American Express conjured up a holiday, Small Business Saturday, in a pique of marketing brilliance. They wanted to promote card acceptance with small merchants in a drive to reach parity with Visa and Mastercard, and promote awareness among their own cardmembers that Amex is accepted at small businesses.
For American Express, small business marketing wasn’t ‘feel good’ branding — it was a quest for a source of revenue.
Now, Small Business Saturday is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. But American Express has a new small business promotion now – an ‘Amex Offer’ you can add to one card that will give you a $5 rebate on up to 10 purchases of $10 or more (total $50) at eligible small businesses.
- Enroll by July 26, 2020, using the Amex Offers tab when you log into your account
- You can only add this to one card, so think carefully about which card you want to use if you have more than one
- Valid on purchases made by September 20, 2020
- Find eligible merchants using the Shop Small map or directory
Enroll your eligible Card by July 26, 2020 to get a $5 statement credit after using your enrolled Card to make a single purchase of $10 or more directly with any business in the U.S. on the Shop Small Map by September 20, 2020, up to 10 times. To learn more, visit www.shopsmall.com.
You may be shopping more locally, and as businesses re-open contactless retail and even restaurant pickup in your neighborhood becomes an opportunity to pick up $50 from American Express – while at the same time Aemrican Express gets you using their cards, with some frequency, at small merchants (and just using your card right now too).
Oh-so-thank-you!
In addition to thinking carefully about which Amex card to use, I implore us all to think carefully about which small businesses to support.
Many small businesses in America are run by good people who deserve our support.
Many more small business in America are run by asswipes.
Bought 10 bottles of wine (separate transactions of course) for around $125, or $75 after Amex credits and supported a local business we didn’t know about!
Gary – when offers like this are redeemed, does Amex foot the bill for the $5, or so the small businesses eat this cost? (Or is the cost shared between the merchant and Amex?)
@Marc – Amex fits the bill. This comes out of their marketing team’s budget.
But please don’t simp for small businesses. Like I said most are not the little angel American politicians on both sides make them out to be. Some businesses deserve to lose $5 over and over until they go bankrupt.
I assume that gift cards purchased directly from the small business will qualify?
….I got a local ice cream shop that is calling my name!
Can you double dip with multiple Amex offers? I.e. I have $300 toward restaurants on my Bonvoy Brilliant card. So if I go to a restaurant on the list and spend $25 will I get $5 back for small business plus $25 back for the restaurant credit?
@Craig – yes they will but it might be a dick move to buy gift cards from a small business
@Jeff – idk man, why don’t you use Amex live chat
I did a chat with Amex. I was told there were no issues with the two promotions conflicting. Who knows if that may turn out to be wrong info, but they shouldn’t be able to blame me since I contacted them first and did a screen shot for the record.
@Marc – when amex offers are for a specific merchant they’re getting paid, when it’s for pretty much any small business we can expect that amex is funding it
@jason – help me out here – why would it be a dick move to buy a gift card from a local restaurant? They get the revenue upfront, and, for the place I am thinking of (an ice cream shop), the gift card would be for more than I would spend otherwise.
Maybe I am missing something, but it seems like a win for them.
Can the 10 purchases all be with the same vendor so long as they are all separate transactions? And if so, can they be on the same day? I could see how easy it would be to split up a certain store purchases into multiple buys.
I remember when this was a $25 deal, and I could use all of my multiple Amex cards to get the $25. I think I had 6 or 8 back then. I bought a nice bottle of wine like @JL100 did. My local wine guy happily rang up $25 on each of my cards. 🙂