JordanWalker

Just checking, I currently have the Gold Business card. If I self-refer myself to the Plat Business card (yes, I know will only get 10k referral instead of 25k), I'm still eligible for the 75k welcome bonus right (as opposed to 40k)?

Or does it have to be Gold <-> Gold, and Plat <-> Plat?

Low Roller

Yes, you still get the 75K. When you open your referral link, the application page will spell out the details of the bonus.

JJonahJ

Yes, thanks mia, that's what I'm trying to say. Sorry for not being clearer.

YOWgary, the reason for that is because there's a belief (albeit unsubstantiated) that having a new MR account created on a Personal MR card churning attempt will result in a greater chance of success for getting the repeated welcome bonus. And one way to help assist in getting a new MR account created for the new card is to NOT list down an existing Amex MR card during the application, but DO list down another Amex card product from another family (SimplyCash, SPG, Air Miles). At least from our corner of the Amex world, this has how we've been doing things, and have been met with success.

And you DO want to list an Amex card (but non-MR if possible) so that Amex will more easily identify you, increasing chance for instant approval. If you leave it blank then your ID may not be apparent. You might still get ID'd correctly and result in a Transunion pull for auto-application processing. But if not, then your application will be put into a queue for manual processing, which normally is OK and you can wait for them to properly pull your credit file (or you can call in to speed up this verification process). However, you might also get a credit analyst who decides to take a 'closer' look at your application and card history - at this point it may go to another back-office team to review for eligibility of the promotional welcome offers/terms. From there, it's fingers-crossing time.

First time Personal card applicants, and Business card product applicants (in Canada) need not worry about all of this as the one-welcome policies don't apply to them, at least not at this current time of writing.

CanadianMike

Hey all,

I currently hold Amex Biz Gold and the SPG (Personal).
On both cards I met the min spend and received my bonus points.

I applied and was approved for an Amex Personal Gold again - just received it but have not yet activated it. I previously held / cancelled it in June.

Advice for what to do moving forward
- I saw that the SPG Business 25,000 points bonus offer is ending in about 5 days so wanted to grab that. Am I able to self-refer from my Personal SPG?

- If I activate the Personal Gold, chances I get my bonus points again after min spend /3 mo?

- Am I able to hold more than 2 AMEX active at the same time?

Appreciate any help! I'm still new to this(learning + earning)!

JJonahJ

Yes, go to your Personal SPG referred signup page, then look for the Business SPG icon at the bottom of the page to apply as a self-referral. You get 5K for referring.

There's no harm in activating your Personal Gold card, it's going to report to the bureaus whether or not you activate it. Once you activate you can see if your new PG's MR account is merged with your Biz Gold or not. Hopefully not. Then give it a shot to see if you get the repeat points, but don't call Amex if you don't see the 25K after spending $1500, just wait it out.

You can have 2 Amex CREDIT cards, so for eg the Personal SPG + Business SPG is already 2. If you also already have say a Simply Cash or Air Miles Amex CREDIT card then you won't be able to open the Business SPG as it would be a 3rd CREDIT product.

Your Biz Gold and Personal Gold MR are CHARGE cards...they don't fall under the "MAXIMUM" of 2 CREDIT cards (CHARGE vs CREDIT).

CanadianMike

Awesome, thanks Jonah appreciate the help!

Aker

How long are you waiting these days before reapplying for the same card you’ve had previously to get the welcome bonus again?

Or have they cracked down on this?

Jared Ito

So I am trying to get in a spg personal to spg business self referral, but am unable to find on my spg personal referring page an option to refer any other card. Specifically I do not see a link for the spg business card. Would it be correct to say that the place I find the application for the business card is at the bottom of the email that American Express sends me?

More importantly, if I am reading the terms correctly , this is for first time cardholders only. Are there any other offers out there? I closed the spg business earlier this year, and would prefer to not fight with a credit card company about anything, and also that they not open up a file on me.


Finally, given that I have an ok history with Amex, some churning , a fair deal of spend, good income and good credit — can I simultaneously have the spg personal, Amex gold membership personal, Amex gold membership business and apply for the platinum membership business for the very first time and presumably for the platinum membership personal nine months later? Too many of any kind of card such as charge or credit?

