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I love Amex Offers, and they love me.
A couple of months ago I was targeted with an offer from Intermedia= Spend $200 get 20k bonus Membership Rewards. Pretty sweet deal, right? Effectively, this is straight up buying points for a penny each if you discard the product altogether. As soon as I saw the offer I immediately went to Intermedia to get in on the deal. The problem? It was email, and it was billed monthly. I initially thought I’d purchase full year plans assuming that they would bill for the entire year upfront. Wrong. They discount the monthly billing by a $1, but continue to bill you monthly for a year. HMPH!
This would mean I’d need a lot of accounts.
Matters were made worst when I discovered they prorated the first month’s fee, which meant I’d either have to purchase MORE accounts if I were to buy late in the month and still crack $200 needed to greenlight the offer, or wait until the next month started. I figured if they were pro-rating the first month, it meant billing occurred on the 1st of the month, and if I bought late in the month I wouldn’t have a lot of time to cancel all of those accounts before getting billed again.
Honestly, this was beginning to be more work than I’d really wanted.
But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy Membership Rewards so cheaply. I decided if I was going to do it, I’d do it at the beginning of July, August, or September. I totally forgot about it in July, but for whatever reason, a few days ago, the deal popped into my head and I went for it. Here’s how I (hopefully) bought 20k Amex Membership Rewards for $201.16
Here’s the offer:
And the various email plans offered by Intermedia
As I’d mentioned above, Intermedia pro-rates the monthly billing. Since I was looking on August 4th it would only bill me for the remaining days of the month. I punched the numbers and found 15 Cloud Email + Backup accounts to be the best.
I also presume this means that my next month’s bill will hit the card on the first day of the month, and I’d need to cancel the account before then to avoid double the cost of my points.
You’ll go through some brief setup stuff and then you’ll proceed to Review & Checkout. The Pro-rated bill is factored in, and it totaled $201.16
You want to make sure you setup your own account, otherwise you won’t get billed until your email is setup, and you’ll be contacted by Intermedia.
You can see in the terms and conditions that you are able to cancel the service, and do it online. Great!
If this wasn’t explicitly stated…there wouldn’t be any reason to execute this offer without a need for a lot of email.
That was enough for me. I bought.
Right now I have a pending purchase for $1.
Per a reader on FrequentMiler this seems to be normal and after a few days the pending charge falls off and the bill goes through, Amex points get credited.
May 31st was a business day, so I’m hoping mine fall off early this week after a few business days have passed.
I’ll keep you guys updated. But fingers crossed it works and I just bought 20k Amex Membership Rewards for $201.16
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card went through a major refresh in 2026 adding new bonus categories, travel protections, statement credits, and remains one of the best travel starter cards in the market. It 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. Note that Hyatt is now a 4:3 transfer partner
Welcome Offer
Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account openingÂ
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
Earn
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travelâ„
- NEW ACCELERATED EARN CATEGORY: 3x points on gas and EV charging
- NEW ACCELERATED EARN CATEGORY: 3x points on vacation homes at top brands
- Cardmembers will earn 3x points on vacation homes at these top brands: Airbnb, Vrbo, Plu Guide, HomeAway, Homestay.com and Vacasa.
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 2x on all other travel
- 1x on everyday purchases
- 5x points on Lyft rides Earn 5x total points on eligible Lyft rides including ride share, bike and scooter rides and subscription and membership products through September 30, 2027.
- 5x total points on Peloton equipment Earn 5x total points on eligible Peloton equipment and accessory purchases over $150 through December 31, 2027.
Benefits and Credits
- $100 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travelâ„
- NEW: $120 Global Entry, TSA PreCheck or NEXUS fee credit Cardmembers will receive one statement credit of up to $120 every four years as reimbursement for the application fee charged to the card.
- NEW: Complimentary Apple TV subscription for one year
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Complimentary DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees & lower service fees for a min. of one year when you activate by 12/31/27. Plus, a $10 promo each month on non-restaurant orders
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:Â
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.Â
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is great 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: Chase Ink Business Cash® , Chase Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into the Sapphire Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee remains quite low at $95 a year and if you use the $100 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travelâ„ you’ll wipe out that annual fee every year. It has great bonus categories and other useful statement credits to enhance your travel.
One thing that is a bummer is Chase lowered the transfer ratio to World of Hyatt from 1:1 to 4:3.Â
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.