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. Thats 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. Thats 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)
#481
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
That's my plan. To hold off on calling in until a week or 2 before the "3 month" time frame for the spend. Don't want to pass that date and find out they didn't qualify a transaction or something for whatever strange reason (first time using plastiq per your advice - but shouldn't be a problem since I did get those points). Who knows. Will update back once I get it and how long it took.
#482
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: YQM
Posts: 341
Looks like Amex is about to launch Bonus Air Miles offers to cardholders : http://americanexpress.ca/soarintomore
Received promotional pamphlet in the mail today.
Received promotional pamphlet in the mail today.
#483
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: YYZish
Posts: 298
Bump...
Unless I missed it, no one replied to this.
Now I have two friends telling me they used my referral from my Amex Biz Platinum. Both were for the Amex Gold Personal (where I used the shortcut by preselecting the card for them).
The referral points have not posted yet. IME they post the day after approval.
Does anyone have a datapoint on the 'select a different card' route? I looked at the URL and don't really see anything associated to me specifically.
Thanks much!
Unless I missed it, no one replied to this.
Now I have two friends telling me they used my referral from my Amex Biz Platinum. Both were for the Amex Gold Personal (where I used the shortcut by preselecting the card for them).
The referral points have not posted yet. IME they post the day after approval.
Does anyone have a datapoint on the 'select a different card' route? I looked at the URL and don't really see anything associated to me specifically.
Thanks much!
#484
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 305
Amex Canada is giving me a major run around.
I've applied for a card and they are saying that everything looks good but they want to verify my address through another financial institution.
The way this allegedly works, is that they send me a form where I fill out my account details with another bank, and sign it saying that I consent to Amex verifying my information with this bank. Then I have to send it back to Amex, and Amex sends it to that bank (by fax). This has been met with a resounding NO from two of my banks (CIBC and RBC). They say they won't reply to any such requests due to privacy concerns, that I can come to the branch and they will provide me with anything I want, but they will not send anything to a third party.
Amex claims that this is all normal operations and that they routinely get these requests filled by the banks, at a rate of about 100 a day. Hard to believe. They say their policy is to only accept the address verification directly from the bank, and not from me. They offer to try with another bank, but when I ask if they know of a specific bank that does not make a fuss about this, there is no definitive answer.
Has anyone experienced this? It feels like they don't really want my application approved, except why complicate things so much, just deny it and stop wasting everyone's time.
I've applied for a card and they are saying that everything looks good but they want to verify my address through another financial institution.
The way this allegedly works, is that they send me a form where I fill out my account details with another bank, and sign it saying that I consent to Amex verifying my information with this bank. Then I have to send it back to Amex, and Amex sends it to that bank (by fax). This has been met with a resounding NO from two of my banks (CIBC and RBC). They say they won't reply to any such requests due to privacy concerns, that I can come to the branch and they will provide me with anything I want, but they will not send anything to a third party.
Amex claims that this is all normal operations and that they routinely get these requests filled by the banks, at a rate of about 100 a day. Hard to believe. They say their policy is to only accept the address verification directly from the bank, and not from me. They offer to try with another bank, but when I ask if they know of a specific bank that does not make a fuss about this, there is no definitive answer.
Has anyone experienced this? It feels like they don't really want my application approved, except why complicate things so much, just deny it and stop wasting everyone's time.
#485
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: YUL
Programs: Aeroplan
Posts: 107
Amex Canada is giving me a major run around.
I've applied for a card and they are saying that everything looks good but they want to verify my address through another financial institution.
The way this allegedly works, is that they send me a form where I fill out my account details with another bank, and sign it saying that I consent to Amex verifying my information with this bank. Then I have to send it back to Amex, and Amex sends it to that bank (by fax). This has been met with a resounding NO from two of my banks (CIBC and RBC). They say they won't reply to any such requests due to privacy concerns, that I can come to the branch and they will provide me with anything I want, but they will not send anything to a third party.
Amex claims that this is all normal operations and that they routinely get these requests filled by the banks, at a rate of about 100 a day. Hard to believe. They say their policy is to only accept the address verification directly from the bank, and not from me. They offer to try with another bank, but when I ask if they know of a specific bank that does not make a fuss about this, there is no definitive answer.
Has anyone experienced this? It feels like they don't really want my application approved, except why complicate things so much, just deny it and stop wasting everyone's time.
I've applied for a card and they are saying that everything looks good but they want to verify my address through another financial institution.
The way this allegedly works, is that they send me a form where I fill out my account details with another bank, and sign it saying that I consent to Amex verifying my information with this bank. Then I have to send it back to Amex, and Amex sends it to that bank (by fax). This has been met with a resounding NO from two of my banks (CIBC and RBC). They say they won't reply to any such requests due to privacy concerns, that I can come to the branch and they will provide me with anything I want, but they will not send anything to a third party.
Amex claims that this is all normal operations and that they routinely get these requests filled by the banks, at a rate of about 100 a day. Hard to believe. They say their policy is to only accept the address verification directly from the bank, and not from me. They offer to try with another bank, but when I ask if they know of a specific bank that does not make a fuss about this, there is no definitive answer.
Has anyone experienced this? It feels like they don't really want my application approved, except why complicate things so much, just deny it and stop wasting everyone's time.
