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)
Aug 10, 2017, 12:05 pm
#886
Join Date: May 2009
Location: YUL via ARN, PVG, ICN & YOW
Posts: 75
curious as to success metrics for self-referral.
looking to self-refer from personal plat to business plat.
data points and past experience point to my earning the 15K bonus once the application is approved, within days.
however, am i at any risk of receiving the 75K welcome after my completing the $5K spend because of it being a self referral?
is there anything re: self-refer that is called out in the t's and c's?
itd be a shame to absorb the 399 annual fee (either via 40,000MR of the welcome bonus MR or straight $) and complete the $5K spend only to be called on a technicality.
if there is any risk of that happening i reckon my plan b would be to self refer to a FYF gold and net the 40K (which is better than the 75-40 plan detailed above)
if theres any risk id rather go business gold for FYF via self refer and receive the 40K
[though id much rather the 1.25 earn than the 2x at limited AMEX partners]
looking to self-refer from personal plat to business plat.
data points and past experience point to my earning the 15K bonus once the application is approved, within days.
however, am i at any risk of receiving the 75K welcome after my completing the $5K spend because of it being a self referral?
is there anything re: self-refer that is called out in the t's and c's?
itd be a shame to absorb the 399 annual fee (either via 40,000MR of the welcome bonus MR or straight $) and complete the $5K spend only to be called on a technicality.
if there is any risk of that happening i reckon my plan b would be to self refer to a FYF gold and net the 40K (which is better than the 75-40 plan detailed above)
if theres any risk id rather go business gold for FYF via self refer and receive the 40K
[though id much rather the 1.25 earn than the 2x at limited AMEX partners]
Last edited by tehdee; Aug 10, 2017 at 1:41 pm
Aug 10, 2017, 3:39 pm
#887
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 73
curious as to success metrics for self-referral.
looking to self-refer from personal plat to business plat.
data points and past experience point to my earning the 15K bonus once the application is approved, within days.
however, am i at any risk of receiving the 75K welcome after my completing the $5K spend because of it being a self referral?
is there anything re: self-refer that is called out in the t's and c's?
itd be a shame to absorb the 399 annual fee (either via 40,000MR of the welcome bonus MR or straight $) and complete the $5K spend only to be called on a technicality.
if there is any risk of that happening i reckon my plan b would be to self refer to a FYF gold and net the 40K (which is better than the 75-40 plan detailed above)
if theres any risk id rather go business gold for FYF via self refer and receive the 40K
[though id much rather the 1.25 earn than the 2x at limited AMEX partners]
looking to self-refer from personal plat to business plat.
data points and past experience point to my earning the 15K bonus once the application is approved, within days.
however, am i at any risk of receiving the 75K welcome after my completing the $5K spend because of it being a self referral?
is there anything re: self-refer that is called out in the t's and c's?
itd be a shame to absorb the 399 annual fee (either via 40,000MR of the welcome bonus MR or straight $) and complete the $5K spend only to be called on a technicality.
if there is any risk of that happening i reckon my plan b would be to self refer to a FYF gold and net the 40K (which is better than the 75-40 plan detailed above)
if theres any risk id rather go business gold for FYF via self refer and receive the 40K
[though id much rather the 1.25 earn than the 2x at limited AMEX partners]
Aug 15, 2017, 12:22 pm
#888
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 41
payments
i linked my amex card to my scotiabank for payments. the payment was received and credited to my account in the 12th. but hasnt been taken out of my scotiabank yet. is this normal or did i take money from someone else's account? and if i did what else should i buy??
Aug 15, 2017, 12:59 pm
#889
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Aug 15, 2017, 5:13 pm
#890
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Montreal
Posts: 247
Does anyone know how rigorously Amex enforces the 225,000 calendar year cap on referral points?
All my hard work has been paying off, and I’ve managed to recruit a good number of family members to sign up using my BizPlat links. As of today I’m at 8 refs for 2017, but there’s potential for a few more.
So I’m curious what I should do. I have the BizGold, so I can always refer from that card. But if I don’t have to give up the 25,000 refs that would obviously be better!
Anyone have any experience or data points to share?
All my hard work has been paying off, and I’ve managed to recruit a good number of family members to sign up using my BizPlat links. As of today I’m at 8 refs for 2017, but there’s potential for a few more.
So I’m curious what I should do. I have the BizGold, so I can always refer from that card. But if I don’t have to give up the 25,000 refs that would obviously be better!
Anyone have any experience or data points to share?
Aug 15, 2017, 5:24 pm
#891
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Canadia
Programs: A loyal Amerisuites customer... oh wait
Posts: 2,033
Does anyone know how rigorously Amex enforces the 225,000 calendar year cap on referral points?
All my hard work has been paying off, and I’ve managed to recruit a good number of family members to sign up using my BizPlat links. As of today I’m at 8 refs for 2017, but there’s potential for a few more.
So I’m curious what I should do. I have the BizGold, so I can always refer from that card. But if I don’t have to give up the 25,000 refs that would obviously be better!
Anyone have any experience or data points to share?
All my hard work has been paying off, and I’ve managed to recruit a good number of family members to sign up using my BizPlat links. As of today I’m at 8 refs for 2017, but there’s potential for a few more.
So I’m curious what I should do. I have the BizGold, so I can always refer from that card. But if I don’t have to give up the 25,000 refs that would obviously be better!
Anyone have any experience or data points to share?
