That time we earned over 640,000 AMEX points from one sign-up bonus
Background
For a typical credit card sign-up bonus, we are looking to earn at least $750 in value, as we will earn with the card we opened up most recently: the US Bank Business Leverage card. We will earn $750 cash back after spending $7,500 in 4 months. However, this is our minimum, as we usually like to get over $1,000 in value from a sign-up bonus, like we are getting for the other card we have opened recently: the Chase Ink Business Cash, as we will earn at least $1,500 in value from the 90k Chase Ultimate Rewards point sign-up bonus.
However, back in 2021, we earned over $11,000 in value from opening just one card. Yes, you read that right. $11,000. Let’s find out how we made it happen.
The Sign-up Bonus Offer
When we signed up for the Personal American Express Platinum Card in September 2021, the sign-up bonus was 125,000 bonus AMEX Membership Reward points after $6,000 spend. In and of itself, that’s a great offer, as we value American Express points at a minimum of 1.8 cents per point, so we’re talking about $2,250 in value towards travel just from the sign-up bonus.
However, that obviously wasn’t the biggest contributor to us earning 640k AMEX points from opening the card! The biggest factor was, in addition to the 125k bonus points, there was a bonus of 15x points on restaurants and small business spend during the first 6 months after card opening. We maxed out this spend ($25k), primarily on purchasing Amazon gift cards from a local grocery store that was a part of American Express’ Shop Small program, so it triggered the 15x. We then used the Amazon gift cards to purchase items for buying groups like BuyForMeRetail and Pointsmaker.
This earned us almost 375,000 American Express points! Actually, it earned us closer to 475,000 points, because during those initial 6 months, AMEX offered a referral bonus from my Platinum to any other AMEX card for an additional 4x bonus points on EVERY purchase, even on top of restaurant and small business purchases, which turned those purchases into 19x!
The remaining 40k points came from the fact that we used a 30,000-point referral from Courtney’s account to open the card, plus the points that we received on the spending for the sign-up bonus itself.
How did we use the points?
The first flights we booked with the points were Business Class seats on Swiss Air for our October 2022 trip to Switzerland and France, by transferring 240k AMEX points to Air Canada (60k per person). We also booked the return flights on United in Economy by transferring 120k AMEX points to Avianca (30k per person). Round-trip flights to Europe for a family of 4, with one leg in business class, for barely over half of a sign-up bonus?! Wild.
Here’s a couple of pictures from the trip:
Do we have the card open still?
Let’s get real: the $695 annual fee hit HARD when we first opened the card, but for over $12,000 in points value, plus recouping at least $500 of that annual fee through airline incidental credits, Uber credits and reimbursed Peacock and Hulu subscriptions, it was worth it for us.
However, we did plan to cancel the card at the end of the first year to not have to pay a second annual fee. Well, that’s not exactly true. We planned to ask for a retention bonus first. (A retention bonus is when a credit card company incentivizes you to keep your card open by either giving you a certain amount of points outright or after a specific amount of spend put on the card, or by shaving off a portion of the annual fee or waiving it outright.) If the retention bonus did not come close to the price of the annual fee (i.e., 30,000 bonus points after 2k spend in 3 months), then we would cancel.
Well, in October 2022, we received that exact retention offer and kept the card open another year! However, when our next renewal came up a few months ago, AMEX did not offer us an additional retention offer (as they normally don’t do two years in a row.) So, after two years, and at least 750k AMEX Membership Rewards points later (we booked all paid flights on this card during those 2 years, as it earns 5x points on airfare), we closed the card.
Without a doubt, our most profitable credit card opening of our lives!
Why does this matter for you?
Sadly, this offer expired just a few months after it went public and hasn’t been seen since (I can’t imagine American Express made too much money on it!) So, I don’t write about it to implore you to take the same path yourself. Instead, I write about it to expand your vision of what points and miles can do and to encourage you to always keep watch for points and miles offer that provide outsized value.
Well, how do you know if an offer is just run-of-the-mill or extraordinary like this one? If you play the points and miles game long enough, you’ll start to notice for yourself, I promise! However, until then, follow us and trusted sources like The Frequent Miler, and keep learning, through resources like our Intro to Points and Miles E-book!
