American Express is offering 5000 Membership Rewards points for signing up for their pay over time option. You don’t actually have to use it, I still think you shouldn’t, continue to treat your Amex as a charge card and not as a credit card. But opting in gives you bonus points, which sounds good to me. Only problem is that the website seems not to be working right. Online Travel Review says you can call 800-528-4800 “and ask them to apply Bonus ID: 5670, 5671, or 5688” — me I would just log into my account and request this via secure message.
Meanwhile, deltaGOLDflyer emails to remind me of an offer I think I’ve seen several times before but never taken advantage of or written about, 15,000 Membership Rewards points for activating an FX International Payments account and 15,000 more when you make 3 FX transactions within 90 days of account opening. OPEN small business cardmembers get no fees for the first 6 months, then $10 thereafter. Regular pricing is $15 per transaction. $45 for the second 15,000 points is a pretty good deal.
As I mentioned over the weekend, the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card plays a key role in my wallet (airfare, gas, groceries for triple, double, and double membership rewards points) and is the card I’ll be using to try out these offers.
For the FXIP, we can just sign up for it, wait for the 15K MR to post, then cancel and keep the points?
And is the Pay Over Time enrollment working for anyone?
it says that transactions must be funded from a business account..so do i have to have a business to do this? (i know everyone says to just say i sold something on ebay once, but i feel weird about that.)
they require an EIN in the application. Is there a way around this?
I tried the FX payments signup months ago. I have an actual business that does actual monthly wires. I had to prove it and answer many questions over multiple emails from an agent. After a couple weeks of back and forth I was rejected with absolutely no explanation. I have over 100k annual spend on my Amex plat and had 30k in my business account when I applied. Was really dissatisfied with the waste of time.
If I’m already enrolled in Pay Over Time, bit didn’t get 5,000 MR bonus when I signed up, can I get it now?
Also, don’t you need to have a business card for FX bonus?
I did the FXIP about 6 months ago. You need to have a business bank account (not just a “business”) in order to sign up. Also, you can expect to receive numerous personal calls and emails from your assigned account manager. Note that according to the T&C, “activating a FXIP account” includes making your first transfer. This means you need to have someone with a foreign bank account willing to accept the funds and then (presumably) return them to you. I was able to jump through these hoops and got my points, but it was a hassle.
I called in (I have plat card) and they said your account has to have that offer specifically, meaning it is not an open ended offer to enroll in pay over time. However, the rep pretty much told me to “call back in a month and that option might be available”. Was worth a try!
i can claim a real foreign business (i own real estate abroad) but got
“You are not eligible to enroll at this moment.
We’re sorry. We can only accept sole proprietorship customers with a state or county issued license. Once you have met this requirement and have held your license for one year, please come back as we’d like to help you with your business’ international wire payment needs.
“
I was targeted for the foreign exchange bonus (Amex Plat) & looked into it but it was such a hassle that I gave up. I do a lot of foreign transfers so I’m familiar with all the info they requested but sometimes it’s just not worth the trouble. The Amex rep kept calling me until I had to firmly shut him down. I will look into the extended pay bonus.
What is a FX international?
Called to get the Pay Over Time option. The agent told me that they are no longer running the program but that she would give me 5K points for being a good long-term customer. Whoo-hoo! 🙂
Mike
@Michael – you were lucky. I sent SM for the Pay Over Time option and got back “Sorry, that offer is by solicitation only.” No points for me.
@Ken – I called to ask about the promotion. First, I was transferred to tech support to see if they could help me resolve the error message. The rep said they were doing some maintenance and suggested that I try again in the morning.
I asked if he could send me over to talk with the Membership Rewards people to see if they could set me up with some points for my trouble. The first rep informed me that it was a targeted offer, and that she had talked to at least one other person who had mistakenly received the email. (I didn’t get the email, but I decided not to mention that.) I asked if she could perhaps add a few extra MR points to my account for the confusion.
She couldn’t but transferred me to a supervisor. Apparently I was the first person who had brought this to her attention. She offered me 8,000 MR points and thanked me for calling.
If you are going to give this a shot, I would move FAST. It definitely helped that I was very friendly and easygoing about the whole issue. I hope someone else is able to take advantage.
I called twice last night and emailed before that. The first time I sent a secure message. I mentioned the promotion without referencing the promo codes (stupid me). I received a message saying to call in to confirm I was eligible.
The first call I only referenced 5670 and 71 and was told that the agent could not even find those as valid promo codes.
Annoyed, but not yet beaten, I called back about 10 minutes later. That agent said that promo 5688 referred to an actual mailer that had to be mailed in before 28 September. She DID recite the terms to me just as on the link. At the time I did not have internet access, so I could not call her out on the end date. So, it seems, this is definitely a YMMV.
I got denied on the Pay over Time bonus request via Secure message (twice). I was told that it was only available to targeted cardmembers.
Didn’t work for me — they said that you had to have an invitation via mail for the link to work — direct offer only.
I’m 0 for 2 on these two bonus opportunities. I went through the quite lengthy FX application. I run a real business with over $1M in revenues. After submitting the app, a few days later I got a rejection with no explanation (just like a previous commenter). We actually do wires frequently and I would have like to try the service.
As for the Pay Over Time bonus, when I go to sign up, I’ve been getting an error that says “Our systems are unavailable.” This error has been consistent over the past four days.
The response to my secured message re: pay over time bonus was that I”m not eligible unless I was targeted.
The website to register for 5K points is now avilable.
You do take a credit hit for the application according to the fine print.