Last week, my wife and I signed up for five new Amex cards in order to earn 185,000 Membership Rewards points (see: Rebuilding my Membership Rewards fortune). With some of the cards we were given the choice to get working card numbers right away for online use. We took advantage of that in order to meet the spend requirements immediately. All of the cards showed up in the mail within a few days anyway (only one took almost a week to arrive). And, some of the points posted immediately. We’re already 100,000 points richer:
Given that we just added five new Amex cards to our online accounts, we gained a bit of experience in Amex’s new online card enrollment process. And I was surprised to find that the process now often includes an Amex Offer that you might not get if you don’t accept it during online enrollment.
With one of my cards, on the last screen of online enrollment I was given the option to enroll in the Amazon Prime Amex Offer: Spend $99+, Get 5,000 points. I don’t have a screenshot of the offer within the enrollment process, but here’s what it looks like once it is added to an account:
The first time this happened, I didn’t enroll in the offer. Once the card was in my account, I checked for the Amazon Prime offer in the usual spot where you find these things (log in, select your card, scroll down, and click Amex Offers For You) and discovered that it wasn’t there. In other words, the card enrollment process gave me a way to get an offer that I couldn’t get through the standard process.
I then tried adding the same card to the account again (fortunately the card still shows only once in my account afterwards). At the end of the process, I was given a different excellent offer: Save 10% on your cable or satellite TV bill, up to $10:
I accepted this one and immediately prepaid $100 to my Comcast account. The $10 rebate has already posted to my account. I found similar offers on three out of five cards that my wife and I enrolled.
Step by Step
When your Amex card arrives, a sticker on the card instructs you to browse to americanexpress.com/confirmcard. If you have an already activated card, you can add it to your online account by logging in, click My Cards, and then “Add Another Card” (the specifics of where to find these things vary depending on which version of the Amex interface you are logged into).
Step 1: Enter card details:
Step 2: Log into your account or sign up for an account
Step 3: Update contact info
Step 4: Customize your relationship (or skip)
I always simply click “Continue” at this point to skip this. You can change the other settings later. Are you sure you want to skip? Yes. Press Skip.
Step 5: Do not enroll in Extended Payment Option
Just press Continue, then Skip. Usually, about 9 or 10 months into card membership, Amex will offer bonus points for enrolling in this payment option. Wait for that to happen to enroll!
Step 6: Enroll in whatever great offer you are given
Not everyone will get a great offer, or any offer at all for that matter. In our case, we were able to add either the cell phone offer or the cable offer to 3 of our 5 cards. One card got both offers. We’re not exactly rich as a result, but it was a very quick and easy $40.
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Thanks for being so handsome
@Greg:
Thanks for the information. By following the same procedure I was able to add the Amazon Prime offer: “Spend $99+, get 5,000 Membership Rewards® Points
Amazon Prime Annual Membership”
I removed my existing online account and re added it to the same login and I was given this offer on the account setup.
Thanks again!
Great!
Greg:
Were you able to use the Amazon Prime offer to extend your prime membership? I have not been able to do so on my prime membership.
I was not able to either. I even chatted with AMAZON help and they told me if I purchased it I could add it to my account and extend it. Well, after purchasing a prime membership it wont allow me to add it to my account. Only option is to gift it to somebody. And now I am fighting with AMEX to honor the purchase as well. Double whammy.
I haven’t used the offer yet. My understanding is that the only way to use it to extend your membership is to first cancel your membership and then sign up again.
OK, how did you get past the limit number on active cards?
There is no limit to the number of charge cards you can have. All of the new cards I signed up for are charge cards. I’ve maxed out my 5 credit card limit. Amex cards that are credit cards say so in the card’s official name. e.g. “The Amex EveryDay Credit Card from American Express.” If you don’t see the words “Credit Card” then it should be a charge card.
Thank you so very much! 🙂
Always an awesome, informative blog.
Opened a Schwab plat as I’m in the process of schwabing out in order to front load my 2018 IRA in January. I created a new online profile and received exactly 0 great offers and as a matter of fact all of my offers across 4 different logins have been mediocre at best…$10 off a cable bill may not even be worth mentioning.
Those are 10 percent back up to three times and for some providers a payment to wireless also triggers a cable offer. I got 6,000 MR for $300 of payments once and $60 for $300 of payments another time.
The new offer, unfortunately, is not 3 times. It is $10 max rebate.
This is just a one-time per card opportunity right?
I’m not sure. Two of our cards got a second offer by repeating the process. Other cards I tried were not so lucky
Thank you for your assistance. Could you take me through the process for prepaying your Comcast account. I have no idea on how to do that. Your thoughts about Comcast? Thank you once again.
Log into your Comcast account and go to My Account, Billing, and click “Make a Payment”
Thank You.
One interesting thing I’ve found is that an otherwise worthless, but ancient, Blue consistently pulls down a ton of great Amex Offers. So does my Hilton Surpass, if a little less so.
Shoprunner is a great benefit.
I did this before too and added the amazon offer so now I have 2 amazon offers in one of my cards.
I wonder if this means that when I renew my prime membership, I will get 2x 5k points!
Yep. Amex Offers double )or even triple) fire if the condition is met. I’ve had it happen several times, actually.