acarney

So now I've got one data point on each side. I think I can make the min spend no problem with totally legit spend... it's just I can't make it in 20 days which is when I'll be at Disney. I would LIKE the Disney points to earn 4x instead of 3x with Chase, but I'll skip it if it's too risky. I'll put a lot of dining spend on the Amex Gold during the trip (probably $500 to $1000 at least) and I've got a $400 theme park ticket for Universal Studios to book today or tomorrow, so again, I'll hit the $2k in 90 days no problem, just trying to figure out now how greedy I can be :P

Diplomatico

robchow provided you with what his preference is when meeting MSR on an AMEX card. That is not a "data point".

A data point would be if he stated that he purchased a gift card while trying to meet MSR and the purchase did not count toward MSR.

rasheed

I am confident that the list of restaurants on the $10 benefit will expand. I actually expect the IKEA-like assemble yourself food vendors will also quickly link in to the deal since their marketing spend is massive.

Yes, I believe that Disney is one of the most popular gift cards bought through these promotions. Try hard to find an overlapping grocery store gas points promotion (they should already be at 2x, but 4x has been happening at Kroger a lot due to sales issues. Albertsons/Safeway has now started an alternative use promotion for the points which may be attractive to some).

Kagehitokiri

as someone said, amex is not paying for these credits, so definitely partners will expand especially at small dollar figures, may see $5 and $25 tiers (and not monthly : like plat saks $50 twice a year)

i buy gift cards for other reasons, but would not use them for meeting spending requirements of signup bonuses

jamesinclair

Well now Im interested

sdsearch

Keep in mind that doing it this way will generate a new account number with new last 4 digits. (In fact, it's the way to get Amex to change your last 4 digits in case you have a problem with 2 Amex cards having the same last 4 digits and not being able to tell them apart on receipts, etc). If that's what you want, great. If you definitely want to keep the same account number, don't do it this way.

acarney

What about if you plan to go over the min spend during the signup bonus time? Again, I'll probably put $3,000+ on the card in the next 90 days, it's just the Disney gift cards would be one of the earlier transactions. (I've done $100 on Amazon and $425 from Universal Studios so far, both using the online number generated when I applied for the card. Once I get the physical card I'll shift some day to day spending to it, at least for the next month or so. I'll also use it heavy on my vacation at the end of this month.... BUT, I want to buy those Disney tix in the next week or so :P)

acarney

The gas bonus is much less of interest to me... I drive a Chevy Volt (~55 miles battery before kicking on the gas engine) and fill up it's 9 gallon tank maybe two to three times a year, lol

I wish the Kroger owned store (Fred Meyer) near me counted as grocery with Amex, but they could it as a warehouse store or something. So I'll have to head over to Safeway and buy the gift cards and then once the min spend is past buy some VISA/MC gift cards every couple months and use those for grocery shopping at Fred Meyer... I'll mix in some monthly bills and stuff to try and look more "normal", and I won't manufacture spend with the gift cards, I don't need to be hitting 25k on the bonus every year... if I spend $400 to $500/month on grocery then that's all I care to get bonus from, especially if it lets me fly under the radar with Amex.

rasheed

Do you happen to travel near other Kroger-branded chains (QPC, Smiths) every so often that are coded as grocery stores? If so, I would highly recommend buying Kroger-family gift cards from those stores, getting the grocery bonus rate and then bringing them back in to Fred Meyer rather than using the overpriced Visa/MC cards.

Also, you are a perfect candidate for the new J4U Safeway rewards program for non-fuel purchases. They currently are running a few specials on high value store-branded items for just 1 reward that are worth more than $2.50 (which is the max value of a single gas reward). So, you can get at least another 5% back this way (without even considering the credit card reward). This makes those gift cards a pretty interesting deal.

Kagehitokiri

someone else mentioned grubhub/etc having some restaurants that do carry out

mia

We do not have this level of specificity. If American Express' algorithm finds something it doesn't like about your qualifying spend it will withhold or retract the bonus. When you contact American Express the front line customer service agents will manually review your spending, and may offer an explanation, but it will be a guess. They do not actually know what triggered the algorithm. They can submit the claim for review by specialists who will make the binding decision, but cardholders do not communicate with those people.

ksingh0311

One question: Is paying legitimate expenses (such as residential rent, tuition fees) etc. using Plastiq generally safe and not be misconstrued as MS?

mia

Plastiq only accepts American Express for specific types of transactions. I would not expect a problem if used as permitted.

acarney

Very interesting to everything said. I don't have my physical gold card yet and it's not showing up in my Amex online accounts yet, but I did get a splash page when logging into the Amex account mentioning the new gold benefits and to explore more about them, so things still seem to be on track! I'm also happy about the airline credit being calendar year and not card year! That's a nice little perk to go with the AF waived for the first year! I'll have to go research Alaska Air's track rate with getting refunded for certain value gift cards :P

Delta has been working great on my Platinum, but I usually find myself needing to take at least one AS flight (that's $80 to $120) every year so splitting the benefits might be nice.

I don't have any local Kroger brand stores other than Fred Meyers... I'm in Washington state, I don't think Kroger has any stores in my state or even the Pacific Northwest besides Fred Meyer. I could pick up some when I travel... but that would mean buying like $2000 worth at once like two or three times a year... and that might make the algorithm tingle more than just buying $400 or so every month. I know I could avoid the $5.95 ($6.95?) fee... but I still would be coming out ahead even if I factor in the cost of the VISA/MC fee, and really more important is building up the MR for me rather then the max % return I'm getting. This year I found myself like 4,000 points short of being able to transfer for an award ticket, but it wasn't worth the cost of transfer and then buying those miles from Delta, so I bought the ticket using out of pocket cash. If I had been earning 4x on grocery all year I would have been well over the amount I needed and spent points rather then $250 cash. Either way, excited to get the gold and 50k... I totally missed out on the 100k platinum offer by like 2 weeks when I applied a couple years ago and only got the 60k offer >.<

mia

Giftcards only work for AA, DL and WN.

Alaska Airlines discussion here:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...orts-only.html