Thank you

JJonahJ

Go to your Refer a Friend page for your existing SPG Personal card. Copy and paste the link that looks like amex.ca/share/jaredi234, and into a new web browser page. This is your referral to the SPG Personal card...now look down below for another card icon, which unsurprising looks like the same as the Personal SPG, but it's actually the Business SPG card icon. Click on it and it goes to the signup page for a Business SPG card...this IS your referral for the Business SPG card from your Personal SPG card. Use it to sign up for the Business SPG card and you will earn 5K into your Personal SPG card at its next statement. Clear as fog?

The Business card products don't have the wording in the footnotes about being restrictive to one-time welcome bonus, so you don't have to worry about churning the SPG Business card.

You are only limited by the number of Amex CREDIT cards, which is a maximum of 2. So you could have the Personal and Business SPG CREDIT cards, but then that's it, no more other CC like the SimplyCash, Air Miles, Blue Sky, Cobalt. The Membership Reward (MR) cards are CHARGE cards, and there is no limit to how many you can hold, credit profile strength pending. If you have good and solid history with the bureaus and Amex, then you can open all four MR cards concurrently (Gold, Biz Gold, Plat, Biz Plat) whilst also carrying any 2 Amex CREDIT cards.

Jared Ito

Very clear instructions, simple enough so that even I could understand it. However, having copied and pasted my referral link and clicked on the spg business card I did see under footnote four that it is only for new spg business cardholders, that current or former might be approved, but without the bonus.

So I will pass on it for now, and not self refer but if anyone has a link without wording about previous cardholders being ineligible for the bonus — I am game.
JjJ , I wish I thought and wrote as well as you, you are always so helpful, thank you.

JJonahJ

Thank you for pointing that out, Jared. I hadn't visited the footnotes of the Business card products for a few months now, and you are indeed correct, the #4 footnote of the SPG Business card DOES mention the one-welcome notes now.

I also did a quick glance at footnotes for the Business Gold MR and Business Platinum MR cards, and they do NOT mention this, yet. Internally, Amex Canada may already have been training their staff to notify repeat applicants that they may not be eligible for another Business card's welcome bonus, and we've seen a number of people reporting this in the past year or so, though the footnotes had not indicated this policy.

Well, it was a matter of time, as Amex USA had clamped down on repeat applications for their Personal card products, and then followed up with similar stance on their Business cards about a year later. Here in Amex Canada land we saw the Personal cards introduce the no-churn footnotes beginning in July 2015, and have kept an eye on and wondered about when the Canadian Business cards would follow the lead of our USA counterparts. It's why our team had focused on churning the Business cards with more frequency than in the past, in anticipation on when Amex Canada would make their own new policy on Business churns.

Going forward, good luck to all who are repeat churning the SPG Business card, and thanks again to @Jared Ito; for pointing this out in the SPG Business card's footnotes.

JJonahJ

Notable recent Amex Canada updates:

• July 11, 2017 - Personal Gold MR will no longer earn referral points (buth then restored back to 5K on Oct 19)
• July 21, 2017 - no other Amex MR card can refer to Gold MR, unless you used a side trick
• Sep 14, 2017 - Personal Gold MR no longer FYF, $150/yr
• Sep 18, 2017 - Personal and Business SPG cards now only earn 5K for referring, down from 10K
• Sep 25, 2017 - new Cobalt MR CC introduced.
• Oct 19, 2017 - Personal and Business SPG cards are now back to regular 20K welcome points, down from promotional 25K (promo ran from July 18-Oct 18).
• Oct 19, 2017 - Personal Gold MR can now refer again for 5K bonus points, but only to other Personal Gold MR AND new Cobalt CC. Was earning 0 for past few months, since July 11, 2017.
• Recently - Unsure when, but the side trick of referring to Personal Gold MR from other 'higher' MR cards has now been detected by Amex systems, and will no longer work. Instead of the Gold MR application page, it now auto-redirects to open other MR card pages, such as Biz Plat, Plat or Biz Gold.

hydrogen

Are status miles are offered with tickets booked through the new Fixed Points Travel Program?

RBC moved to axe status miles on AC tickets booked via RBC Rewards so looking to re-evaluate the cards I have now.

JordanWalker

Never knew about this.
But referring from "lower" to "higher" card is still okay right?

Biz Gold -> Biz Plat = 10k referral?

MasterGeek

I think I might have found a trick to show the personal gold charge card again from plat/biz_gold. Same principle, but you do the switcheroo inside the source code this time then click apply...