American Express Pay Over Time 10K Membership Rewards Offers
If you have received an American Express pay over time 10K offer then you probably love them as much as I do. It is like getting an unexpected present from a visiting relative when you were a kid. There is nothing easier out there than Amex pay over time offers. They give you 10,000 Membership Rewards points for saying you are okay with maybe paying for your charges over time. They are offering you value as a cardmember, by allowing you to pay for things over time, but then they pay you just to consider it. Crazy! I know that paying for anything over time is a bad idea because of interest but they could just automatically offer it on the card like everyone else. There is no reason to offer 10,000 valuable Membership Rewards points.
It is a strange place for American Express to be since they never used to allow cardholders to carry a balance. Then they got into credit cards to go along with their charge cards and the waters were muddied. Amex must have seen the money they can make being a long term lender. These offers are always a welcomed sight in our house and I have racked up 50,000 free and easy points over the last few years from them. While racking up the 50,000 points I have noticed a trend develop.
What Prompts Pay Over Time Offers?
No one really knows why some people get these pay over time offers and others don’t. Heck people will get the offer for one charge card and not the other. Is it random, a luck of the draw, or does Amex have a grander plan?
A pattern has developed, with our offers at least. They have all come within a month or so of when the annual fee posts. Sometimes they even come the month the annual fee posts.
I had one such occurrence with my wife’s Green charge card last year. It still makes me depressed thinking about it. I had a few days remaining before the annual fee payment was due so I cancelled the card ensuring the charge would be credited before the due date. Wouldn’t you know it the 10K pay over time offer came in the snail mail the very next day. One came for my Gold card at the same time which lessened the blow some but that was an easy 10K that I missed out on by mere hours.
I have received the pay over time offers via email and regular mail. More have come via email though. One offer came from a link posted that you were able to check if any of your cards were targeted.
Conclusion
Two people do not make a trend but I found it interesting that I always received the offers right around the time our annual fees post. And sometimes on the second annual fee for the card. I ended up keeping my Ameriprise Personal Platinum card last year after my retention phone call. I received the pay over time offer this year instead of during the first year.
I would like for the amazing readers out there to share your experiences in the comments section. Have you noticed a similar trend where the offer comes right before your annual fee posts? Maybe Amex is taking a page out of Barclaycard’s book? Trying to entice us to stick around for another year with their points offers.
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[…] Frequent Miler and Miles to Memories noticed that they were targeted for generous AMEX bonus offers near their account’s […]
Just received the offer yesterday on my business platinum. It was listed under my offers. No email or snail mail – at least not yet. My card renews in December.
Nice – I have not had it show up in my Amex Offers before. I guess I need to check there more now 🙂
I got a letter once where amex said they would enroll me in it unless I opted out. No bonus offer.
Never got any bonus.
I have not heard of that before – that is more along the line of what you would expect from issuers though
I was enrolled on my plat and two different PRGs. I wasn’t even given the option to opt out perse. I called in and they removed it, but also said if I opted out I could not opt back in in the future. I’ve never seen the 10k offer :’-(.
Well that blows.
Just got mine too. Got a few months to go before renewing the card.
Thanks for the DP
Received the offer approx. 6 months into the first year of holding the Gold Biz card. Not much spend after hitting the minimum for signup bonus.
Interesting – thanks David.