My Plan to Maximize the New Amex Uber Benefits
New Amex Uber benefits have just been announced. Not surprisingly, Amex is directing more of their rewards for items and services other than travel. These everyday rewards continue the trend with various card issuers, putting more obligation and responsibility on individual cardholders to consume them. Whether any individual everyday reward benefit is useful or not, the tasks of planning and maximizing them can easily wipe out any gain from the actual reward at times. Fortunately, a few simple strategies exist for getting the most out of the new Amex Uber benefits. Let’s reset the new benefits and take a look at easy ways to maximize them!
Some of these Offers and Benefits have changed.
Amex Gold Uber Benefit
Here are the details of the new Amex Gold Uber benefit:
- $10 monthly credit for Uber or Uber Eats
- The perk should start sometime in early 2021, but there’s no specific date yet
- This new benefit is in addition to the current $10 Grubhub, Shake Shack, Ruth’s Chris etc. credit
Maximizing The New Amex Uber Benefits
Amex Gold Uber Benefit
Many of us in the hobby hold multiple personal Amex Gold and/or Platinum cards. Of course, ensure to load your cards to the same Uber account so that you can stack the existing Platinum Uber/Uber Eats $15 benefit with the new Gold $10 benefit. Hopefully, they should stack without issue when you take a ride/order food. I do not have firsthand experience with this as I only have one personal Platinum Uber Eats credit. But what if Amex won’t allow stacking on the same ride/order?
This is where my preference for Uber Eats pickup comes in. I’ll simply make two orders for the same restaurant and pickup time, focusing on hitting exactly the $15 and $10 order amounts separately. No doubt, that’s a bit more work for free food, but I will use my credits while avoiding the service fee. Indeed, I have routinely used this multiple-order method with Amex’s $10 GrubHub benefit and our multiple Gold card accounts to effectively use more credits on the same meal.
For those who plan to use for Uber rides, hopefully the multiple credits stack on one ride. Beyond that, I don’t see any other option beyond taking multiple rides to use the separate credits – perfectly practical for some. And of course, many of you may just have one Gold card account and no Platinum cards that provide additional credits. Your decisions are much simpler, but I’d encourage you to consider pickup on Uber Eats to minimize fees!
My Overall Take
I consider these new benefits a net win for my situation, and I think many would agree. But I’ve heard polarizing opinions regarding these new benefits. Some have absolutely no use for them. On a whole, though, the new benefits strengthen and complement the Platinum Uber benefit many of us already have.
Gold cardholders are simply losing the $100 airline credit and gaining a $120 Uber/Uber Eats credit, although having both in 2021 will be fun. While I’ve had no issue redeeming the airline credits, I frankly have no use for more given the pandemic and my healthy Southwest points balance. The new credit is a bit more work, but I like that it’s something that I can actively consume on a monthly basis rather than the airline credits which I’ve redeemed but not actually consumed. Frankly, the new benefit could be much worse. I haven’t done heavy research, but it seems to me more people use Uber Eats than Peloton (gee, thanks, Chase).
Initially, I groaned at the Uber benefit, considering that we have six cards eligible for this benefit, and some would go unused. But there’s no “loss” at this point with the extras currently, since Amex hasn’t yet removed any benefits . Longer term, we’ll see if/what Amex eliminates to better judge the Uber benefits. Those of you with just one personal Green, Gold, or Platinum card easily win here.
Conclusion
I’ve been focusing more on the increasing trend of everyday rewards for goods and services beyond travel. I enjoy leveraging them to minimize costs and redirect those savings to unrestricted travel or anything else I want! Amex’s new benefits, particularly extra Uber Eats money on our Gold cards, lowers our dining expenses even more. Everyone’s situation is different, so consider what’s best for you or if it’s worth keeping your card(s) at all. What do you think of the new Amex Uber benefits?
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Benjy were you able to get the second Eats Pass to extend the 12 month clock by using another qualifying Amex card to work? My first one ran out, it’s not letting me reset it using one of the other cards. If you were able to get it work, curious to hear how you did it. Many thx
Paul,
We’ve been drowning in so many other credits, I haven’t bothered trying yet. Thanks for the DP on it not working again for you. I’ll plan to update here once I’ve tried everything.
When you say you opened a new uber (eats) account, did you use the same phone #? Did it work? I just turned off auto-renew on my plat card and wanted to start a year with the gold one, but it’s not showing up as an option so I’m looking for a way to get it to kick in. Thanks.
I didn’t mention opening a new Uber account above, merely using another Eats Pass benefit from a different Amex card on my Uber account. I haven’t tried yet, but I would need to use the same phone number in my situation. Of course, if you have access to another phone number to start a new Uber account, that could work.
“I will then plan to activate a second Uber Eats Pass membership (using the credit from another Gold or Platinum) some time after my first Eats Pass membership has ended, but by December 31, 2021. I’m effectively obtaining two years of Eats Pass membership with this strategy.” That was my plan as well, but I can’t get the other card’s benefit to initiate the benefit option. Any luck on your end? Tips appreciated as my first year has expired and all I’m getting is requests to update for $10/month, which I’d never do.
mbh am having same issue per my post to Benjy above. I think the issue is that Uber views setting up a second qualifying Amex card trial on the same account as a violation of their one free trial per account rule, so don’t think this will work. That said I am happy to be wrong!
Thank you for the reminder.
Thank you for the reminder! Mine was due to end on Nov 3 when I checked just now so I cancelled it and it then told me I have the pass until Nov 3rd.
Joey,
I’m glad the reminder helped out!
It’s another devaluation. If the credit was a straight hundred dollars rather than being split into bite sized pieces, it would pretty much be a wash but that’s just not the case. I don’t use Uber much and never use a food delivery service so the value to me is pretty low on this. One alternative would be to offer either the Uber credit or the airline credit so people could pick their poison.
[…] New Amex Uber Benefits: Banks are coming up with clever ways to keep your business, especially in the travel credit card space. Since travel is much more difficult now a days, travel benefits aren’t easily used, so banks are getting creative. […]