American Express Credit Cards
Along with Chase, Amex issues many of the most valuable travel and reward cards.
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Personal Cards
Business Cards
Amex Airline and Hotel Cards (Personal)
Amex Airline and Hotel Cards (Business)
Other Cards
- Cash Magnet Card. A 1.5% cashback card isn't very interesting. But, the card does come with a somewhat interesting signup bonus. You get $150 after spending $1,000 (during the first three months) and another $150 if you spend a total of $7,500 in the first year.
- Plum Business Card. The Plum Card doesn't offer traditional rewards. But it provides 1.5% cashback if you pay your balance within 10 days of your statement closing date. As long as you remember to pay early, it works just like any other 1.5% cards.
- Lowe's Business Rewards Card. 3% back at restaurants, office supply stores, and wireless phone service. 2% back at Lowes. There are plenty of cards with better rewards for these categories (and that won't take up one of your Amex credit card slots.
Amex Rules and Tips
- American Express operates its own reward program called Membership Rewards, which earns points that can be transferred to a couple of dozen different frequent flyer programs. It is the clear best program for earning points for frequent flyer tickets, due to its large number of transfer partners, occasional transfer bonuses, and greatly increased ability to earn points from signup and referral bonuses. But unlike Ultimate Rewards, the best you can usually do with other redemptions is 1 cent per point (unless you have the Business Platinum Card or the Schwab Platinum Card).
- You can usually only earn a signup bonus for any specific American Express card once per lifetime—it is often worthwhile to wait for a good offer. The actual rule is that you can't earn a signup bonus for a card that you have had before, regardless of whether you previously earned a signup bonus or not. However, many targeted offers bypass this limitation, allowing you to earn a bonus a second time (you need to check to see if the fine print mentions the once-per-lifetime limitation or check with an American Express phone representative).
- Even if you've never had the card before, Amex may limit your ability to collect the signup bonus, based on your credit card application history. If so, they will pop-up a warning during the application process. You can still get the card, but you won't be eligible for the signup bonus.
- You can only have five Amex CREDIT cards at any one time. This counts both personal and business credit cards. Amex issues two types of cards: "credit cards" and "charge cards". The charge cards, primarily the various flavors of the Platinum, Gold, and Green cards (except the personal Green card), don't count against the 5 credit cards limit. In other words, you can have 5 credit cards, in addition to as many charge cards as you want. Dealing with the Amex 5 Credit Card Limit.
- You can have multiple versions of the same card. For example, if you wanted to earn two Hilton hotel certificates each year, you could have two copies of the Hilton Surpass card. You would usually just earn a signup bonus for one of them.
- If you are initially declined, there is a good chance that you can still get the card if you call their reconsideration line. You just may need to make a few changes to your accounts.
- You should almost always make sure to earn a referral bonus on every credit card application. Unlike the other credit card companies, you can earn referral points when your friend gets ANY Amex credit card, not just one of the cards you already have. For example, you might earn a 20,000 point Membership Rewards bonus from your Platinum Card, when you refer a friend and they wind up getting one of the Hilton cards (your friend receives the normal Hilton signup offer). Don't refer yourself for a card, but you should still be safe to refer a spouse.
- You can only downgrade cards within the same family. And you can only downgrade credit cards to other credit cards and charge cards to other charge cards. However, many of their families are quite large, and contain no-annual-fee options.
- Amex is often generous with retention offers. You can often get a new offer every few months, not just once per year.
- Advanced details. You can only get approved for two credit cards every 90 days and one card every five days. But there is no hard rule for charge cards. If you are declined for a card, Amex will usually only make a "soft" inquiry. They will NOT usually match a higher signup bonus that becomes available after you sign up for the card. Amex will sometimes send a new card by priority mail.
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You can also sometimes earn a bonus for upgrading one of your cards to a more expensive card, even if you had previously earned a signup bonus for the card you are upgrading to.
Even if you have multiple businesses, with separate EINs, you still can't earn a signup bonus for a card you've had before (except through certain targeted offers). Business and personal cards are considered separate cards, so you can earn the bonus on a business card, even if you've already earned the bonus on the personal card and vise versa.
In rare cases, Amex may alert you during the signup process that while you can apply for the card, you won't receive the signup bonus (even though you've never had the card before). If you see this alert, you can try applying without the referral link. In some instances, you will then be entitled to the signup bonus (but you'll unfortunately miss out on the referral).
If you need to talk to a representative, you can take advantage of myFico.com's list of backdoor phone numbers. These, often unpublished, phone numbers will get you directly to more experienced credit card company employees that may be better able to provide assistance.