How to meet minimum spend requirements with Amex cards

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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?

a wallet with different cards in it

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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