Glad to hear that JWEMTX is well on her/his way to the magical 30. I wonder if at some point in the not too distant future AMEX will realize the situation they have established for us and will change some rules that will disallow a lot of very small charges that are not consistent with the cardholder's "normal" pattern of charges. Otherwise, this is in all likiehood will become a parade of miniscule charges that will kill the goose and remove the golden egg. Why not divide payments of any kind on any single bill to whatever fraction is necessary to attain the 30 required charges? (e.g., a bill of $100 is paid off in 30 payments of $3.33 (plus a few cents) over one billing period.) I just do not believe the current formula will work in the long run for AMEX. And maybe the "long run" will be a relatively short period before "cardholder abuses" are used as the rational for changing the rules. And it would be hard to argue against such changes although many of us might say to AMEX "You should have thought of that in the first place." Perhaps this is a conscious strategy by AMEX in the "loss leader" vein and they realize it will not benefit them in the long run but will get them a lot of new customers in the short run and "sadly, we have to change the rules because of customer abuse of the spirit of our card". We'll see.

P.S. mia, the only post of mine I'm not really worried about you correcting (see some of my earlier thanks to mia for helping me read accurately and completely) is the one with my comments about the card itself. It truly is ugly and cheap. Not that there's anything wrong with that. (Good night, Jerry)