More free cash from Amex via Serve subaccounts

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Note: On January 8, 2016 American Express sent out a notice to a large number of Bluebird & Serve cardholders informing them that loading capabilities on their accounts had been terminated. For more information, see: Amex kills Bluebird and Serve for manufactured spend

American Express Sync offers can be a fantastic way to save a lot of money.  The exact offers available change regularly, but there is often a gem or two that can be used to save money almost anywhere.  For a few recent examples, please see “20% off Lowe’s, Zappos, Crate & Barrel, and more” and “Amex Sync Offer: $20 off $100 at Staples!

Let’s take the current Lowe’s offer, for example.  Once you signup your Amex card for the offer (which can be done by syncing your card to Twitter and then tweeting: #AmexLowes), you’ll get $10 back automatically when you spend $50 or more at Lowes.  And, Lowes sells many types of gift cards in-store (see “Gift cards at Lowes”).  With most Sync offers, including this one, you can only  get the cash back once per card.  So, the trick to maximizing savings is to sign up many Amex cards.  For tips on how to sign up a number of Amex cards at once, please see:

How to get a lot of Amex cards

Sign up for credit cards

One obvious way to get a lot of Amex cards is to sign up for a lot of cards.  There are, of course, limits to how many Amex will let you open though.  In fact, Amex limits most people to 4 total credit cards where they are the primary account holder (charge cards and prepaid cards are not counted towards that limit).  And, since many cards have annual fees, this is probably not the best way to scale up for Sync offers.

Add authorized users

For each credit card or charge card account you have, you can add authorized users, often for free.  In most cases you will have to provide a valid SSN for that user.  Those extra cards can be used for Amex Sync offers.

Sign up for Serve

Serve is a prepaid card very similar to Bluebird (and you can only have one or the other).  One big difference between the cards is that Serve cards are eligible for Amex Sync offers.  Bluebird cards are not.  Each person can have only one Serve card, but each Serve account can also have up to 4 subaccounts…

Serve Subaccounts

A reader named Haley Bach sent me a message last month regarding Serve: “…my guess is subaccounts can add sync deals.”  She offered to give it a try and sure enough she was able to register for the Lowes promotion with a subaccount and she received the cash back after fulfilling the terms of the deal!

ServeSubaccounts_Haley

Not only did Haley prove that subaccounts work, but she found that Amex officially supports it.  Here is a quote from this online document:

Can my Subaccounts participate in American Express Offers?

Your Subaccount(s) are eligible to participate in the program. They can connect their American Express Serve Card with their Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare accounts.

Creating Subaccounts

Creating Serve subaccounts is very easy.  While it requires a unique email address and valid phone number, it does not require a social security number. ServeSubaccounts

Getting the most out of Sync offers

The first step towards getting a lot out of Sync offers is to get a lot of Amex cards as outline above.  For the rest of the story, please review these posts:

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