[Update: DEAD] How I Automated My Twitter Accounts to Sync With Amex Offers

Auto Sync Twitter for Amex Offers

Update: As of January 2018 You can no longer load Amex Offers via Twitter. Read more here.

Yesterday I awoke to a terrible message. A friend had texted me just after Midnight Pacific to tell me of the Staples Amex Offer, but alas I had slept through it. By the time I awoke and saw the message, the offer had ended and I was out in the cold. That was hundreds of dollars out the window.

The other day I wrote about how I was ramping up my Twitter accounts in an effort to finally streamline everything. Part of that streamlining involves auto syncing Twitter with these offers so I don’t miss out. Clearly my manual method failed. Yesterday’s fiasco motivated me to finally get everything up and running. Here is how I did it. (Warning this is a little long, but I decided to break it down step by step for you.)

Multiple Twitter Accounts

Before I talk about the auto-syncing, I want to mention something about getting multiple Twitter accounts. The other day I published an article about tricks to get around Twitter’s mandatory phone verification. Since then, I have discovered two new ways to get multiple accounts. One came from readers and the other I stumbled up myself.

The first method involves manually removing your phone number from an account before signing up for a new one. This way you can use your phone to verify each and every account. I haven’t personally tested this, but a few people have confirmed that it works.

The second method I stumbled upon myself yesterday. It is what I used to finish my Twitter signups. You can easily signup through the Twitter app on Android or iPhone without using your phone number. If you simply signup and then uninstall the app and reinstall it, you can sign up again. I found this to be fairly quick and easy. Certainly better than switching IP addresses etc. (You also may be able to clear the app’s data, but that didn’t work for me for some reason.)

Setting Up Twitter Accounts for Auto Sync

To start, I carefully read articles by Doctor of Credit and Julian the Devil’s Advocate regarding methods for auto-syncing. These guys really put in a lot of legwork and should be commended for it.  Let me break down their methods:

• Doctor of Credit suggests creating an IFTTT account for each Twitter account and using an “if this then that” statement to have your account repost what the @Offersbot account posts.
• Julian puts forth three methods, but I focused on option 1. It too includes multiple IFTTT accounts, however he suggests creating one master account that tweets whatever @Offersbot tweets. He then suggests pointing all of your other Twitter accounts to the master account.

I decided to go with Julian’s method for two reasons. First, if @Offersbot goes away and is replaced with another account, I only need to change the IFTTT setting for my master account. Second, once this is setup, I can also manually send a tweet from the master account which will go out to all of the other accounts. In other words, I have more control.

Setting Up the Master Account

Note: Before beginning any of this, you should create all of your Twitter accounts and link each one to a corresponding card. 

For my master, I decided to create a new Twitter account that wasn’t synced to any cards. I use the same naming convention for all of my accounts. It is a phrase followed by the last four digits of the card number. In the case of the master account, it is the same phrase followed by the word master.

After setting up the master account on Twitter, you must go to IFTTT and create an account that will be linked to your master Twitter account. Go to IFTTT and click the big blue Signup button. The only required pieces of information are your email address and password.

Since most of you won’t have an enough email addresses, there is a nice trick you can use. I have an email address that is the same phrase that I use for my Twitter account. Gmail automatically ignores anything after the “+” sign. So if the last four digits of my card number are 0000 then the email I use to signup is myemail+0000@gmail.com. You can see how this works for the master account above.

Once you have logged in, you simply need to load my recipe to your account by clicking this link. After clicking the link you will be asked to authorize IFTTT on your Twitter account and then you will see the recipe. Click “Add” to activate it.

Your master account will now automatically copy the text of any tweet from SyncAssist that contains the offer. Congratulations. Now if you want, you could do this same thing for each of your Twitter accounts and be done, but I don’t think that is ideal. Lets now look at how to point all of your other accounts to this master account.

Incognito/Private Mode

It generally is a good idea to do this process for each account in private/incognito mode. This will allow you to close the window in between account without having to logout of all of your accounts since the sessions will be lost when you close the incognito mode.

Setting Up Other Accounts

Now it is time to setup all of your other Twitter accounts to point to your master account. In essence, your master account tweets the text from @Offersbot and your other accounts tweet the text from your master account. It does work well once you get it setup.

