having to eat the 2.25% fee my county charges me). I can pretty much only spend enough to hit Amex biz card SUB’s insane spend reqs during tax season.
How about buying Marriott gift cards directly from Marriott.com? Would that be considered valid for minimum spend on my new Amex bonvoy business card? I don’t have hotel bookings right now, but don’t mind having that cash locked away for future use at Marriott hotels. I believe it should also count as hotel spend at Marriott for the bonus points on this card, right?
Does anyone know if Kickfurther codes as a “small business” for the AMEX Plat signup promotion?
Awesome question. I don’t know.
Any ideas on how to indirectly pay your mortgage with AMEX? As Plastiq does not allow AMEX mortgage payments and buying VGCs will get your bonus denied.
I have already eliminated my escrow so that I pay taxes and insurance with a CC.
I am buying $500 of gift cards for a local mexican restaurant. I want to use my new Amex Business Gold toward the 10k 3 month min spend.The manager thinks it should code as restaurant spend just like a meal. How do I know if Amex can see level 3 data telling them it was gift cards. How can I know if I will get credit towards the large spend. Will I be risking claw back of points or blacklist or even shutdown. I got the card because a had a 12k roof replacement. The contractor wouldn’t take Amex unless I paid an extra $720 which he claimed is the extra Amex charges him.
Yes, the charge should process as restaurant spend. With a single $500 restaurant gift card purchase, it’s very unlikely that Amex will claw anything back regardless of whether L3 info is available. I think you’re safe with that.
With your contractor, $720 on a $12K bill is outrageous. You could try paying with Plastiq for a 2.85% fee ($342). I can’t promise that it will work, but it seems to me that it should work based on this FAQ: https://support.plastiq.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041921373-FAQ-What-can-I-pay-with-my-American-Express-
See also: https://frequentmiler.com/plastiq-bill-payments-by-credit-card-guide/
So far Kickforther works for me, but I need another 6m to get solid statistics. As with every investment, the key is to choose the more solid offers and diversity.
How about buying points/ miles? Sort of combining this post with the principles of this one:
https://frequentmiler.com/buy-points-for-less/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Frequent%20Miler%20%28Instant%29
Quasi-MS if the points/miles purchased have a definitive use
Sure you could do that, but I don’t recommend buying points unless you have a plan for how you’ll use them.
What I want is a full list of what counts and does not count as grocery. I have fred meyer and grocery outlet up here and those are a ‘no’.
I got amex grocery credit for grocery outlet but Fred Meyer codes as wholesale for some reason. Other Kroger stores like QFC (assuming Seattle area) are grocery.
I am going to post here as opposed th the 2021 TAX post as this is newer (and just updated). I signed up for an AMEX business card and used to pay taxes and met the 15K spend threshold in month 1 and expected the 125K sign up bonus. I pinged AMEX a number of rimes. Firs they said I did not have a bonus offer attanced to my sign up, then I proved I did and now they are stating that my US Treasury spend via one fot he third parties does not count toward bonus spend and I have to spend even more to get bonus.. Is this an accurate statement or can I call back again and push?!?!
Yikes. Just got that card last night and it showed up in the mail today. Was counting on doing a big tax payment to make MS. Will now hold off a bit and/or send the card back. (I assume you can do that, or … ?)
So do push, and please keep us (me) posted. Good luck!!
Definitely push back. It absolutely should work.
Greg, so I just spent an hour on the phone with AMEX. I used your link to sign up for the 125K business card and it clearly stated when I appled that I was signing up for 125K bonus points for 15K spend in 3 months. Two days after that, I was able to find a 150K bonus and asked if I could be upgraded and they said no (fine with that). I think spent over 15K on the card in the first month and chatted to see if I had made the bonus. At that time, they said NOTHING promotion wise was linked to the account. WHAT?!?!? So I had them open up a case to investigate. The case came back that YES I did have a promotion BUT I had not met spend based on TAXES not being included in “eligible spend.” I have asked for where they document that to the consumer and the could not directly provide a customer facing URL. However, they are HOLDING that I have not met the spend due to paying taxes. I talked to escalation membership team member and she stated she can not reverse nor can I talk to someone to validate this. I can do more spend on the card to exceed the NEW requirement that includes no taxes BUT I wanted to get any coaching guidance from you on ANY additional recourse I can do at this time outside of just putting more spend on this card? Thanks in advance!!!
