Amex Blue Cash Bonus Offers
American Express has upped the bonus on both the Blue Cash Everyday and Blue Cash Preferred cards. This new bonus isn’t quite typical, so we’ll have to break it down to see if it makes sense.
Amex Blue Cash Everyday
The Offer
Apply by 1/11/17 to earn 10% back on Amazon.com purchases on the Card within the first 6 months of Card Membership, up to $200 plus earn $100 back after you spend $1,000 in purchases on the Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership.
Application Link
Card Benefits
- 3% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6K per year in spend
- 2% cash back at U.S. gas stations and select U.S. department stores
- 1% cash back everywhere else
- No annual fee
Analysis
This is a good no annual fee card if you are looking to get some Amex Offers, etc. but it is far from their best product. The $100 spend bonus is normal for this card, so the increased offer is the 10% back at Amazon. Considering you can always get 5X on Amazon purchases by purchasing Amazon gift cards at Staples, this extra $200 has limited value overall.
The best overall offer I have seen on this card is a $250 cash bonus after $1K spend, but it hasn’t been around for a year or so. Sometimes you can get a better deal by visiting the application page in incognito mode, but I haven’t seen recent data points if this card is working with that. I tried several different browsers in private/incognito today and always saw this new offer.
Amex Blue Cash Preferred
The Offer
Earn $150 back after you spend $1,000 in purchases on the Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership plus, when you apply by 1/11/17 earn 10% back on purchases at Amazon.com on the Card within the first 6 months of Card Membership, up to $200.
Application Link
Card Benefits
- 6% cash back at U.S. supermarkets on up to $6K per year in spend
- 3% cash back at U.S. gas stations and select U.S. department stores
- 1% cash back everywhere else
- $95 annual fee
Analysis
As you can probably tell, the main difference between this and the Blue Cash Everyday card is 6% at grocery and 3% at gas and department stores. In exchange for those increased bonuses you pay a $95 annual fee, but can add authorized user cards and get Amex Offers which can help to offset that. Basically, this bonus works the same as the one above. The normal $150 spending bonus is in place plus the Amazon.com kicker.
The best offer I have seen on this card was also $250 after $1K spend. It has been about a year since that has surfaced. Just as with the Blue Cash Everyday, I was not able to get a better offer to show up in incognito mode when trying today. My analysis for the value of the Amazon.com cashback stands the same.
Conclusion
These cards serve their purpose in the American Express lineup, but for those invested in the Membership Rewards ecosystem the Everyday cards may be of a better value and for those looking at these cards, I would look mostly at the cash sign-up and discount the Amazon cashback since you can easily get 5% from Discover or 5X if you buy Amazon gift cards with a Chase Ink.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
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its very clear the marketing dollars are working. lets hope its a huge blowout party soon…