Why not get one of the family members to generate a referral code of their own? You could switch to hyping that referral code instead. Then you know it won't go for naught.
Aug 15, 2017, 6:06 pm
#892
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Montreal
Posts: 247
But if there's a Plan A where I could keep the 25,000 refs going for myself, that would be even better ;-)
It takes quite some time to walk some of these family members through the process, so the ref points are a nice reward for the work :-)
Thanks for the suggestion!
Aug 16, 2017, 6:52 am
#893
Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 48
You're not getting more than 225,000. I've seen it as a hard limit multiple times on different cards.
Aug 16, 2017, 8:20 am
#894
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Maybe they only enforce the referral maximums on the Per/Biz Platinum cards? In smaller news, last year I was allowed to go over the maximum 75K on my Personal Gold card. And now, no more ref bonuses for this little choo-choo card, as of July 2017. There goes that gravy train.
Aug 16, 2017, 10:02 am
#895
Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 48
Maybe they only enforce the referral maximums on the Per/Biz Platinum cards? In smaller news, last year I was allowed to go over the maximum 75K on my Personal Gold card. And now, no more ref bonuses for this little choo-choo card, as of July 2017. There goes that gravy train.
Aug 21, 2017, 8:58 am
#896
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Canada
Programs: Aeroplan 50K, Bonvoy Titanium, IHG Diamond, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 292
I have a AMEX Business Platinum. It look as though we cannot refer AMEX Gold anymore. Can anyone verify this?
Aug 21, 2017, 10:42 am
#897
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Prince Edward Island
Programs: Air Canada P25K, Hilton Honors Gold, Marriott Gold, MGM Gold
Posts: 1,582
Aug 21, 2017, 11:08 am
#898
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Opened a new Personal Gold in July, and applied for a supplementary card at the same time during the referred online application. Card was delayed (or lost) and didn't arrive within the prescribed 7-10 business days, even though there is 'evidence' of the new cards - can be seen online at Amex.ca when you send a Secured Message and the new numbers are in the drop-down list of available cards.
So after nearly 3 weeks after approval and no card(s) in hand, a call to Amex was required. Both cards were invalidated since "they appeared to be lost in transit". The main card was re-sent via FedEx, but for whatever reason they did not send the supplementary card. Anyways, the main card finally arrived during the first week of Aug. Activated and used it, but haven't exceeded the required $1500 spending minimum yet, so haven't received the 25K welcome points.
Surprisingly, the 5K bonus for adding a supplementary card showed up today, 6 weeks after application approval, but only 2 weeks after activating primary card. The 5K are listed at the MR account page as:
So after nearly 3 weeks after approval and no card(s) in hand, a call to Amex was required. Both cards were invalidated since "they appeared to be lost in transit". The main card was re-sent via FedEx, but for whatever reason they did not send the supplementary card. Anyways, the main card finally arrived during the first week of Aug. Activated and used it, but haven't exceeded the required $1500 spending minimum yet, so haven't received the 25K welcome points.
Surprisingly, the 5K bonus for adding a supplementary card showed up today, 6 weeks after application approval, but only 2 weeks after activating primary card. The 5K are listed at the MR account page as:
MGM GRC Supp 5k 2017
Two things to takeaway from this.- you don't need to meet minimum spending to get the 5K supplementary bonus, but this should be obvious, though I haven't seen many people actually writing about this.
- you don't need to have an activated supplementary card to get the bonus. Which I've seen several times in the past, with the longtime 1K supplementary card bonus offers, but again I hadn't seen many reports of this for the 5K add-on-opening promo bonus.
Aug 22, 2017, 1:59 pm
#899
Suspended
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kan@da
Programs: Anything with sweet spots
Posts: 1,790
Has anyone been able to hold TWO Amex Business Platinum cards or other same Amex MR charge cards at the same time ?
I want to get a new Amex Biz Plat card before cancelling my current one. If I cancel my current one first, then I will have to wait 3-6 months before reapplying.
I want to get a new Amex Biz Plat card before cancelling my current one. If I cancel my current one first, then I will have to wait 3-6 months before reapplying.
Aug 23, 2017, 5:11 am
#900
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 4,519
Biz SPG
Just about to apply Biz SPG (already cancel my Biz Plat) and hence start reading the T&C more carefully. This will be my first Biz SPG (I had Personal SPG before)
So, I read the following (highlighted mine)
Was it always waived for the 1st year for Supp Card? And the way you read it, it seems you can get a few Supp Cards and all get 1st year waived, could this be?
Any of you out there have Biz SPG with Supp Card can provide your experience?
Thanks.
--- Added ---
Just check the Personal SPG and it actually has the exact same words. I had never apply for a Supp Card for AMEX SPG because I thought you need to pay.
So, I read the following (highlighted mine)
Annual Fees
Basic Card: $150; charged on 1st statement after Card issued and once a year thereafter. Supplementary Cards: $50 each; waived for the 1st year; charged annually thereafter on or after anniversary of the date Card was issued. Annual fees are charged regardless of card activation.
Basic Card: $150; charged on 1st statement after Card issued and once a year thereafter. Supplementary Cards: $50 each; waived for the 1st year; charged annually thereafter on or after anniversary of the date Card was issued. Annual fees are charged regardless of card activation.
Any of you out there have Biz SPG with Supp Card can provide your experience?
Thanks.
--- Added ---
Just check the Personal SPG and it actually has the exact same words. I had never apply for a Supp Card for AMEX SPG because I thought you need to pay.