Originally Posted by notquiteaff

Amex Savings agent said that the points for this promo should have been posted by the 9th of January. Mine haven't, so she opened a case with Amex (yeah, I know, that sounds weird given that I called Amex Savings, but her wording made it sound like Amex Savings isn't really Amex). She couldn't give an estimate for how long it would take to resolve this.

Originally Posted by kenw4077

Same for me. When I pushed as to what is a reasonable time before calling back to check, they said 3-5 days. They also said this has been happening to a number of others.

Originally Posted by bgriff

I received an offer email from Amex for 25K MR points if I open a Personal Savings account with them and hold $25K in it for at least 90 days. I expect the bonus would be taxable, as is typically the case with savings account sign-up bonuses, but assuming they're still counting MR points as worth 1 cent each for tax purposes, I still consider that a decent deal (on top of the current 1.15% APY interest earned on the savings account, which is respectable by current standards).

(If anyone else is interested in the same offer, it is targeted, but I had started the application process for an Amex Personal Savings account a month or so ago and gave up when I came across some other options that seemed more attractive. So it seems possible I received the bonus offer as a result of having abandoned my previous attempt, after having gotten 1 or 2 "you forgot to complete your application" emails previously. So it could be worth starting and abandoning an application to see if you also get the offer.)

But, I noticed that the offer email has the same "no gaming" language as most Amex card offers have nowadays:


So I am a bit more torn about taking them up on the offer. I initially was excited to take advantage of the offer and put $25K in for 90 days and then withdraw it all, but clearly that would be a bad idea. It is not clear if withdrawing some or most of the money but keeping the account open with a lower balance for at least 12 months would keep you in the clear. I was originally thinking I might want to withdraw the money from Amex because for a while recently Capital One was offering 1.5% APY while Amex was offering something like 1.2% or 1.3%; it appears they're now both offering 1.15%, so the urgency to withdraw from Amex is also reduced -- but, there's always a chance I might have a need for some of the $25K as well, and it would suck to ruin my future SUB potential earnings with Amex because I didn't end up keeping the $25K balance with them for whatever extended period of time. (I also already have plenty of MR points and no immediate uses planned for them.) It's also possible, maybe even likely, that the rate gap between Amex and other providers may resurface at some point in the future.

Any data points or thoughts?

Originally Posted by bgriff

My online 1099-INT showed just the “standard” interest earned, but I today received an additional 1099-INT in the mail showing income of $250, presumably for the 25k points. I consider that an entirely fair valuation.

Originally Posted by Centurion

OMG $250 I would value at them at $125

Originally Posted by bgriff

You would actually value them at that or you would try to convince the IRS you value them at that? If it's the former you might want to rethink how you're using your Membership Rewards points, since there are plenty of store gift cards you can get with 25k points worth more than $125.