I don’t understand why you didn’t get the bonus yet. My assumption is that something went wrong on Amex’s side and so whoever you talked with just tried to find some way to explain it other than to blame Amex itself. The signup bonus terms only disallow the following:
Paying Taxes can’t plausibly be considered to be of the items in that list, in my opinion.
My recommendation is to try the painful phone conversations again (including speaking with a supervisor if necessary). If that doesn’t work, ask the supervisor to open a case to investigate. Make sure to call them during normal business hours when you’re more likely to get someone who can help.
If none of that works, I think you have a legitimate complaint to file with CFPB. That’s likely to cause Amex to shake the welcome bonus loose, but it might be risky. I could imagine them deciding afterwards that they don’t like you as a customer. So I’d only do that as an absolute last resort.
I have opened up two customer service cases and BOTH times it has come back that a marketing manager has say that taxes and charitable contributions DO NOT count as eligible spend. I asked thme a few times to show me EXACTLY where that is in the T&Cs. They are now saying that they will “monitor” the account and AFTER the eligible bonus windows for spend has ended (in 90 days), they will see if the SYSTEM corrects it. What are my options. I could spend the delta but I used my tax spend to address the spend requirement and now it is kind of the principle of it. Market Manager is not the person that writes the T&Cs for the card (reflected above). HELP!!???!
Amex has gone loco. I wouldn’t normally recommend this, but one option is for you to purchase very expensive refundable hotel or airfare for a future trip as a way to try to force the system to see the extra spend. If you later cancel that trip and get your money back, I don’t think it’s likely that Amex would claw the points back since you legitimately completed the min spend.
If you want to do the hotel option, go through a site like Expedia or even Fine Hotels and Resorts. Both let you pay in advance even for fully refundable bookings.
Timely subject, alas, and dicey….. as we know that amex’s rat-team enforcement of gc purchases is spotty. (I did maybe 15% of my 5k for one card via gc’s via this or that outlet, and now I worry sick that one might trip, not count)
But one even bigger nagging issue you surprisingly left out…. every one who gets an AMEX card really needs to know EXACTLY when the clock starts to tick…. (for the spending promotions) No, this ain’t rational or obvious, and the major cc companies all seem to delight in tripping up folks on this. Checking your statement for when you first used your card is the road the ruin…. That would be logical of course, if you distinctly remember using it the very first day you activated the card.
BUT, and here’s the horrendous rub…. AMEX (as you know) starts the clock when THEY approve the card (and nowhere that I can find on the account web site) do they actually tell you when that date is. …. Blogger like this venerable site sometimes cover themselves by urging new card holders to CALL and find out.
I have an email from AMEX on one recent card saying that tah-dah, they processed my new card and mailed it out on…. April 2nd…. But with covid and mail delays, I never got it for another two weeks…. And was the card’s approval date April the 2nd, or…. several days before that. (I have no email record of any approval date…)
Frustrating needless worry. Yah, I get it, spend early and often — avoid this….
BUT bloggers like you should emphasize this danger in BOLDFACE BIG LETTERS….. as a warning.
If you purchase a Visa gift card at a grocery store in the same transaction as your groceries, can Amex tell there’s a gift card in there?
That just depends on whether or not the store shares Level 3 data with Amex. Maybe yes, maybe no.
I paid my divorce attorney, with one credit card at a time up to the sign-up bonus amount. Why waste a crisis?
Let’s stock up on spouses.
Haha – that’s a great deal
Has anyone done a large Amazon reload on an Amex card to meet MSR or does Amex consider that a cash equivalent or gift card? I believe the reload limit is only $2,000 but it might be useful if somebody is almost out of time to meet the MSR and just needs a bit more spend.
I’m pretty sure that Amazon reloads are safe. Thanks for that suggestion.
I’ve been and will continue to be a reader. I love the site, and have often used your referral/affiliate links. But… these types of articles rub me the wrong way.
