AmEx Starts to Have “Up To XXX” Wording in Welcome Offer – US Credit Card Guide

Since we updated the new link for the 150k welcome bonus for the AmEx Platinum a few days ago, many attentive readers have discovered that the terms of this 150k offer are written as ‘Up to 150,000’, followed by ‘Find out your welcome offer if you’re approved.’ This means that you only find out how much of a welcome bonus you will receive after you apply and are approved by AmEx! This is quite disgusting.

It seems that this phenomenon can be traced back to a few weeks ago, when juanxincai from USCardForum first posted about this new term. In his post, he shared a link to the terms, which everyone should be able to see without needing to use incognito mode:

Up to 150,000 Membership Rewards^® Points Welcome Offer

After you submit your application and before you accept the Card (if you are approved), we will tell you the exact amount of Membership Rewards^®Points which you are eligible to earn, which will be an amount up to 150,000 points. To qualify for such points, you must spend $8,000 (the “Threshold Amount”) or more in eligible purchases on your Platinum Card^® from American Express within the first 6 months of Platinum Card^® from American Express Card Membership starting from the date that your account is opened. Eligible purchases can be made by the Basic Card Member and any Additional Card Members on a Card Account. 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. Points will be credited to your Membership Rewards account within 8-12 weeks after you meet the Threshold Amount. Your Card Account must not be canceled or past due at the time of fulfillment of any offers.

At present, I have not seen actual data points yet. I personally guess that it wouldn’t be the case that after applying they tell you the welcome offer is actually 0, but could they tell you the welcome offer is only the usual 80k offer? If you have applied for this offer, please share your data points here in the comment section!

If you like this post, don’t forget to give it a 5 star rating!