Originally Posted by
markandrew
I note the language on the Amex Gold Rewards referral now has a deadline of July 10th to apply. Seems they are withdrawing or mixing up the referral programme on that card only after that date. I hope above all that we do not lose the chance to refer from the other MR cards to the Gold Rewards - that would be a tough loss.
Thanks for your always well-timed posts, Mark.
Well, this is yet another indicator that Amex may want to do something about the Personal Gold's referred signup, but whether it's to stop other cards from referring to Gold, or whether it's to stop giving out the 5K to Gold cardholders for being the source referring card, I don't know.
For eg., in the past few months they had already sort of hid away the Personal Gold MR card from the initial Personal Plat's referred signup landing page, forcing you to click on say the Business Gold from the "Not the right Card for you? Take a look at our other Cards..." section, and THEN clicking on say the Business Plat or Business Gold card icons, so that you could THEN see and click on the Personal Gold card icon. Two hops to get to the card.
So, we'll see after today if it's:
- stopping all referrals to the Personal Gold from earning 5K/10K/15K/25K bonus points into the source referring card (Gold/BizGold/Plat/BizPlat)
- stopping just the 5K bonus from a referring Personal Gold
If the reason is for the first point, this would stop a lot of people from doing easy churns to collect say 25K into a referring Biz Plat card, as the Personal Gold is always an "easy sell" to convince your friends to signup, or even on a self-referral since you would get the 25K anyways regardless of whether a churned Personal sees the repeated 25K welcome points.
But if the reason is the second point, this means it it would end the 5K bonus for Gold cards as the referring source, and thus bring it back to 0 again, which they already had trialed, from Jan to Mar 2016 (it was earning 10K prior to this, and then 5K after this). Personally, I think there is another deeper reason behind this decision, if indeed it proves to be the case. We'll see.
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Edit: wanted to point out the two different sources for seeing the same/similar message about this topic.
At the Personal Gold's Refer A Friend page:
As the Basic Cardmember, refer a friend and you could earn a bonus of 5,000 Membership RewardsŪ* points for each approved referral up to a maximum annual referral bonus of 75,000 Membership Rewards points.
To be eligible for this referral bonus, your friend must apply for the Card by July 10th , 2017. We can still accept applications after this date but you may or may not be eligible for a bonus.
Versus when you refer from any other MR card to the Personal Gold, at the landing page for the Personal Gold (after 2 hops) you see:
If your application is approved as part of this referral program, your friend could earn 5,000 bonus points. Your friend will be eligible for this referral bonus amount if you apply for the Card by July 10th , 2017, and your application is approved. We can still accept your application after this date but your friend may or may not be eligible for a bonus.