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Update: Reader Mdk reports that while the advertising offer was triggered in the winter deal, it was NOT triggered on a subsequent purchase a few months ago. Marking this deal dead as such.
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There’s a new Amex Offer that recently came available on some business cards for advertising purchases: Spend $400 or more on advertising, get $100 back. That’s obviously a nice offer if you’ll be spending money on advertising. However, if you aren’t spending on advertising, it is also possible that the offer may be triggered when buying a phone(s) through Google Fi. This worked for me on the Pixel deal last November, which helped me save an extra $100 off. YMMV as to whether it will work again, but it might.
The Deal
- Spend $400 or more on advertising, get $100 back via a new targeted Amex Offer available on some business cards
Key Details
- Offer terms indicate that it is valid for purchases of online, television, or radio advertising
- A similar offer last winter was triggered when purchasing a phone from Google Fi
Quick Thoughts
Again, this offer is meant to be triggered by advertising purchases. However, back in November, a reader in our Frequent Miler Insiders group reported the offer being triggered by purchasing a phone through Google Fi. I tried it and I was also successful in triggering the offer, thereby saving a hundred bucks. This is presumably because Google runs these charges in a way that codes similarly to Google Adwords or something like that. Google FI service payments did not trigger the credit. Update: As noted at the top, it sounds like this will not work now.
I can’t say for sure whether or not this will work again, but it might and might be worth a shot if you’re planning to buy a Google Fi phone. If this works to trigger the credit, I imagine you could buy a single phone that comes to $400 or more after tax / shipping or buy multiple phones that cumulatively add up to $400 or more. Here is the pricing I’m seeing at the time of publication, but I wouldn’t be totally shocked to see Google do something to compete with Amazon for Prime Day, so it might be worthwhile to sync the offer and hold out for a deal.
For those unfamiliar with Google Fi, it’s awesome for travelers because it costs $20 per month for voice & text and then $10 per GB of data up to 6GB, then it’s theoretically unlimited (though terms indicate that once you reach 15GB they may throttle your speed and offer you high speed data again for $10/mo per additional GB). The best part is that international data costs the same and is full speed 4G LTE where available. While I’d previously been pretty happy with T-Mobile overseas, I recently traveled to Europe and my Google Fi phone was worlds faster than my T-Mobile phones. I also like the fact that you can pause service at any time. I paused mine just yesterday — but then I’ll turn it on again for the #40Kfaraway challenge.
Here are some posts to check out with additional information on Google Fi:
- Google’s Project Fi abroad. 6 surprises: 3 good and 3 bad.
- Google Fi now officially supports new iPhones, Samsung, and more
- [DEAD] WOW! Get a Google Fi phone & travel gift card worth the phone’s price
- Tiffany’s Google Fi warning. Time to retreat?
If you do decide to get Fi, use a friend referral. After 30 days of service both you and your friend will get $20 Fi credit. Here’s our referral link.
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The advertising amex offer worked last winter for buying my wife’s pixel 2xl, but did not work a couple months ago when i bought the new pixel 3a.
Thanks for the data point — I’ve updated the post to indicate that it no longer works.
This is all good and hopefully this works for some folks but I’ve found that buying from ABT electronics, getting the phones tax free (in most places) and going through a portal for 1 or 2x per $ is a very good deal for Google phones and might compare to this in some cases as Google, Amazon, Best Buy, etc. all charge sales taxes on these phones. B&H also sells these tax-free to many places but I’ve never found a shopping portal that they are on. I love B&H service, however. I know these methods don’t work with your referral though.
We certainly want readers to get the best deal whether or not they use our referral (in fact, Google caps referrals and I believe at this point we no longer get anything, but those who sign up still get the $20 credit). That said, Google sometimes runs excellent deals on these phones. While the $1,000-in-gift-cards deal was probably once-in-a-lifetime, they did run 50% off a few months ago. Like I said in the post, the prices right now don’t look great — but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do something for Prime Day next week, so having this ready might make for a great stack (and/or $100 off would have more than mitigated the difference in some cases). That said, Mdk commented below to let us know that this doesn’t work, so it’s all for naught anyway.