This morning American Express has raised the signup bonus to the very generous 20,000 (21,000) point signup offer with first year waived. Now AMEX has raised the bonus to 25,000 points!!! It doesn’t seem that this is a limited-time offer as there’s no mention of an expiration date, so this is absolutely fantastic! You earn the 25,000 points with $500 of spending.
AMEX Gold
With your transfer partners that AMEX has (most important Aeroplan and Avios) you could definitely get at least a $500 value if not more from Aeroplan. I am so ecstatic! I would say this is probably the best signup bonus for ANY card without exorbitant annual fees as the first year fee is waived. If you do plan to apply, remember to check the terms of the offer here:
- Earn a Welcome Bonus of 25,000 Membership Rewards® points when you charge $500 in purchases to your Card in your first 3 months of Cardmembership
- Earn double points on eligible travel and everyday purchases
- Transfer your points to frequent flyer programs, or one-to-one to Aeroplan® and Avios
- Charge any travel to your Card then pay for it with points
- 1 Free Supplementary Gold Rewards Card (a $50* value) to help you earn points faster
Of course the fourth option I like the least because you only get $250, but in some domestic travel circumstances it may be useful.
But this is a fantastic card and I personally have it and recommend it. If you do plan on doing a churn please read my post about churning in Canada here and the application link is in the sidebar to the right:
Sidebar here!
I am trying to avoid putting text affiliate links in a post, so this is my compromise. Note that I do get some points if you use my link but no money, so if you do use it I appreciate the support!
awesome. I’ll get my gf to jump on this one =]
When I (and the rest of my family) first got the Amex Gold, we applied through the refer-a-friend link. The offer was 15,000 bonus, but every one in my family ended up getting 30,000 (15,000 posted as “Welcome Bonus and 15,000 as “Bonus Points”) after the $500 spend. That’s all in addition to the points the person doing the referring got.
Does that mean that 15K is a standard, and under the new offer, we should expect 25K + 15K?
I’ve heard several people get that and that’s definitely a glitch and you got lucky!
15k was always standard. Now offer is 25k. The “bonus” points are a mistake.
Also during July and August, I was earning double points on everything. Thanks to the glitch, I hope it happens more often 🙂
So am I understanding you correctly.. I can apply for another amex card within a certain amout of time and receive points again?
Yes, in Canada. You can apply for a card many times as long as there is a three month gap between applications.
A three month gap between applications may not be enough for Amex. Some people say it is best to wait 6 months from the time you cancelled the card and 12 months from the last time you applied for that same card. With Amex, I think it’s good practice to err on the side of caution, so as to not muck up what could be a very pleasant, long-lasting churning relationship…
mmmm definitely. I meant 3 month period between churns. I would recommend as I said 3-6 months where you’re not holding the card before applying again.
Hi Jeff – I already have the Amex Gold, but do you know if I would be able to self-refer for the Amex Aeroplan Gold? (30,000 points for referral, but only 20,000 public offer).
Thanks!
You can self refer but I don’t think you will get the referral points if you don’t already have the Amex Aeroplan Gold.
(Re Lily’s question:)
If you could collect points through referrals, I think Amex would need to have your Aeroplan account number on file. If you don’t have an Aeroplan-generating Amex card, they wouldn’t know your number. And even if you at one point had had an Aeroplan-generating Amex card, that is now lapsed, Amex probably wouldn’t remit those points anyway… Just like Membership Rewards points accounts that lapse if you close all your cards, I’d expect the same treatment for Aeroplan-generating accounts.
Ahhh makes sense! Thanks for the reply guys =)