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)
Sep 20, 2017, 11:04 am
#991
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: NB, Canada
Programs: Fairmont, Amex MR, Marriott
Posts: 2,531
Did it, worked fine for me. 25% bonus showed same time as the points I transferred.
Sep 20, 2017, 11:38 am
#992
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: yyz
Programs: Aeroplan SE50K, Marriott Platinum, BW Diamond, Hilton Gold
Posts: 33
To provide further details on the Perkopolis offer, it does seem to be a good alternative to GCR now, with recent changes that happened:
Perkopolis offer, as of now: https://www.americanexpress.com/cana...erkopolis.html
The FYF (and $99 annual fee thereafter) is confirmed on the application disclosure when you click through to apply, so no concerns here.
Also, the Amex landing page shows the welcome bonus as "25,000 Membership Rewards® points when you charge $500 in purchases to your Card in your first 3 months of Cardmembership". No mention of the bonus not being awarded if you have had the card previously. If that's really the case, it could be a good offer to churn. So might prefer referring from a Business Plat and get 25k referral points to offset the $150 fee.
Perkopolis offer, as of now: https://www.americanexpress.com/cana...erkopolis.html
The FYF (and $99 annual fee thereafter) is confirmed on the application disclosure when you click through to apply, so no concerns here.
Also, the Amex landing page shows the welcome bonus as "25,000 Membership Rewards® points when you charge $500 in purchases to your Card in your first 3 months of Cardmembership". No mention of the bonus not being awarded if you have had the card previously. If that's really the case, it could be a good offer to churn. So might prefer referring from a Business Plat and get 25k referral points to offset the $150 fee.
Not sure if someone recently tried to apply via perkopolis. I tried to apply thru perkopolis just now for personal gold and was not able to do it. Amex website displays message stating the online application is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Sent e-mail to Perkopolis. Waiting for them to respond.
Sep 22, 2017, 6:01 pm
#993
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: YVR
Posts: 130
Supplementary Card spending counts, right?
Hi, could someone please confirm that supplementary card spending counts toward minimum spend requirements? This is for a Gold MR card if it's relevant. Thanks and have a great weekend everyone.
G
G
Sep 22, 2017, 6:28 pm
#994
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 4,784
AMEX Online even shows which card/member the charge is on, so you can tell them apart
Last edited by jerryhung; Sep 22, 2017 at 6:47 pm
Sep 25, 2017, 1:42 am
#995
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 38
I'd like to self refer myself using my Business Platinum card for the 25,000 point referral bonus, and refer to another AMEX card (GOLD).
The "refer-a-friend" option on my account creates a link which directs you to a Business Platinum application page, but as I mentioned I would like to refer to a different card (GOLD). If I follow this referral link to the BUsiness Platinum application page, and click away and apply for the GOLD card from the AMEX site will I still receive my self-referral bonus?
Want to make sure I am doing this correctly.
The "refer-a-friend" option on my account creates a link which directs you to a Business Platinum application page, but as I mentioned I would like to refer to a different card (GOLD). If I follow this referral link to the BUsiness Platinum application page, and click away and apply for the GOLD card from the AMEX site will I still receive my self-referral bonus?
Want to make sure I am doing this correctly.
Sep 25, 2017, 4:25 am
#996
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
I'd like to self refer myself using my Business Platinum card for the 25,000 point referral bonus, and refer to another AMEX card (GOLD).
The "refer-a-friend" option on my account creates a link which directs you to a Business Platinum application page, but as I mentioned I would like to refer to a different card (GOLD). If I follow this referral link to the BUsiness Platinum application page, and click away and apply for the GOLD card from the AMEX site will I still receive my self-referral bonus?
Want to make sure I am doing this correctly.
The "refer-a-friend" option on my account creates a link which directs you to a Business Platinum application page, but as I mentioned I would like to refer to a different card (GOLD). If I follow this referral link to the BUsiness Platinum application page, and click away and apply for the GOLD card from the AMEX site will I still receive my self-referral bonus?
Want to make sure I am doing this correctly.
