Does Amex screen out...

[NJTurnpike]

Does Amex screen out purchases of gift cards when calculating minimum spends for sign up bonuses? in the T&C, it says that do, on the phone the reps say they do, but I suspect their automated system does not.

I bought a couple of gift cards for my godson's birthday and want to know if they will count.

Anyone have any experience with this?

[steve23111]

Gift cards from a grocery store, drug store, gas station, etc?  Nope.  Those purchases are every bit as good as anything else you might buy from a store.

[NJTurnpike]

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@steve23111 wrote:

Gift cards from a grocery store, drug store, gas station, etc?  Nope.  Those purchases are every bit as good as anything else you might buy from a store.

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An Amex CSR I spoke to knew EXACTLY what I bought at a CVS the other day, pre-paid visa for $250, plus some candy for myself and a bottle water. When I asked him if that $250 gift card would be counted towards minimum spend, he said it would not.

But like i said, while its listed in the T&C as not counting, and it seems CSR's are now mostly trained to say they don't count, I bet their skynet doesn't exclude them.

[Revelate]

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@NJTurnpike wrote:

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@steve23111 wrote:

Gift cards from a grocery store, drug store, gas station, etc?  Nope.  Those purchases are every bit as good as anything else you might buy from a store.

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An Amex CSR I spoke to knew EXACTLY what I bought at a CVS the other day, pre-paid visa for $250, plus some candy for myself and a bottle water. When I asked him if that $250 gift card would be counted towards minimum spend, he said it would not.

But like i said, while its listed in the T&C as not counting, and it seems CSR's are now mostly trained to say they don't count, I bet their skynet doesn't exclude them.

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I don't know on that one, from a data perspective it wouldn't be hard, a batch SQL query run once a night on the aggregate consumer transactions from the day (or whatever) could catch that if required, or in the data injest side.  

Not sure how the spend bonuses work in terms of when they're redeemed, but if you're able to, mind doing a little sleuthing in terms of being close but not quite without the prepaid and see whether you get it?  If it's after an explicit time period then that's not feasible, but if it's triggered on reaching the spend limit...

[enharu]

if they're telling you it doesn't count, it's best to assume worst case scenario that it won't count. Don't miss out on the sign-up bonus over this