Jan 7, 2017, 4:18 pm
Last edit by: mia
Referrals and self-referrals are an important part of maximizing rewards from Canadian-issued American Express cards. It is appropriate to discuss how the referral process works in this thread. However, please do not offer or request referrals here. Use only this thread, and do read the Wikipost carefully before posting: Referral Offers (post only in this thread, no referral links, read Wiki post first).
This thread is a continuation of: Churning Amex in Canada (2016). All the listed offers below are still valid as of January 2017.
Jerry: Aug 2017 latest update, all-in-one summary
New as of Mar 23, 2017, minimum spend up to $3000 now
AMEX Platinum Rewards - $699/year, 60K MR (via referral) after $3000 spending in 3 months vs. 50K non-referral
New as of March 23 2016.
AMEX Business Platinum Rewards - $399/year, 75K MR (via referral) after $5000 spending in 3 months vs. 40K non-referral
Updated as of July 21, 2017
AMEX Gold Rewards - $150/year, FYF, 25K MR after $1500 spending + $50/$60 cashback from GCR. New as of Jan 15, 2017, on a referred signup: and an additional 5,000 Membership Rewards points for one approved Supplementary Card added to your account at time of online application. That’s a total of 30,000 Membership Rewards points.
AMEX Business Gold Rewards - $250/year, FYF, 30K MR after $5000 spending (or 40K via referral)
AMEX Air Miles Platinum - $65/year, 2000 Air Miles after $1500 spending + $30 GCR cashback
July 18-Oct 18, 2017 - welcome offer increased 5K to 25K.
Sep 28, 2017 - Personal and Business SPG bonus drops from 10K to 5K per approved referral.
AMEX SPG - $120/year, 25K SPG after $1500 spending + $30 GCR cashback
- if you applied recently for the SPG card at the 20K welcome level, try contacting Amex by Secured Message to ask if they can match the current 25K offer. Several successful datapoints have surfaced with manual addition of 5K at next statement. YMMV.
New as of July 2016
AMEX Aeroplan Plus Platinum - $499/year, 50K Aeroplans after $1000 spending in 3 months (or 51K via referral). The 50K/51K, extra 10K promo expired on April 01, 2016, but started up again July - Sep 30th, 2016.
New card as of Sep 25 2017
AMEX Cobalt CREDIT card - $10/month ($120 annually)
Apply through GCR for $50 Rebate https://www.greatcanadianrebates.ca/...s/Amex-Cobalt/
This is not an all-inclusive list, only the "good" offers, so feel free to add new offers.
AMEX Platinum Rewards
- Earn 15K MR for each referral you make
(Note: from Mar 23 - Jun 29 the bonuses were 75K welcome and 25K referral points)
AMEX Business Platinum Rewards
- Earn 25K MR for each referral you make
AMEX Gold Rewards
- Earn 10k MR for each referal you make.
This thread is a continuation of: Churning Amex in Canada (2016). All the listed offers below are still valid as of January 2017.
Jerry: Aug 2017 latest update, all-in-one summary
New as of Mar 23, 2017, minimum spend up to $3000 now
AMEX Platinum Rewards - $699/year, 60K MR (via referral) after $3000 spending in 3 months vs. 50K non-referral
New as of March 23 2016.
AMEX Business Platinum Rewards - $399/year, 75K MR (via referral) after $5000 spending in 3 months vs. 40K non-referral
Updated as of July 21, 2017
AMEX Gold Rewards - $150/year, FYF, 25K MR after $1500 spending + $50/$60 cashback from GCR. New as of Jan 15, 2017, on a referred signup: and an additional 5,000 Membership Rewards points for one approved Supplementary Card added to your account at time of online application. That’s a total of 30,000 Membership Rewards points.
- July 11, 2017, Amex Gold MR will no longer earn referral points.
- July 21, 2017, no other Amex MR card can refer to Gold MR
AMEX Business Gold Rewards - $250/year, FYF, 30K MR after $5000 spending (or 40K via referral)
AMEX Air Miles Platinum - $65/year, 2000 Air Miles after $1500 spending + $30 GCR cashback
July 18-Oct 18, 2017 - welcome offer increased 5K to 25K.
Sep 28, 2017 - Personal and Business SPG bonus drops from 10K to 5K per approved referral.
AMEX SPG - $120/year, 25K SPG after $1500 spending + $30 GCR cashback
- if you applied recently for the SPG card at the 20K welcome level, try contacting Amex by Secured Message to ask if they can match the current 25K offer. Several successful datapoints have surfaced with manual addition of 5K at next statement. YMMV.