#486
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 305
Yes they ask me the same information and it's a normal operation, the bank should have a desk in their backoffice for those requests. The way it works is American Express is going to contact your branch and the branch is sending the request to their backoffice and then the backoffice is sending the confirmation directly to American Express. That's the way it was done with TD.
#487
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Amex Canada is giving me a major run around.
I've applied for a card and they are saying that everything looks good but they want to verify my address through another financial institution.
The way this allegedly works, is that they send me a form where I fill out my account details with another bank, and sign it saying that I consent to Amex verifying my information with this bank. Then I have to send it back to Amex, and Amex sends it to that bank (by fax). This has been met with a resounding NO from two of my banks (CIBC and RBC). They say they won't reply to any such requests due to privacy concerns, that I can come to the branch and they will provide me with anything I want, but they will not send anything to a third party.
Amex claims that this is all normal operations and that they routinely get these requests filled by the banks, at a rate of about 100 a day. Hard to believe. They say their policy is to only accept the address verification directly from the bank, and not from me. They offer to try with another bank, but when I ask if they know of a specific bank that does not make a fuss about this, there is no definitive answer.
Has anyone experienced this? It feels like they don't really want my application approved, except why complicate things so much, just deny it and stop wasting everyone's time.
I've applied for a card and they are saying that everything looks good but they want to verify my address through another financial institution.
The way this allegedly works, is that they send me a form where I fill out my account details with another bank, and sign it saying that I consent to Amex verifying my information with this bank. Then I have to send it back to Amex, and Amex sends it to that bank (by fax). This has been met with a resounding NO from two of my banks (CIBC and RBC). They say they won't reply to any such requests due to privacy concerns, that I can come to the branch and they will provide me with anything I want, but they will not send anything to a third party.
Amex claims that this is all normal operations and that they routinely get these requests filled by the banks, at a rate of about 100 a day. Hard to believe. They say their policy is to only accept the address verification directly from the bank, and not from me. They offer to try with another bank, but when I ask if they know of a specific bank that does not make a fuss about this, there is no definitive answer.
Has anyone experienced this? It feels like they don't really want my application approved, except why complicate things so much, just deny it and stop wasting everyone's time.
#488
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Spend $50 get $10 credit with Amex Contactless payments
Check your emails for a "Spend $50 get $10 credit with Amex Contactless payments" offer:
Appears to be targeted? I clicked on the "Register Now" button in my email message and it automatically registered my Gold card.
Between April 12, 2017 and April 30, 2017, spend $50 or more (after taxes) using contactless at any American Express accepting merchant where contactless payments are accepted1, and you can get a $10 statement credit.
Simply tap your contactless Card or mobile device while using Apple Pay2 or Amex Pay3 (within the Amex App on an eligible AndroidTM device) and be on your way!
Only the first 15,000 eligible Canadian Basic American Express Consumer Cardmembers to successfully register will be eligible for this offer. Dont miss out!
Simply tap your contactless Card or mobile device while using Apple Pay2 or Amex Pay3 (within the Amex App on an eligible AndroidTM device) and be on your way!
Only the first 15,000 eligible Canadian Basic American Express Consumer Cardmembers to successfully register will be eligible for this offer. Dont miss out!
#489
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 4,784
Link (from RFD)
https://merchantgeo.secure.force.com...language=en-us
https://merchantgeo.secure.force.com...language=en-us
#491
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Canadia
Programs: A loyal Amerisuites customer... oh wait
Posts: 2,033
Link (from RFD)
https://merchantgeo.secure.force.com...language=en-us
https://merchantgeo.secure.force.com...language=en-us
I got this message:
Unfortunately this campaign is by invitation only.
#492
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Well, Charlie Brown, don't feel bad. I tried to register 10 primary Amex cards and only 1 was registered. I also unsuccessfully went through a bunch of supplementary cards but I don't have time to try them all, as I doubt they will qualify.
#493
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 4,519
Can someone please let me know what is the current offer for Biz SPG? Is it the same for Referral vs. regular? Does the referee bonus the same for Personal SPG vs. Biz SPG?
Last and un-related question. My wife got decline on AMEX Plat (personal), didn't got email or letter telling us why, but I figure she was not approve since I didn't receive my 25K referral bonus. Does she need to wait a few months before applying another AMEX card?
Last and un-related question. My wife got decline on AMEX Plat (personal), didn't got email or letter telling us why, but I figure she was not approve since I didn't receive my 25K referral bonus. Does she need to wait a few months before applying another AMEX card?
#494
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Canada
Posts: 822
Can someone please let me know what is the current offer for Biz SPG? Is it the same for Referral vs. regular? Does the referee bonus the same for Personal SPG vs. Biz SPG?
Last and un-related question. My wife got decline on AMEX Plat (personal), didn't got email or letter telling us why, but I figure she was not approve since I didn't receive my 25K referral bonus. Does she need to wait a few months before applying another AMEX card?
Last and un-related question. My wife got decline on AMEX Plat (personal), didn't got email or letter telling us why, but I figure she was not approve since I didn't receive my 25K referral bonus. Does she need to wait a few months before applying another AMEX card?
10,000 referral points from both personal or biz
Ask the wife to call Amex,they might simply want to confirm identification/information.
#495
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 6
Still waiting on referral bonuses I made in February from Personal Platinum. Anyone else in the same boat? January referrals arrived late as well, in march, posted as "remediation jan", but no such "remediation" for February yet. Must be unlucky as sign up bonus hasn't shown up even though I crossed minimum spend a couple of weeks ago...