If you have an American Express card and you’re not using Amex Offers, you may be leaving real money on the table.
Amex Offers are targeted promotions attached to your American Express login. When you add an offer to your card and then make an eligible purchase, American Express will usually give you either:
- a statement credit (example: “Spend $50, get $10 back”), or
- extra points/miles (example: “Earn +5X points at this merchant”).
Since plenty of Amex cards come with annual fees, Amex Offers can be one of the easiest ways to offset those costs — especially if you’re already going to spend money with those merchants anyway.
What Amex Offers are (and what they aren’t)
Think of Amex Offers as “opt-in coupons” that sit inside your account. They’re not automatically applied, and they’re not guaranteed to appear for everyone.
Also, don’t confuse Amex Offers with the built-in statement credits that some cards include (monthly/quarterly credits, airline-fee credits, etc.). Those are separate benefits, though they may appear in the same general “Offers & Benefits” area of your account.
The #1 rule: add the offer first
This is the part that trips people up:
You must add the offer to your card BEFORE you pay.
If you make the purchase first and then try to add the offer afterward, you generally shouldn’t expect it to count.
Where to find Amex Offers
The easiest way to see your offers is to log in to your American Express account and scroll to the Amex Offers & Benefits section. You can usually click “View All” or “Load More” to see additional offers.
You can also do this in the Amex mobile app:
- Open the app
- Tap Offers
- Tap the + (or “Add to Card”) on any offer you want
If you have multiple Amex cards, check each one
Amex Offers are often different from card to card — even if they’re under the same login.
And here’s the catch: you add an offer to a specific card, and you must use that same card to redeem it. Offers aren’t automatically shared across cards and they’re not transferable after the fact.
So if you see a great offer show up on more than one card, you may have to decide which card gets it — especially if your plan is to make just one purchase.
Additional Card Members can help you double-dip (sometimes)
If you have multiple cards on the same account (spouse, partner, etc.), each card can have its own set of offers. That can be useful because it sometimes lets you take advantage of similar deals more than once.
For example, I have an Amex Platinum, and my wife Sharon is an additional cardholder. If an offer appears on both cards, we can add it separately and potentially use it twice (once per card), as long as we follow each offer’s terms.
One important detail: even if an Additional Card Member makes the purchase, the credit/points typically post to the primary (Basic) Card Member’s account.
How to actually maximize Amex Offers
Most offers won’t be relevant. The value comes from spotting the ones you can use with little or no behavior change.
- Add anything you might use later. Many offers don’t cost you anything to add, and you’ll be happy it’s there when you need it.
- Read the terms before you buy. The biggest “gotchas” are exclusions (third-party sellers, gift cards, subscriptions, etc.).
- Watch for online-only vs. in-store-only. Some offers are picky about where and how you pay.
- Don’t split payment methods if you’re trying to hit a minimum spend threshold — only the portion charged to the enrolled card typically counts.
- Expect a delay. Some credits post quickly, others take weeks. Save your screenshots and confirmation emails just in case.
Why it’s worth the effort
It only takes a few minutes to scroll through your offers and add the ones you’ll actually use. If you grab just a handful of good ones each year, you can easily come out ahead — especially on cards with annual fees.
To me, Amex Offers are basically free money. Not because you should spend more, but because you can get rewarded for spending you were already going to do anyway.
More details about the program can be found directly from American Express at this link.
Final Thought
If you’re already paying for an Amex card (or even if you’re not), it’s worth making “check Amex Offers” a quick habit. The best offers don’t always repeat — and the easiest credits are the ones you catch before you check out.
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