Based on what we know about you from previous articles, podcasts, and AMA episodes you’re clearly holding out tons of information. We know you’re MS’ing many hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of dollars each year on your cards to meet all the minimum spend, and ms top delta status for you and your wife. Nothing you’ve listed above would allow you to do that. Even if you did everything you’ve listed, you’d still be way short. I see these articles as “Let me show you how to use an Abacus!” Meanwhile, you’re using a graphing calculator.
There is certainly some stuff that I’ve left out: there are a couple of MS things that I do where I was told the technique on the condition that I wouldn’t share them. I hope you can understand why I would keep those promises. The best way to learn these kind of things is to get to know others in the game and to help each other. It’s especially useful to get to know people who live in your area since many techniques are very much location dependent. Look on Meetup, Flyertalk, or Reddit for meetups in your area.
All of that said, I have spent a ton of money with Amex cards using the techniques listed in this post: In the past I’ve pumped a lot of money through Kiva and Kickfurther. I used Plastiq to pay for all of my son’s university expenses. My business incurs pretty high estimated taxes and so I pay those with Amex cards.
I forgot to mention that I also pay property taxes via Plastiq. I do have a huge advantage over most people though: Since I’ve referred so many people to Plastiq, I have plenty of FFDs (Fee Free Dollars) so that I can use Plastiq without fees.
“Let me show you how to use an Abacus!” Meanwhile, you’re using a graphing calculator.” (quote of the year for the rest of us…. )
I too much luv this site, devour it daily. Alas, for we mere mortals, plastiq (the most mentioned tool here) is an exercise in intense, ongoing (yet very polite) frustration…. (my latest nightmare was paying property taxes — very early of course….. and according to Amex, they were sent to “county of San Francisco” — where plastiq lives…. Plastiq chat reps. insist that no, it went to the designated address…. alas, they either were delivered (by snail mail) late (serves me right with all the post-covid postal chaos)…. or went to the wrong address, or simply are sitting in a mass third party processor in box…. while I got socked with a nasty 10% late fee, etc. etc. (plus loss of sleep, nasty looks from the spouse and so forth)… Maybe this will all work out, but if relying upon ever more expensive and quirk filled, no telephones, plastiq is the only way for mere hobbyist mortals to achieve ms nirvana, then I’ll be passing more and more on all these promos for graphing calculators. 😉
the plastiq comedy continues…. Attempted to pay a simple century/link broadband bill…. figured that should count as utilities, which ordinarily can be paid with amex via plastiq. (did it with my electric bill)…. First try, failed. Chatted then with a plastiq rep. who informed me that I needed to delete the way I’d entered the payment to century link, and on second try, leave it as a pure utility, not an internet service sub-category…. I followed his guidance, and the payment went through just fine, or so I thought. But then few hours later received a rather curt message, complete with condescending boiler plate berating me for attempting to pay a category of bill not permitted by Amex. (never mind I was following provided to me by plastiq’s own rep)
Greg’s lack of candor re. the ongoing headaches of dealing with plastiq has me …. wondering.
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had so many problems with Plastiq. I literally use Plastiq to pay all bills that can’t be paid directly by credit card, including paying contractors for my business. In the several years using the service, I’ve only had a few minor problems. Once, a biller didn’t receive the check (or said that they didn’t). That was easily resolved: Plastiq cancelled the check and sent a new one. Most of the other problems (that I can remember) were technical issues which were resolved after contacting Plastiq. For example, when I tried to pay tuition with an Amex, it said that I couldn’t but it was well within the rules, so they helped me resolve that and I was able to pay with an Amex. On the negative side: Recently I had a technical issue with scheduled payments that they failed to help with (they said they would escalate the problem but I never heard back). Fortunately I found my own work-around (by not scheduling so far into the future, it worked).
Last time I tried to pay a contractor with Plastiq, it required them to sign up and make an account… Are you regularly asking folks who don’t normally take credit cards to make a Plastiq account to get paid?
It’s been a while since I added a contractor. Did it really require them to make an account or did it just try to encourage that path? With most payees, you can simply add them and if they’re not in the system Plastiq sends them a check rather than ACH.