UPDATE: This offer has expired.
If you’ve been keeping up on this blog for awhile you are probably well aware by now that I am a huge fan of making free money through the American Express statement credit offers. These promotions typically require you to spend $X amount of money at a participating merchant to get $Y amount back as a statement credit. Since these are “American Express” offers, you can only use an American Express credit card to be eligible for the statement credit. The good thing is that almost ALL American Express credit cards are valid, even if they are partnered with a hotel or airline loyalty program (note that Amex pre-paid and corporate cards are not eligible).
That means that both the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express (personal card) and Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN (business card) are eligible. And typically you are able to receive the statement credit on multiple cards!
While the card carries in annual fee, in just the past 16 months (for some reason my SPG card tracking only goes back to April 2014), I received $465 back in statement credits! That also does not include the $30 I earned recently with the Amex checkout offers. With the Amex statement credit offers alone that means I average about $350 back a year! This allows to me to justify the annual fee and helps me “earn” money on top of it! So not only does the Starwood credit card give me some nice benefits, it also helps me save money on purchases I’d be making anyways.
To check your savings to date, log into your AmericanExpress.com account, go to “Account Home”, at the bottom of the page on your cards information click “Offers For You”, and select “My Savings”. Even through I’ve been participating in these Amex statement credits since 2011, for my SPG card my tracking only dates back to April 2014. I am not sure why mine stopped tracking recently, but it could have been caused by losing my card and getting a new number at that point.
While I love the Starwood American Express credit card for many other reasons, having your annual fee paid for is a great perk! It also helps with a piece of mind knowing you aren’t paying so much to have a card that you aren’t 100% sure whether or not the benefits will outweigh the fee.
*Terms Apply.
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I hadn’t thought of the fee in these terms before you distilled it. Time to have a look. Thanks.
@Linda – No problem!
My annual fee on a Personal Amex SPG hit Aug 17th (just re-checked it) and was $65 rather than $95. Not sure your dates are right.
Also be careful about how you do the math on your “credits”. If you use Amex Sync offers for things like Gift Card resales and such your profit may be a lot less than the credit since you can’t resell the gift card for full price. So you’d really have to keep score yourself of what you made each time. Now you might be happy just to break even on the deal and make some points on the side. But $465 spend at 1X is only worth maybe $11 in SPG points depending how you value them. So no not worth the fee if that’s all you got out of it.
@Glenn – Thanks for letting me know about your annual fee charge. I personally do not buy gift cards to re-sell. All of my Amex Offers statement credits are on purchases I am using myself. For example, just recently I purchased gas gift cards at Office Depot and use them every time I re-fill my tank.
Unmentioned in the article is that you can get those very same credits with non-affiliate link Amex cards that have $0 annual fees
So no, you’re not “making money” on the SPG Amex. Because you can make that same money with the no fee (yet non-affliate commission) Fidelity Amex among several other Amex cards
@Rob – That is correct. You can receive the statement credit on ANY Amex credit card, regardless if there is an annual fee or not. You can take advantage of these offers on multiple cards so both cards with an annual fee or those with no annual fee. You aren’t limited to just one card. I suggest the no annual fee cards as well to take advantage of these “money making” opportunities. I’ve written about that before here: http://dealswelike.boardingarea.com/2015/06/26/justifying-american-express-annual-fees/
Since the Starwood card current has an increased offer, many folks are hesitant whether or not a card with an annual fee is worth it. This will give people piece of mind if they decide to apply knowing that they can take advantage of these offers. Many folks also like SPG points but there was an increase in the annual fee so are hesitant whether or not the card makes sense.