American Express Small Business Saturday 2015
American Express has confirmed on their website that Small Business Saturday will return in 2015. American Express Small Business Saturday will be on Saturday November 28, 2015. Additional details are not known at this time.
Last year American Express announced the details of Small Business Saturday on September 25, meaning it could be a month or more before we know what sort of promotion they will run. As a reminder, American Express has hosted Small Business Saturday on the weekend after Thanksgiving since 2010. The initiative is designed to get consumers to shop at small locally owned businesses. “Shop Small” is the slogan often used.
History of the Promotion
For several years, American Express was offering a $25 credit per card with a $25 purchase at eligible merchants. Then in 2013 things took a turn for the worst when they lowered that credit to just $10. Fortunately, things rebounded a bit in 2014 when American Express offered up to 3 x $10 credits per cards. It was a fairly lucrative day for a lot of us.
What Will Happen This Year
My guess is this year’s promotion will be very similar to last year’s, although that could just be wishful thinking. By allowing for multiple smaller credits, American Express encouraged cardmembers to “share the love” between merchants. I’m sure that most people didn’t maximize the 3 credits on every card like I did, however the promotion no doubt cost American Express a lot of money, so they still could decide to pull back again as well.
Way Too Many Amex Cards
Last year I didn’t have nearly the number of American Express cards available to me as I do this year. For some reason, Amex Offers have really exploded during the past year and thus I have more cards than ever. Something tells me I could spend the better part of that Saturday supporting my local small businesses. Of course, it all depends on the details of the promotion.
Conclusion
For now all we know is that Small Business Saturday will happen. Since the promotion is just one part of the incentive, I suppose there is still a chance that American Express won’t be giving credits this year, however I doubt that will happen. I am fairly certain we will see some sort of a promotion, now lets just cross our fingers for 3 x $25 per card! 🙂 Ah dreams.
HT: PDXDealsGuy via Travel Codex
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Hubby and I moved from the ‘Burbs to an urban neighborhood the week before Thanksgiving last year. We walked all over our new neighborhood’s business district buying $10 gift cards to use later. It was fun. I hope it is similar this year.
Happy to hear it’s back! Have 22 cards itching for usage (at least half are Serve). Last year I only had half a dozen lol.
Man. You have that many Serve cards? So jealous. Gives you a lot of easy liquidation methods. I need to get extended family involved!
That or keep all the sub-accounts straight (which I’m betting he does instead)
Thats a great point Mike. AMEX Serve/CC AU Sub-accounts is honestly a MS AMEX Sync Offer WMD Weapon of Mass Destruction. You can seriously clean house and pillage stores.
I’m tired and it’s probably going right over my head, but what does keep them straight mean?
Means you got the system on LOCK-DOWN LIKE A BOSS.
just having 3~4 of the same family members on each others account, scales up fast
Haha thanks for the clarification.
I only intend to use cards in my name or my wife’s, including a lot of subserve cards. I can only hope there’s no changes to the terms and Serve between now and then!
I told the wife to put it in the calendar for at least half the day no family stuff lol. Us MS’ers take this stuff seriously and no family get together is going to get in the way of a bunch of free stuff :p
I believe family MS is one of the greatest forms of intimate family time. So you are actually doing both. No different than family Black Friday, Family Game Night, Family Strategy Sessions for XMas shopping etc. If anything, the payoff for family MS scaling is much gratifying.
🙂
Haha while on a vacation trip to Monterey (aquarium, beach, first real trip with our daughter) my wife didn’t particularly enjoy going through 12 cards at Smart and Final back in June to wrap up the Amex Offer. She had our 1 year old strapped to her kicking and pinching while the cashier input the wrong split tender amount and had the manager come over and scold her and apologize after the ordeal.
So yeah it’s a family event but made much more interesting with babies. I’m sure Shawn can vouch for this as well. I bet there’s a strong correlation between pajama MS and #of children. 🙂
Suffice to say my wife understands the benefits but does not share my enthusiasm and excitement when everything goes smoothly. Had to remind her the trip was free and that we were off to the aquarium after!
Just a quick tip for readers here:
Get ready for AMEX to “make it rain” with promos/offers/deals/etc.
This year was only tip of the iceberg. Its not an “accident” or due to all the negative outcomes for AMEX (i.e. Costco). Its about creating a “moat” of hardcore competitive advantage. I suggest people follow analyst reports. If the Costco portfolio was so critical, AMEX would not have walked away. Remember, those talks were going on many years ago. Look out next year towards the finalization of the Costco portfolio w/ Citi and FY16 Q1 earnings report, AMEX is going hardcore for customer acquisition and retention. People like us will all benefit from this so be ready for some unprecedented situations.
And so it begins… AGC Promotions + Amex Platinum 100K & Business Gold 75K.
Very nice Mr. AMEX. I see what youre doing here and I like it.