For years, savvy travelers have embarked on a scavenger hunt in search of the biggest possible American Express welcome offer. Depending on where (and how) you looked, you might see two or three offers for the same card at any given time. While Amex never advertised these better offers, with a little effort, you could reliably unlock a far bigger bonus than what was publicly advertised.
But now, that strategy is getting harder: Amex recently started rolling out new “As High As” offers … and it’s bad news for points and miles enthusiasts.
Instead of showing you the welcome offer upfront, Amex now displays a teaser: You could earn as high as 100,000 points after spending $6,000 in the first six months on the *amex gold*. Or as high as 175,000 points after spending $8,000 in the first six months on *amex platinum*.
But there's a catch: You won't know what offer (if any) you're eligible for until you apply. After you submit your application – but before you accept the card (if you are approved) and your credit score is pulled – Amex will let you know the exact welcome offer you are eligible for.
Thankfully, with Amex’s Apply with Confidence feature, there’s no harm in checking. You can complete the application, see the exact offer available to you, and then choose to accept or decline it. They will only pull your credit and process the application if you choose to accept the offer. But by that point, you’ve already invested your time and energy into the process, and odds are, that’s precisely what Amex is counting on.
It’s a new strategy, likely being powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, and it's coming straight from Amex’s top brass. At a recent investor conference, Amex Chief Financial Officer Christophe Le Caillec explained it like this: “We want to find the exact point that will take you over and make you react to an offer – not below, not too high, just the perfect offer.”
Translation? This isn’t a glitch, and Amex certainly isn't giving you more points out of the goodness of their hearts. The bank wants to show you a welcome offer just big enough to get you to apply – no more, no less. That will no doubt be good for their bottom line, but it’s a clear step in the wrong direction for travelers trying to maximize their points haul.
Related Reading: How Amex Has Turned Welcome Bonuses into a Treasure Hunt
Why This is a Problem for Points & Miles Fans
For years, the points and miles playbook has been simple: to get the best Amex welcome offer bonuses, you likely needed to use a personal referral link, click through in an incognito browser, or wait for an elevated public welcome offer.
But these new “As High As” offers flip that script on its head. Instead of knowing what offer you’ll get, Amex is dangling a maximum potential bonus, but keeping your actual offer hidden until after you’ve committed to apply.
That means hunting for the biggest offer on Amex cards may soon be a thing of the past. In fact, we're already seeing these “As High As” offers spread to personal referral links and it looks like using an incognito window no longer pulls a big, concrete offer.
The worst part? We have no idea how Amex is determining these personalized offers. Is it based on your credit score, your existing relationship with Amex, your spending habits, a combination of all these things, or something else entirely? We don’t know – and Amex surely isn’t telling.
So far, we’ve only seen the expansion of these “As High As” offers pop up on Amex’s flagship, Membership Rewards-earning cards like the Gold and Platinum. But if we had to guess, it’s only a matter of time before these personalized offers make their way to Amex’s popular Delta SkyMiles® Credit Cards or the Hilton Honors® American Express Cards, too.
While Amex is taking a more targeted approach, saving only the best offers for a select subset of users, most other banks still operate the old-fashioned way: They launch limited-time, elevated welcome offers that are available to everyone who applies, and generally speaking, it's pretty easy to know if you are getting the best bonus out there.
What You Can Do to Make Sure You’re Getting the Best Amex Offer
There’s no easy workaround for these “As High As” offers, and it seems all but certain that they will become more and more prevalent in the months and years to come. But there are still a few things you can do to make sure you’re getting the best deal possible:
- Know the Best-Ever Offers: Before you apply for any card, know what the best-ever welcome offer has been. For example, the highest we’ve ever seen on the Amex Platinum is 175,000 points — if you’re getting offered 100,000, you might want to hold off and see if you get a bigger offer the next time you apply.
- Try Referral Links and Incognito Browsers: Using a personal referral link or opening an application link in an incognito browser could still help trigger a better offer … at least for now.
- Take Advantage of Apply with Confidence: Thanks to Amex’s Apply with Confidence feature, you can see if you’re approved – and exactly how many points you’ll earn – before Amex does a hard pull on your credit. If the bonus offered isn’t good enough, you can simply decline it without any impact on your credit score.
- Jump on Public Limited-Time Welcome Offers: These are becoming increasingly rare on cards like the Platinum and Gold, but when you see these on co-branded Delta and Hilton cards, that will be your best window to apply.
- Don't Accept Inferior Offers: While this may seem obvious, accepting offers for fewer points than advertised lets Amex win. It could also lead to you getting presented with a better offer the next time you apply.
- Stay Informed: We'll continue tracking these offers and reporting on what travelers are seeing, so you can apply with the most information possible.
Bottom Line
American Express is changing the welcome offer bonus landscape … but not in a way that helps travelers.
With these new “As High As” offers, Amex is getting smarter about how many points it gives you, offering just the right amount of points to get you to bite.
Thankfully, Amex’s Apply with Confidence feature means there’s no harm in checking what you qualify for. But there's no doubt that getting a huge welcome offer on an Amex card is only getting more difficult.