- You can not refer to the Personal Gold anymore from Business Plat, Personal Plat nor Business Gold. You can only refer from another Personal Gold to Personal Gold and wouldn't you know it, you no longer get a 5K/10K bonus when using a Personal Gold to refer.
- The Personal Gold is no longer FYY and you will be charged the $150 AF when you open it.
See the post in my signature link for the dates of these monumental changes, it was just a couple of months ago.
Sep 25, 2017, 9:54 am
#997
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Canada
Posts: 822
I'd like to self refer myself using my Business Platinum card for the 25,000 point referral bonus, and refer to another AMEX card (GOLD).
The "refer-a-friend" option on my account creates a link which directs you to a Business Platinum application page, but as I mentioned I would like to refer to a different card (GOLD). If I follow this referral link to the BUsiness Platinum application page, and click away and apply for the GOLD card from the AMEX site will I still receive my self-referral bonus?
Want to make sure I am doing this correctly.
The "refer-a-friend" option on my account creates a link which directs you to a Business Platinum application page, but as I mentioned I would like to refer to a different card (GOLD). If I follow this referral link to the BUsiness Platinum application page, and click away and apply for the GOLD card from the AMEX site will I still receive my self-referral bonus?
Want to make sure I am doing this correctly.
However,I have read that some folk have figured out a way to do so.I,myself, do not know the method......
Sep 25, 2017, 10:07 am
#998
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 38
It doesnt have to be the GOLD, I'd also happily refer to the Platinum from my Business Platinum. Is that possible?
Sep 25, 2017, 10:08 am
#999
Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 38
- You can not refer to the Personal Gold anymore from Business Plat, Personal Plat nor Business Gold. You can only refer from another Personal Gold to Personal Gold and wouldn't you know it, you no longer get a 5K/10K bonus when using a Personal Gold to refer.
- The Personal Gold is no longer FYY and you will be charged the $150 AF when you open it.
See the post in my signature link for the dates of these monumental changes, it was just a couple of months ago.
Sep 25, 2017, 10:12 am
#1000
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Absolutely. Just visit your own Business Platinum refer a friend page, and go to your personal signup link page (eg, amex.ca/share/xxxxx). After you arrive at that signup page, scroll to the bottom of the page and look for the other MR card icons. You should see the Personal Platinum and Business Gold icons here. Applying through those links will inject 25,000 referring bonus points into your Business Platinum MR account.
Sep 26, 2017, 12:25 pm
#1001
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: YQM
Posts: 341
Follow-up and data point: Referred spouse from Business Plat to Personal Gold (her 2nd) just before the FYF was discontinued, using the URL trick. Her application was initially pending, approved a couple days later without contacting Amex (note she had cancelled her first Gold just a month before reapplying). Authorized user added during application and we entered her SPG card as existing account.
Got 25,000 referral within days of her approval. Gold received by FedEx. I was pleased to notice a new MR account was created. We just crossed $1,500 in spending, and 25,000 points posted with the transaction, like clockwork.
Needless to say that considering the circumstances, I am ecstatic of the outcome. I won't even chase the missing 5,000 for the authorized user. They may post automatically but if they don't, it's OK — no need to risk them looking into it... 50,000 MR for free in one credit check for a repeat applicant is more than worth it.
Got 25,000 referral within days of her approval. Gold received by FedEx. I was pleased to notice a new MR account was created. We just crossed $1,500 in spending, and 25,000 points posted with the transaction, like clockwork.
Needless to say that considering the circumstances, I am ecstatic of the outcome. I won't even chase the missing 5,000 for the authorized user. They may post automatically but if they don't, it's OK — no need to risk them looking into it... 50,000 MR for free in one credit check for a repeat applicant is more than worth it.
Sep 26, 2017, 12:31 pm
#1002
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 4,784
Follow-up and data point: Referred spouse from Business Plat to Personal Gold (her 2nd) just before the FYF was discontinued, using the URL trick. Her application was initially pending, approved a couple days later without contacting Amex (note she had cancelled her first Gold just a month before reapplying). Authorized user added during application and we entered her SPG card as existing account.
