Credit Cards

Earn 10k to 20k Membership Rewards by adding authorized users to your Amex Platinum + Gold

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American Express has been on an absolute roll. We’re seeing Amex Platinum new member offers up to 150k, Gold up to 90k, and another round of bonuses given to those who add authorized users just hit. I received the following offer on both my Amex Platinum and my Amex Gold – the biggest thing to pay attention to is the fact that even if you add 5 AUs, you’ll only receive the bonus on the first AU that meets the spend.

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Couple things that will save you money

  • Add Authorized User Gold cards to Amex Plat without a fee
  • Add Authorized User Basic Card to the Amex Gold without a fee

Add an authorized user to your Platinum card and receive 20k Membership Rewards after they spend $2k in 6 months.

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Add an authorized user to your Gold card and earn 10k Membership Rewards after they spend $2k in 6 months:

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That’s an easy 30k points for just $4k spend over the next 6 months by adding my wife!  Again note…you only earn the 20k bonus on the first authorized user.

Direct link to my authorized user offer:

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As I mentioned up above, I was given the option of which kind of card I’d like to add: you can see Gold cards are fee free.

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I don’t see why I wouldn’t take advantage of this offer… 6 months is a generous target to hit $4k spend and 30k Membership Rewards is over 7x return on spend.

Amex Platinum Additional Card Member Terms:

OFFER TERMS

Add one or more new Additional Card Members to your account and you can earn 20,000 Membership Rewards points for the first Additional Card Member that spends $2,000 or more in eligible purchases on their Card within their first 6 months of Card Membership starting from the date on which the Additional Card Member is added. The maximum you can earn as part of this offer is 20,000 Membership Rewards points. Purchases made by other Additional Card Members on your Account will not count toward the $2,000 purchase requirement. Purchases made by eligible Additional Card Members will not be combined to satisfy the $2,000 purchase requirement. Your purchases as the Basic Card Member will not count toward the $2,000 purchase requirement. Eligible purchases are purchases for goods and services minus returns and other credits. Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, cash advances, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchase of gift cards, person-to-person payments, or purchases of other cash equivalents. Additional terms and restrictions apply.

You can earn 20,000 Membership Rewards points after the Additional Card Member spends $2,000 or more on eligible purchases on their Card within their first 6 months of Card Membership starting from the date on which the Additional Card Member is added. In rare instances, the Additional Card Member’s period to spend $2,000 may be shorter than 6 months if there is a delay in receiving their Card. Also, purchases may fall outside of the 6 month period in some cases, such as a delay in merchants submitting transactions to us or if the purchase date differs from the date they made the transaction. (For example, if they buy goods online, the purchase date may be the date the goods are shipped). The 20,000 Membership Rewards® points will be applied 8-12 weeks after the Threshold Amount is met.

If we in our sole discretion determine that you or your Additional Card Members have engaged in abuse, misuse, or gaming in connection with this offer in any way or intend to do so (for example, if you added one or more Additional Cards to obtain an offer(s) that we did not intend for you; or if you or your Additional Card Members cancel or return purchases made to meet the Threshold Amount), we may not credit the Membership Rewards points to, we may freeze the Membership Rewards points credited to, or we may take away the Membership Rewards points from your account. We may also cancel this Card account and other Card accounts you and your Additional Card Members may have with us.

Your account must not be canceled or past due at the time of fulfillment of any offers.
Eligible purchases are purchases for goods and services minus returns and other credits. Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards; person-to-person payments; or purchases of other cash equivalents. Additional terms and limitations apply.

The annual fee for the Platinum Card is $695. The annual fee for Additional Cards is $175 for up to 3 Additional Cards. The annual fee for the 4th or more Additional Cards is $175 for each Card.

There is no additional fee for Gold Cards.

American Express reserves the right to modify or revoke offer at any time.

Terms and Conditions for the Membership Rewards® program apply. Visit membershiprewards.com/terms for more information. Participating partners and available rewards are subject to change without notice.

The value of Membership Rewards points varies according to how you choose to use them. To learn more, go to www.membershiprewards.com/pointsinfo.

Amex Gold Additional Cardmember Terms

OFFER TERMS

Add one or more new Additional Card Members to your account and you can earn 10,000 Membership Rewards points for the first Additional Card Member that spends $2,000 or more in eligible purchases on their Card within their first 6 months of Card Membership starting from the date on which the Additional Card Member is added. The maximum you can earn as part of this offer is 10,000 Membership Rewards points. Purchases made by other Additional Card Members on your Account will not count toward the $2,000 purchase requirement. Purchases made by eligible Additional Card Members will not be combined to satisfy the $2,000 purchase requirement. Your purchases as the Basic Card Member will not count toward the $2,000 purchase requirement. Eligible purchases are purchases for goods and services minus returns and other credits. Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, cash advances, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchase of gift cards, person-to-person payments, or purchases of other cash equivalents. Additional terms and restrictions apply.

