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One of the best credit cards to get are the SPG Personal American Express and SPG Business American Express, which currently have increased bonuses.
SPG American Express
You can earn 25,000 SPG points after spending $1,500 in the first three months for both the business and personal cards. SPG points are one of the highest value and most flexible miles currencies out there, so you stretch your travel dollars a long way. View my review of the card here, as well as other content about about utilizing SPG points:
- Which American Express Card Should You Get?
- A Trick to Transfer Unlimited SPG and Marriott Instantly
- Best SPG Redemptions: Marriott Hotel and Air Packages
- Best Flight Redemptions with SPG
- The Cheapest Way to Fly Etihad First Class
- My Tips: Booking Emirates with JAL
I finally applied for the card earlier this month and for several people whose loyalty accounts I manage. Today, I just received my new SPG American Express card in the mail. During this time, I also learned some interesting things about the application process.
Whenever you apply for a card and don’t receive instant approval, the New Accounts department processes the application. Surprisingly, all three applications I made weren’t instant approvals, so I had to go through this a few times. They are not open on Sundays. I applied Saturday afternoon, so had to wait quite a while to speak with them.
My own application was pretty straightforward. I didn’t get an instant approval because they wanted to security verification. I called them the 13th this month, so it took me a week to get the card. With the other application, I learned that American Express only lets you have two open credit cards open at once with them. I had heard about it before, but wasn’t sure if that actually was the case. There aren’t very many good AMEX credit cards to get anyways, which is why I have never run into that situation before.
Even though the application was approved, one of the current accounts had to be closed before new application could be processed. This means theoretically that you can apply for both SPG cards at once (and I would not be surprised if people have). It’s good to know that there is such a rule – you cannot have more than two open American Express credit cards at once – or so I understand.
In this situation, they had the SPG Personal American Express, and was applying for the SPG Business American Express, so we simply closed the personal card and opened the business card. With the minimum spend completed, that makes it an easy and valuable 79,500 SPG points (238,500 Marriott) points! If you have trouble meeting the minimum spend, you can always use PayTM which lets you pay bills with your credit cards for free.
What has been your experience with applying for the SPG American Express?
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Wondering how you came up with 79,500 spg points after opening personal (25,000) and business card (20,000)?
3×25,000 per card and minimum spend.
But why don’t you mention that you also paid $150 for the Starwood bus and $120 for the reg Starwood so you have paid $270 for those points !
That’s implied. I never said the points were free, just that their value offsets all of the annual fee easily.
So you are saying that if I have the platinum and gold there is no use in applying for spg?
Platinum and gold are charge cards, which are a separate product line from the SPG credit cards.
Same here. I already had the Amex Simply Prefered credit card and the SPG personal card and I had to cancel the SPG card in order to get the SPG business card. This has been going on for more than a year now.
I was wondering if small business credit cards were included in the 2 limit, and you certainly answered the question! Thanks!
Used your link the other day and was immediately approved for the SPG personal card. Have the spend all arranged (insurance) so all will be well.
thx
After reading you comment about having to close some credit cards as you can only have (2) open I wanted to educate myself a little more on which Amex are Charge v Credit cards. The two SPG (biz & pesonal) are for sure, but the rest seem to be the AeroplanPlus family (4 cards), SimplyCash family (2 cards) and then some other no AF cards.
I was glad to find that the biz & personal Gold Rewards and Platinum cards are all charge cards. I have read that there is no limit to the number of Amex charge cards one can hold, however I have not been able to find an official Amex link confirming. Assuming the new Amex Cobalt will be a charge card as well.
Hoping that the limit of Amex charge cards is not 4 in case I want to give the Cobalt a spin.
The Cobalt looks like it will be a credit card.
I have 6 Amex cards, 3 charge and 3 credit cards as follows:
Amex Platinum Biz
Amex Airmiles Gold Biz
Amex Gold
Amex Colbolt
Amex Simply Cash Preferred
Amex Essential(Low Interest)
So say initially have the personal SPG and another AMEX credit card then refer myself to the Biz SPG. Once the Biz is approved, I am supposed to get the referral bonus – but I have to cancel one of the previous 2 cards. What happens if I choose to cancel the personal SPG card? Would I still get the referral bonus?
I’m not sure about that – I would cancel the other non-SPG card just to be safe.
I applied three months ago and had to cancel one personal card. I had two personal and one business at the time. They did not count the Business Gold card against me.