balwx

In December I had a bunch of purchases from Amazon, which again were in the mixed categories above. I believe it may have to do with if the purchase was 'Ships from and sold by Amazon.com' vs. sold by 'xxxx' fulfilled by Amazon.

taliesin

Yep. I see the same thing. My orders for items that were directly sold by Amazon did not get bonus. Those that were from other merchants (even if fulfilled by amazon) got 3x. As described previously, those that got the bonus have the merchant listed as Amazon Marketplace (as opposed to simply Amazon.com) and were classified as "Merchandise & Supplies - Internet Purchase."

I also got 3x on a couple of Paypal transactions, filed under "Business Services - Internet Services."

I still wonder just what in the heck is going on here. Why have bonus categories and not tell your customers about them? I mean, I'm not really complaining, since I got a couple of thousand points I had no reason to expect, but as a business strategy it makes no sense to me.

karlmitchell

I wonder if all these 3x bonuses is just American Express' attempt to automate this? Maybe it's just a goodwill thing? If only it were vaguely predictable!

CFFrost

I still got 3x at paypal this month. Makes me want to use paypal for all of my online transactions - unfortunately this is only a $5 recurring monthly transaction (though it serves as a good barometer for whether this "glitch" is still active.)

It looks like Amex might be trying to tighten this problem up though - they clarified terms of the bonus categories on my most recent statement. (3x only for airfare directly from carrier, 2x only at domestic (US) gas stations)

Ritz

I doubt it's proactively goodwill, rather than something systemic.

karlmitchell

Semantics. A deliberate introduction of a systemic benefit, whether announced or not, can count as goodwill. If accidental, however, clearly it isn't.

My personal favourite idea is that they're just messing with us. By giving these unexpected points, they're keeping us engaged and interested enough not to cancel. Incidentally, they may even keep us quiet on all the inquiries, as we don't want to risk losing this benefit by drawing their attention to it! However, my preference towards that interpretation is borne more out of amusement at the idea rather than any kind of logic.

balwx

So we made some additional purchases from "sold by 'xxxx' fulfilled by Amazon" which posted yesterday 3x.

karlmitchell

I asked Amex for an update on the missing earn mall, today. Nothing new. However, I'm increasingly of the opinion that the current state of affairs could be more lucrative than the old earn mall, as we can leverage the mysterious 3x bonuses in addition to referral bonuses from other sites.

MightyTravels

I had several Apple purchase but no bonus points posted. I inquired today.

highman123, I would like to inform you that membershiprewards.com/earn is currently unavailable. Therefore, you cannot earn 4X or 5X MR points for Apple purchases

We have recently identified unforeseen system issues within the Earn page at membershiprewards.com. While we make updates to fix these issues, we have to interrupt the program.

karlmitchell

"recently". That's funny.

Moriens

The (correct) bonus points for a purchase I made last July just posted this weekend. (I never even inquired about them.)

karlmitchell

The link title says it all:

http://thepointsguy.com/2013/03/amex...opping-portal/

Hopefully our recent discussions point to a replacement of a different sort, however.

Ritz

What's funny is, if you look upthread, several of us that got talkative CSRs last year already knew this was done.

karlmitchell

Yes, but others stated quite clearly that they were working on fixing the earnings mall. I'm afraid that they've been very inconsistent.

CFFrost

It appears the mysterious triple points bonuses may be ending. The small recurring paypal charge I had been getting triple points on every month only received one point / dollar this month. Any other recent experiences?