You can earn 10,000 Membership Rewards® points after the Additional Card Member spends $2,000 or more on eligible purchases on their Card within their first 6 months of Card Membership starting from the date on which the Additional Card Member is added. In rare instances, the Additional Card Member’s period to spend $2,000 may be shorter than 6 months if there is a delay in receiving their Card. Also, purchases may fall outside of the 6 month period in some cases, such as a delay in merchants submitting transactions to us or if the purchase date differs from the date they made the transaction. (For example, if they buy goods online, the purchase date may be the date the goods are shipped). The 10,000 Membership Rewards® points will be applied 8-12 weeks after the Threshold Amount is met.

If we in our sole discretion determine that you or your Additional Card Members have engaged in abuse, misuse, or gaming in connection with this offer in any way or intend to do so (for example, if you added one or more Additional Cards to obtain an offer(s) that we did not intend for you; or if you or your Additional Card Members cancel or return purchases made to meet the Threshold Amount), we may not credit the Membership Rewards® points to, we may freeze the Membership Rewards® points credited to, or we may take away the Membership Rewards® points from your account. We may also cancel this Card account and other Card accounts you and your Additional Card Members may have with us.

Your account must not be canceled or past due at the time of fulfillment of any offers.
Eligible purchases are purchases for goods and services minus returns and other credits. Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, purchases of gift cards; person-to-person payments;or purchases of other cash equivalents. Additional terms and limitations apply.

American Express reserves the right to modify or revoke offer at any time.

Terms and Conditions for the Membership Rewards® program apply. Visit membershiprewards.com/terms for more information. Participating partners and available rewards are subject to change without notice.

The value of Membership Rewards points varies according to how you choose to use them. To learn more, go to www.membershiprewards.com/pointsinfo.

 

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

15 Comments

  • Kenny February 29, 2024

    American Express Gold: https://americanexpress.com/en-us/referral/KENNYB08Yx?XLINK=MYCP

    The Gold card is currently offering a 60,000 sign up bonus after $6,000 spent in 6 months.

    I find the gold card to be most useful for food purchases, earning 4x points at restaurants and grocery stores. You can recover almost all of the annual fee for the gold card $240 of the $250 if you take advantage of the monthly credits from food delivery and Uber. I like to accumulate additional Amex points by using shopping portals like Rakuten.

  • boniam March 9, 2023

    Here is my link

    https://americanexpress.com/en-us/referral/SMITAKZyRY

    Use an incognito window or mobile for the best offer. Please use mine and post your link after getting your card. Thanks

  • bon January 17, 2022

    Here is my referral link for 75K gold and 125K platinum offer. Use it incognito to get best offer of 75K points for Amex gold.

    http://refer.amex.us/SMITAKYeEu?xl=cp19

    Please post yours after using mine

  • […] Earn 20K MR Points With AUs:  American Express has been pulling out all of their tricks from their bags to earn more customers and to get them to spend more.  With that said, Amex is targeting some users with 20K Membership Rewards if you add authorized users to your Amex Platinum card. […]

  • AS September 23, 2021

    Why do you say 60k total for adding 3 people when it says the most you can earn is 20k?

    • Miles September 23, 2021

      Ah! Amended – it was on oversight

  • […] is a no brainer for me, and is the exact same offer I received for adding users to my Gold card last […]

  • […] this would potentially add on an additional 20k points simply by adding people to your account.  Go here to read all the details – you are responsible for your authorized users and there are rules so read them carefully. […]

  • Brodie February 26, 2019

    LAX-EWR is a poor example to use for redemption. I just looked between now and the end of November and could not find two non stop tickets in either direction for award redemption. Am I missing something?

    • Miles February 26, 2019

      Brodie – it’s a tough one to land for sure. I didn’t check it when I put it in this article, but less than a week ago there were quite a few dates avail when I wrote the 787-10 article. It’s also a route that United marries segments on, so checking it to other east coast destinations that route via EWR may open up space as well. With that said…it’s just an example – plenty of other uses

  • Kyle February 26, 2019

    Miles, in point 2 of the T&C it references max $25K spend at grocery for the 4X points. Do you think the AU gets their own limit of $25K or it’s just the basic cardmember limit of $25K and if you and 4 AU’s each spend $5K at grocery, that hits the $25K limit? Figured it’s worth asking if maybe you get $125K of max grocery spend in that example. Thanks!

    • Miles February 26, 2019

      Hey Kyle – my understanding is it’s capped at $25k

  • Patrick February 26, 2019

    Any idea how this would effect the credit score of the AU? For instance if I add my kids?

    • Miles February 26, 2019

      Patrick – the account will more than likely appear on their credit report. Regarding your kids, Amex does require they be over 13, but otherwise, having kids as an AU helps build their credit by establishing history and can help down the line once they’re applying on their own. One negative is if the card you’ve used for an AU is a charge card there is no increase in total line of credit available and whatever you spend shows up on their credit report as well which could lead to higher utilization rates. If it’s a credit card, that limit will deepen their total line and potentially help utilization. Also…AUs can affect Chase’s infamous 5/24 number so be aware of that. AUs don’t count towards amex’s once per lifetime rule tho.

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