karlmitchell

I can't see how either, but something weird is happening, looking at my MR statement.

RaginBajin

I was looking around on the web for this exact thing. I just noticed all these extra points on my PR Gold card as well for Oct. Things such as 3x at Kate Spade, or 3x at Amazon. I'm not sure what is going on.

karlmitchell

3x at Amazon!? That would be amazing if it were reproducible. Anyone else?

RaginBajin

That's what I thought too.. My November looks higher as well and I know there was a lot of Amazon buying in there, but I can't tell since a lot of the points will be from Black Friday and the start of Xmas shopping.

If Amazon is starting to be 3X, this would really increase my Amex usage A LOT!

josephstern

This could be very interesting.

Just to clarify, everyone who has seen extra points is using a Premier Rewards Gold Card, not a Business Gold Rewards Card, correct?

I, for one, never really use my Premier Rewards Gold Card outside of airfare at this point, so I've got no data to add.

josephstern

Amex and Amazon certainly already have a partnership where you can use MR points for Amazon purchases. But if they are also awarding points for purchases, that would indeed be great. I can't see how that would square with an affiliate commission being paid to a blog or some other side, but I suppose anything is possible.

CFFrost

I just checked activity detail from the last statement and nothing looks out of the ordinary. My next statement should close tomorrow, and there is a relatively large Amazon transaction on the statement so I should have more info in a few days when that statement moves to "pending" on the MR website.

To be clear, everyone claiming these bonuses is actually seeing them listed on the MR website listed as a line item bonus when they look at activity detail?

karlmitchell

In my case, yes, under card bonus details as a line item, in much the same way that supermarket and flight payments are marked.

RaginBajin

So, I have a Personal PRG card and not a Business card.

This is what it is showing up as.

10/XX/2012 AMAZON.COM 13 3x 39
10/XX/2012 AMAZON.COM 52 3x 156
10/XX/2012 KATE SPADE 150 3x 450

I can't see what is going to be coming for this last statement. That will be the most interesting one as it showing a lot of pending points..

4aks

I had a $200 amazon purchase in October, but did not receive this bonus - at that time it was PRG - now upgraded to plat

CFFrost

Just to follow up.

I had a few transactions get 3x points that would not have in the past. I did not have an Amazon purchase on this statement (I forgot about the huge amount of lag in posting of MR points). I did get the extra points from other non-gas, grocery, or airfare categorized businesses - one of which was a paypal transaction.

josephstern

3x PayPal would obviously be in a whole different league - and way to ripe for abuse, I'd think.

Care to share more details?

CFFrost

Not a whole lot more to share, really.

My Paypal transaction was just a small regular paypal transaction from a merchant that only accepts credit cards via paypal.

Other than that it was legalzoom (long story, not really my purchase) and the charge for when I watched the John Stewart / O'Reilly "debate".

Since that last one is so obscure, I can't imagine it is targeted at particular merchants. The only thing that ties these all together is they were all online purchases.

Anyone who reported any extra points get bonuses from anything that wasn't an online transaction?

Edit to add: I could see Amex maybe adding a bonus for all online transactions. It would be a great way to poach competitors' portal bonuses. Sure, go through the competitors portal, but put your spend on our card. Just a thought.

taliesin

Except 1) At 3x MR points this strategy wouldn't really be profitable and might even incur a net loss; and 2) The strategy doesn't make any sense at all if they don't advertise it.

Oh well. I put a pretty large Amazon purchase on the PRG yesterday just to see what would happen.

CFFrost

I'm not sure it would be a loss - they have airline purchases set up at 3x and I'm not convinced that is a loss. You have to remember a lot of people never use their points or use them on cheap redemptions like statement credits or gift cards. Statement credits are what, .005 per / pt? Which means that 3x really costs them .015?

Of course, if this is intentional (which is a big assumption to make) it is definitely preemptive, i.e. they would eventually advertise it when it is officially launched. My thought is that best case scenario this is an accidental "preview" of some future benefit. Worst case scenario it is a mistake that will be corrected - I just don't know how such a mistake could happen absent some intent, so that doesn't make sense to me.