josephstern

Either Amex fixed that 10K, or it's YMMV, but mine clearly says 5K.

Edit: I do see 10K at the bottom, but there's a pretty large 5K on the left . . .

friedablass

I previously posted about this and most people did not take notice. I wrote that it clearly said at the top 5k bonus for referral but in the fine print it says 10k, so will Amex honor that?

Happy

I even have trouble to get AMEX honor the 5K.

Based on my last year's experiences, if your referred persons did not get instant approvals or if their deferred approvals took more than a week, your referral bonus would turn into a no show. It would then take a lot of back and forth emails, supplying them the referred person's name, city's name and zip code and the last 5 digits of the card, to eventually get a "courtesy adjustment". If you happened to have more than one referred person getting approved within a few weeks, and one or two referral bonuses gone missing, you would almost need to give them a mini spreadsheet to press your request.

beggsmoore

I applied and received the Amex SPG Business CC the end of June for 25000. Shortly after that the New 30000 point promo started. I thought that maybe, just maybe if I called Amex and asked if I could be part of the 30000 point promo that they might switch me to the new promo. I called Amex they told me that they had no control over that and I needed to call Starwood Preferred Guest. I called SPG and they insisted that I needed to talk with Amex that they would have to handle it. So today I called both Amex and SPG and have the same responses. So I thought I bet FT can help.
So my question is: does anyone know who I should call about this or should I just give up on what is probably a wild goose chase? I really hate to miss out on the extra 5000 points.
Thanks,
Gary

mia

beggsmoore's question has been appended to the established thread about this offer. Reviewing the earlier posts will show that a number of people contacted American Express, most were denied, a few were awarded a smaller number of points.

It's a credit to American Express's marketing that they have created a mania by offering 5,000 extra points on a card which has a much lower signup bonus than competitive products.

thtsapaddlin

Try sending a secure message via your Amex homepage.

brasov02

Good point. But I also think Amex's marketing team owes a little (lot) of this credit for the SPG card mania to the plethora of bloggers who tend to way over-hype this card.

PaulMSN

Received the initial 10K bonus. I will be receiving another card soon, so it will be tough getting the spend in for both cards at the same time. I have to check if my grocer has gift cards for their store.

Stoughton

Copps/Pick n Save sell Visa GC's with face value up to $500.

Likewise, both Office Depots have the Amex prepaid.

PaulMSN

We have Copps here, although I rarely shop there. Maybe I'll switch grocers if my preferred one doesn't have GCs. I hardly every buy at Office Depot, so that one won't work for me. Thanks for the info.

Stoughton

If you go the Copps route, get their fuel perks card first. You'll get $0.50/gal off for a $500 purchase, so you can pretty much break even if you fill the tank.

Don't try to buy more than 1 at a ttime or it'll cause chaos at the register in terms of needed mgt approvals. (or so it does 15 miles to the south of you where I am)

josephstern

I, for one, am sitting on tons and tons of points and miles for hotels and airlines, but I never, ever have enough SPG points. I never transfer them to airlines anymore, and I could use more for stays, but I just can't scrape enough together. And I really try.

How about some credit to SPG for having reasonable rewards options, and a great portfolio of hotels?

abcx

Exactly the point I made a few posts ago. All thanks to the incessant pimping of this card by bloggers.

To be fair, the bonus is not much worse than other cards - if you include the 5k referral, and convert the 35k SPG at 1.25, you get 44k miles. Now if you value the hotel points even slightly higher, which I would, it's comparable to other cards. And if you can get one of the 50% hotel point bonuses, then it becomes even more valuable (65k US).

And you can stretch the SPG points pretty far by using C&P.

gv111

I wish SPG had an extended stay brand (like Residence Inn). I have ample SPG points but find myself staying away from SPG due to absence of an extended stay brand. Also most of their hotels are geared towards business travelers so it doesn't work well for personal travel and vacations etc. They have a new brand "Element" but it is very limited in terms of locations. I hope they acquire/create a better extended stay brand.

yOyOYoo

Value of each SPG point is subjective.

Usually AMEX Membership Rewards points convert 3:1 SPG point, which is pretty crappy. You could say 30,000 SPG points = 90,000 MR points.

Although in the past AMEX has offered 50% transfer bonuses to SPG in which 2 MR points = 1 SPG point. In this case, you could say 30,000 SPG points = 60,000 MR points.

Either way, it's probably not a good idea to transfer MR points into the SPG program. Probably better to own both an AMEX Charge card and an SPG credit card.

I just wish there was an SPG shopping portal to earn more points per purchase.