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Amex is out with more exciting news today: In addition to Platinum (consumer) cardholders gaining an offer for $100 back on $100 at Dell.com (which we are now told will be open to Amex Platinum consumer cardholders provided they enroll by January 31, 2021), the Blue Business Plus and Blue Business Cash cards will debut new short-term benefits on Thursday, August 6th that will include up to $300 in statement credits for new cardholders for purchases made in the first three months of card membership:
- Up to $100 at Dell Technologies
- Up to $100 at DocuSign
- Up to $100 at FedEx
This offer for new cardholders is scheduled to run from Thursday, August 6, 2020 until November 4, 2020. Note that you can receive up to $100 back at each of the above merchants, but the credits will also work on smaller purchases (i.e. if you only spend $20 at FedEx, you’ll get $20 back).
Amex explains this in the press release they sent by saying:
While states continue to reopen at their own pace, many small business owners and employees continue to work from home and run their businesses virtually. In fact, many companies plan to have their teams work from home for the remainder of the year. This means needs are evolving. With this new shift, 32% consumers expect to spend more on technology and office equipment this year, according to the Amex TrendEx* (American Express new trend report).
These new credits on the Blue Business cards (in addition to the Platinum card credit that came out earlier today) are intended to address this shift.
This is pretty interesting because the Blue Business cards have frequently come without a welcome offer unless applying through a referral link (and the most recent referral offer on the Blue Business Plus has only been for 10,000 Membership Rewards points — and then only after meeting a minimum purchase threshold). In this case, there is no minimum spending threshold noted to trigger the credits and depending on how you value the statement credits versus the points, this could be a better deal that the points offer — though I’m not yet sure whether or not they will be mutually exclusive. It is possible that these new statement credits will be in addition to any welcome offer (we don’t yet know, but will update if and when we confirm one way or the other).
The current referral offer on the Blue Business Cash card is good for up to $500 in statement credits in the first year — so unless the new Dell, DocuSign, and FedEx credits come in addition to that offer, the current offer looks better to me.
Again, it is possible that these new credits will simply stack with the referral offers, in which case they make the welcome offers on both cards enticing given the fact that both the Blue Business Plus and Blue Business Cash cards have no annual fee. The Blue Business Plus is a particularly good card for any cardholder to have in his or her pocket given the fact that it has no annual fee and helps to keep Membership Rewards points alive and transferable to travel partners.
If you have either of those cards on your radar, it would obviously make sense to wait until Thursday to consider applying since these new benefits are only expected to apply to new cardholders and only those who open cards on or after August 6th.
[…] More $100 credits at Dell, DocuSign, and FedEx coming on Blue Business cards (Expires 11/4/20) […]
Worth signing up for the Blue Business Plus now to get the points if you don’t really have a need for any of these credits?
or wait and see if the credits come with the referral signup?
No — if you didn’t need the Blue Business Plus a week ago, I don’t think this puts on any extra pressure. Even if the points offer disappears, I imagine that’ll only be temporary. I think the BBP is definitely worth having, but if you didn’t already have it on the radar I’d wait. Either the new offer will include both (in which case, it’s icing on the cake) or it’ll only include the credits (in which case, wait until it goes back to points in a few months).
Thank you
[…] Hat tip again to Frequentmiler […]
That’s really, really lame that this only applies to new cardholders. I wonder if we could see AmEx offers for the Blue cards that match these credits?
I have an offer that states: “Get 10% back, up to $1,500” on my Amex Blue Business that expires 8/31/2020. Have you checked your current offers?