American Express cardholders are targeted for numerous AMEX Offers. At any time, most accounts have 100+ available offers. Some offers are general, like the ones I just received for supermarket and insurance charges. Other offers are merchant specific to online retailers or for local shops.
I’ve never seen an offer like this one that showed up in our accounts. It suggested you can get a rebate for spending money in a specific country.
The “Shop in France” offer says if you spend $200 or more you’ll get $40 back, up to 10 times. We aren’t planning a trip to France but I thought this might be of interest to some readers so I looked at the complete offer terms. It looked to the similar “Shop Small” promotion which provided statements when making purchases from small merchants.
As it turns out, AMEX isn’t giving credits for all shopping in France. They’re only giving credits if you spend over $200 at select French merchants. Specifically these:
- Barriere Hotels
- Golden Tulip Hotels
- Hotel Lutetia
- Chateau de Versailles Spectacles
- Le Comptoir du Caviar
- Ducasse Restaurant
- Guerlain
- La Samaritaine
- Printemps Paris
- La Vallee Village
I guess we could go back to see the fountain show at Versailles (Note from Sharon: Maybe the man with the pocketbook won’t be there this time) but that wouldn’t cost anywhere near $200.
For a full list of eligible locations, check out the list at this website.
If you were planning to visit France, it makes sense to sign up for the offer. Just make sure you enroll an AMEX card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees. For other expenses, like transportation fees, it might be best to bring a card with Chip+PIN technology. Finally, make sure that you avoid this tourist scam and have merchants run charges in Euros instead of USD.
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