Originally Posted by
PETERPNYC
I have heard of closures by Amex for buying GCs. Especially when using to make initial spend for new cards .
Supposedly Amex can/and does see what every purchase is coded as ?
The closures/bonus clawbacks appear to be mainly related to people buying VGCs to meet MSR on new cards. AFAIK it's not an issue for "regular" customers who just buy on their existing Amex cards.
Level 3 data, what you refer to as Amex seeing detailed purchase info, is only supported by some merchants in a handful of industries like retail (department stores, clothing stores, travel, some ecommerce etc). Places where folks tend to buy VGCs, such as grocery stores and drugstores, generally have not started reporting L3 data as the amount of information is far too massive -- think about the number of line items on a typical grocery store receipt. Not to say that they won't get there eventually, but as of now it's a non-issue and I'd say no need to concern yourself.