New as of July 2016
AMEX Aeroplan Plus Platinum - $499/year, 50K Aeroplans after $1000 spending in 3 months (or 51K via referral). The 50K/51K, extra 10K promo expired on April 01, 2016, but started up again July - Sep 30th, 2016.
New card as of Sep 25 2017
AMEX Cobalt CREDIT card - $10/month ($120 annually)
Apply through GCR for $50 Rebate https://www.greatcanadianrebates.ca/...s/Amex-Cobalt/
- Earn 2,500 Membership Tiered Rewards points for each month where you spend $500 (up to 30,000/year).
- Limited Time Offer: Apply by Jan 30, 2018 and you can earn a Welcome Bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards® points after spending $3K in 3 months.
- See discussion thread for more details: 2017 American Express Cobalt (Canada)
This is not an all-inclusive list, only the "good" offers, so feel free to add new offers.
Referral Difference Between Cards:
Please note there is a maximum annual referral bonus you can make per card.
AMEX Platinum Rewards
- Earn 15K MR for each referral you make
(Note: from Mar 23 - Jun 29 the bonuses were 75K welcome and 25K referral points)
AMEX Business Platinum Rewards
- Earn 25K MR for each referral you make
AMEX Gold Rewards
- July 11, 2017, Amex Gold MR will no longer earn referral points.
- July 21, 2017, no other Amex MR card can refer to Gold MR
- mid-May 2016, increased from $500 to $1500 required spending.
- Jan 11 to mid-May 2016, the Gold card earned 0 referral points.
- Earn 10k MR for each referal you make.
American Express Canada application and reward strategies (2017)
Feb 21, 2017, 6:31 am
#271
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: YYZish
Posts: 300
I should have put a smile in there.
I am indebted to Amex (not literal). It's my absolute best tool. And I love them dearly.
Though I also thank MBNA for Alaska Miles and a bit of BW, Chase for Marriott, Capital One for some IHG and lots of 2%, and BMO for Grand Cru.
Our RTW year off is coming together nicely. I've got (rather had) an arsenal of Points and Miles a month ago. Aside from cash back, BA Avios and Aeroplan our balance is looking a little sorry. Though I've got a chunk of free and amazing stays booked. And our first one way ticket (FIVE Sky Suites on JAL BOS-HAN with an 11 night free stopover in NRT). 27 June is my last day of work!
The Amex portfolio of cards! There's nothing else like it.
(Sorry for the slightly OT segue there. I couldn't resist.)
Feb 23, 2017, 4:12 pm
#272
Join Date: Apr 2012
Programs: 25 million points to burn!
Posts: 1,522
Has anyone gotten multiple sign up bonuses on the Biz Plat recently? Is that card under the "once in a lifetime" clause?
Feb 23, 2017, 6:11 pm
#273
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Anyways, the Biz Plat and other Amex Biz cards don't host those one-welcome terms, so you should be good to go for Gen-2!
Feb 25, 2017, 6:27 am
#274
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 3,166
Recently, I did a self-referral from my personal plat card to a new personal gold card for myself.
I've never had a gold card before.
The first statement for my new personal gold card just closed, but I don't see any referral points posted on my plat account yet.
When do the referral points usually post?
I've never had a gold card before.
The first statement for my new personal gold card just closed, but I don't see any referral points posted on my plat account yet.
When do the referral points usually post?
Feb 25, 2017, 7:59 am
#275
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 4,784
Recently, I did a self-referral from my personal plat card to a new personal gold card for myself.
I've never had a gold card before.
The first statement for my new personal gold card just closed, but I don't see any referral points posted on my plat account yet.
When do the referral points usually post?
I've never had a gold card before.
The first statement for my new personal gold card just closed, but I don't see any referral points posted on my plat account yet.
When do the referral points usually post?
Referral bonus is based on approval
Welcome bonus is based on minimum spending threshold, not on monthly statement (only Aeroplan, air miles, SPG)
Feb 25, 2017, 9:16 am
#276
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 3,166
You should have seen the 15k referral bonus next day after your gold card approval. If you didn't, prepare to wait 8-10 weeks, or worse, nothing. As it'd be hard to tell Amex you referred yourself
Referral bonus is based on approval
Welcome bonus is based on minimum spending threshold, not on monthly statement (only Aeroplan, air miles, SPG)
Referral bonus is based on approval
Welcome bonus is based on minimum spending threshold, not on monthly statement (only Aeroplan, air miles, SPG)
Now I'm actually a bit worried...does anyone have experience with receiving the referral bonus 8-10 weeks after referring him/herself?