• Open an incognito window and sign-in to one of your Twitter accounts and then go to IFTTT in a new tab on the same incognito session and sign-up for an account as described above. Once signed up click on “My Recipes”

• On the “My Recipes” page you are going to click “Create a Recipe”. You will now be on a screen that says “If This Then That”. Click the word “This”.

• You will now see a ton of icons for different services. Scroll down until your see the little Twitter birdie and click on it. We are only going to be dealing with Twitter today.

• It is now time to connect your Twitter account (that you logged into at the beginning) to your IFTTT account. Click a few buttons and it will all be connected.

• You now need to create a trigger. To do this, click the “New tweet by a specific user” button.

• It will ask for the account you want to trigger this action. Simply type in the account name with nothing else. For example, if the account name is “masteraccount” then you type in masteraccount as shown below. Click “Create Trigger” when that is done.

• Now it is time to tell IFTTT what to do when that account tweets. Click “That”.

• Once again you have to scroll through all of the icons and click the little Twitter birdie. After doing that you will be on the “Choose an Action” screen. Click “Post a Tweet”.

• The default tweet will have the username of your master account and text. You want to remove “Username” since you don’t want it to spam your master account with @mentions. By just leaving “Text”, your sub account will simply tweet the text and nothing else.

• Once the box only shows “text” (like in the image below) click the “Create Action” button.

• You will now see your entire recipe. At this point you should choose a memorable title and then click “Create Recipe”.

• This is dragging out isn’t it? Well you are almost done. You will now be on the recipes screen, click the little pencil icon next to your newly created recipe.

• You must now publish your recipe so you can easily use it on all of your other Twitter accounts. On the next screen click “Publish” and then review the information on the following screen. If it is correct, then click “Publish Recipe”!

• Now that the recipe is published, you should be on the “My Recipes” screen. If you are not on the “My Recipes” screen that navigate there by clicking on the top menu. Once on “My Recipes” click the “Published” tab.

• You should see your recipe listed. Simply click on it and you will arrive at a screen with your recipe listed and a big “Add” button. Copy and paste the URL somewhere. This is the link that you will use to add this recipe to all of your other accounts.

• Congratulations. You have done it. The entire process really only takes a couple of minutes.

Testing

Now that you have setup this recipe, it is advisable to test it before linking it to more accounts. To test, simply send a tweet from your master account to see if your other account sends the same tweet. It can take a couple of minutes, but you should eventually see the same thing word for word.

Setting Up More Accounts

Now that you have setup your recipe and tested it, all you have to do is follow a quick process for each of your other accounts. Once you get the hang of things it will take only 1-2 minutes per account. Here is the process:

• Open a new incognito window
• Sign in to your Twitter account.
• Go to IFTTT and signup for a new account.
• Copy and paste the URL of your recipe.
• Link your Twitter account.
• Activate the recipe.
• Close out the window and start over.

Also make sure to verify the email address for each IFTTT account at some point.

Potential Issues

I did this for a lot of accounts in a short period of time. For that reason I think Twitter flagged my master account (and a couple of my other accounts) as potential spam or automated accounts. To clear this flag I had to login and give my phone number. I was then sent a text message code to verify I was a human. I was able to use my cell number even though it is linked to another account.

Final Testing

Once all of my accounts were setup, I tested the entire system by sending out an Amex Offer hashtag tweet. This way I could see if each account properly reported back and if I received the appropriate response from Amex Offers. I can report that sending out the tweet from my master triggered the tweet on all subaccounts. Success!!!!!!!!!!!

Conclusion

This is just one way to automate things. Doctor of Credit’s way is simpler, although it gives you less control. While this is very close to Julian’s first option, he also presents two others as well. Hopefully this walkthrough helps a few people understand this process. I think it is complicated enough to scare most people away, but the truly dedicated should be able to get through it.

Do you have a different method? Let me know in the comments. Free-quent Flyer also says he will be writing something up soon about how he is doing it. More options and more information is always a good thing! Happy syncing.

Disclosure: Miles to Memories has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Miles to Memories and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

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