Amex Cardholders Can Now Earn Up to 30K Points for Each Referral
American Express has a great referral system. You can refer people to almost any American Express credit card, and you can net some sweet referral bonuses as well. Just make sure to stay away from self referrals, as we have often mentioned here on the site. Just have a friend or family member refer you, or vice versa.
You can find referral links here. The amount you earn for every referral varies from one account to the other. It could be cash, Membership Rewards points, or hotel and airline rewards.
Update 8/16/22: More people have been reporting seeing increased offers again. (HT DDG)
45K Referrals
Some Membership Rewards cardholders are seeing some amazing new bonuses for referring friends. The referral bonus has been increased to a whopping 45,000 Membership Rewards points for each person you refer and is approved for a new card. That is the type of bonus you wouldn’t mind for a new card, but instead you can just get it for referring someone.
The annual limit for referral bonuses is still at 55,000 points for each card that you refer from. But you can now maximize it with just 2 referrals. This seems to be targeted, so check your accounts and hopefully you have the increased bonus there.
Tax Implications
American Express has been reporting referral bonuses as taxable income, whether it’s cash or points. You will receive a Form 1099-MISC for these points. Based on last year, each American Express Membership Rewards points is valued at 1 cent for tax purposes.
Conclusion
This is as good as it gets for referral bonuses. 45,000 Membership Rewards points are worth $675 if you value your MR points at 1.5 cents, and you are getting them just for referring someone to sign up for a new cards. This is a great opportunity to apply for cards that normally don’t have a big welcome offer such as Blue Business Plus, or it can make the increased offers for the Amex Gold or Platinum cards much better.
Let us know in the comments if you see the 45K referral bonus in your accounts!
We just got Amex Gold a couple weeks ago. I went to the Refer a Friend link and it says my card is not eligible to participate. Any ideas why?
Sometimes it can take new accounts a bit to add the refer a friend option
My account doesn’t have any referral link available when I click “refer a friend” even though I have both an AMEX Platinum and AMEX Gold. Any insight or feedback as to why? It only has a referral link for the Delta AMEX card I have. Thanks in advance.
Amex has been playing games with people’s referrals. Some of my cards don’t have them either. Seems to be YMMV / luck of the draw these days.
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i have vanilla platinum card, delta platinum card and no annual fee hilton card but I can only generate a referral for the hilton card. So disappointing. I never self referred but have referred to my wife a couple of times before she entered pop up jail 2 1/2 years ago. My wife has Rose Gold, delta platinum and no annual fee hilton and she also can only generate a referral for her hilton card. She also never self referred but did refer me a couple of times before I entered pop up jail 1 1/2 years ago.
Alas nothing great here – 5K referrals on Amex Plat and Delta cards, and $125 on Blue Cashback card.
I had some increased ones 20K (previous 15K) but none of that 35K goodness.
Yep — I have the 30k for referral of 60k.
Nice!!
wife has 25k on Gold card, “Your friend will receive an offer to earn $600 in rewards value in the form of either Membership Rewards points and/or statement credits”
if she refers me for the gold card, the $600 will be 60k pts instead? is this a card that’s not under 4-card limit?
That is correct, that card is not under the 4 card limit.