Got 25,000 referral within days of her approval. Gold received by FedEx. I was pleased to notice a new MR account was created. We just crossed $1,500 in spending, and 25,000 points posted with the transaction, like clockwork.
Needless to say that considering the circumstances, I am ecstatic of the outcome. I won't even chase the missing 5,000 for the authorized user. They may post automatically but if they don't, it's OK — no need to risk them looking into it... 50,000 MR for free in one credit check for a repeat applicant is more than worth it.
Got 25,000 referral within days of her approval. Gold received by FedEx. I was pleased to notice a new MR account was created. We just crossed $1,500 in spending, and 25,000 points posted with the transaction, like clockwork.
Needless to say that considering the circumstances, I am ecstatic of the outcome. I won't even chase the missing 5,000 for the authorized user. They may post automatically but if they don't, it's OK — no need to risk them looking into it... 50,000 MR for free in one credit check for a repeat applicant is more than worth it.
Supple. user 5K comes later separately, just wait
Sep 26, 2017, 1:01 pm
#1004
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: YVR
Posts: 1,847
Follow-up and data point: Referred spouse from Business Plat to Personal Gold (her 2nd) just before the FYF was discontinued, using the URL trick. Her application was initially pending, approved a couple days later without contacting Amex (note she had cancelled her first Gold just a month before reapplying). Authorized user added during application and we entered her SPG card as existing account.
Got 25,000 referral within days of her approval. Gold received by FedEx. I was pleased to notice a new MR account was created. We just crossed $1,500 in spending, and 25,000 points posted with the transaction, like clockwork.
Needless to say that considering the circumstances, I am ecstatic of the outcome. I won't even chase the missing 5,000 for the authorized user. They may post automatically but if they don't, it's OK — no need to risk them looking into it... 50,000 MR for free in one credit check for a repeat applicant is more than worth it.
Got 25,000 referral within days of her approval. Gold received by FedEx. I was pleased to notice a new MR account was created. We just crossed $1,500 in spending, and 25,000 points posted with the transaction, like clockwork.
Needless to say that considering the circumstances, I am ecstatic of the outcome. I won't even chase the missing 5,000 for the authorized user. They may post automatically but if they don't, it's OK — no need to risk them looking into it... 50,000 MR for free in one credit check for a repeat applicant is more than worth it.
Sep 26, 2017, 1:05 pm
#1005
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Canada
Programs: *void
Posts: 2,408
Follow-up and data point: Referred spouse from Business Plat to Personal Gold (her 2nd) just before the FYF was discontinued, using the URL trick. Her application was initially pending, approved a couple days later without contacting Amex (note she had cancelled her first Gold just a month before reapplying). Authorized user added during application and we entered her SPG card as existing account.
Got 25,000 referral within days of her approval. Gold received by FedEx. I was pleased to notice a new MR account was created. We just crossed $1,500 in spending, and 25,000 points posted with the transaction, like clockwork.
Needless to say that considering the circumstances, I am ecstatic of the outcome. I won't even chase the missing 5,000 for the authorized user. They may post automatically but if they don't, it's OK — no need to risk them looking into it... 50,000 MR for free in one credit check for a repeat applicant is more than worth it.
Got 25,000 referral within days of her approval. Gold received by FedEx. I was pleased to notice a new MR account was created. We just crossed $1,500 in spending, and 25,000 points posted with the transaction, like clockwork.
Needless to say that considering the circumstances, I am ecstatic of the outcome. I won't even chase the missing 5,000 for the authorized user. They may post automatically but if they don't, it's OK — no need to risk them looking into it... 50,000 MR for free in one credit check for a repeat applicant is more than worth it.
For the 5K supplementary bonus, we had a Gold application where the card went AWOL and never arrived so was resent (wrote about it here). The 5K appeared 6 weeks after approval, but only 2 weeks after activating, and the suppie card was never even activated. The 5K are listed at the MR account page as:
MGM GRC Supp 5k 2017
It's all unfolding nicely for you! ^