Did you have to speak to AmEx somehow or did you just have to wait?
Edit: I've just read through the other posts on this thread, and it sounds like many people who referred from their personal plat cards are having issues with referral points gone missing these days, even for legit referrals and not just self-referrals.
Does anyone have any new data point or update regarding this?
Thank you-
Last edited by agjil; Feb 25, 2017 at 10:12 am
Feb 25, 2017, 10:13 am
#277
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Of the people that reported the missing referral points into their Platinum card, I haven't seen anyone report that they finally did receive them eventually, otherwise we could categorically label them as delayed vs missing.
The sticky situation that you have is that it was a self-referral, which is iffy for getting Amex to agree with awarding those points to you. Plus, if you're planning to cancel your Personal Platinum card soon, this make it even more convoluted. Let's hope Amex fixes their issues with the Platinum referrals, sooner rather than later.
Feb 25, 2017, 10:40 am
#278
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: YWG
Programs: Aeroplan, MileagePlus, Marriott Rewards
Posts: 2,159
Does the same apply to SPG referrals? Or do those post with the statement... I can't remember. My wife referred me for a SPG Biz almost a week ago and she still hasn't had the points show up, and it's making me nervous.
Feb 25, 2017, 10:45 am
#279
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: YVR to SEA
Posts: 2,535
SPG referrals post with statement, but if it was too close to the cutoff it may be delayed until the following statement
Feb 25, 2017, 11:16 am
#280
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 3,166
Unfortunately the referral points from the Personal Platinum card have been plagued with issues since Jan, as there have been numerous reports of delays in getting the points. Whereas majority of referrals from the other 3 MR cards (Gold, Biz Gold, Biz Plat) have been fairly consistent in showing up the next day after the new application has been approved.
Of the people that reported the missing referral points into their Platinum card, I haven't seen anyone report that they finally did receive them eventually, otherwise we could categorically label them as delayed vs missing.
The sticky situation that you have is that it was a self-referral, which is iffy for getting Amex to agree with awarding those points to you. Plus, if you're planning to cancel your Personal Platinum card soon, this make it even more convoluted. Let's hope Amex fixes their issues with the Platinum referrals, sooner rather than later.
Of the people that reported the missing referral points into their Platinum card, I haven't seen anyone report that they finally did receive them eventually, otherwise we could categorically label them as delayed vs missing.
The sticky situation that you have is that it was a self-referral, which is iffy for getting Amex to agree with awarding those points to you. Plus, if you're planning to cancel your Personal Platinum card soon, this make it even more convoluted. Let's hope Amex fixes their issues with the Platinum referrals, sooner rather than later.
Let's hope AmEx will fix this issue soon as you said.
I am planning on canceling my plat account in May-ish, so hopefully everything will be resolved by then.
Feb 25, 2017, 11:19 am
#281
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Canada
Posts: 822
Make sure you and your wife make "activity"....haha
and I mean like make a purchase or payment to generate an Amex card statement,otherwise,with no activity,no statement will generate and this will delay getting the bonus points.
Feb 26, 2017, 5:49 pm
#282
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Toronto
Programs: UA 1K, AC MM E75, Marriott LT Ti, IHG Dia Amb, Hyatt Glob
Posts: 15,521
Both the Personal and Business SPG cards earn 10,000 for referring to each other anyways, so it doesn't matter on the order.
However, if you're going to apply through GCR then ONLY the Personal SPG has $30 cash back, so you might as well get the Personal one first, since you cannot combine both the GCR and 10K referring bonuses together. It's one, or the other.
However, if you're going to apply through GCR then ONLY the Personal SPG has $30 cash back, so you might as well get the Personal one first, since you cannot combine both the GCR and 10K referring bonuses together. It's one, or the other.
When I click on
Apply for a different card that is part of this referral program
Feb 26, 2017, 5:51 pm
#283
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: YVR to SEA
Posts: 2,535
Top right you should see the other card to apply for.
Feb 26, 2017, 5:51 pm
#284
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 4,784
After visiting the URL, change card to THE CARD YOU WANT at Top-Right/Bottom-Left corner "Apply for a different card that is part of this referral program"
Feb 26, 2017, 6:53 pm
#285
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
