Amex PRG to Platinum Upgrade, Venmo?

[Anonymous]

I currently have an offer to upgrade my PRG to Platinum and get 60K points after 5K spend. My annual fee for the PRG is coming due on this statement and I find the benefits of the Platinum compelling but I’m worried I won’t be able to reach the 5K spend. I read thru the upgrade offer and one of the areas that they claim won’t count toward spend is peer to peer payments. I could pay my roommates for rent thru Venmo (don’t mind the fee) but want to make sure it counts.

Want to emphasize not trying to MS or anything, just wondering if anyone has experience with Venmo transactions and Amex?

[Anonymous]

That sounds suspect - if you don't get some very reassuring replies about this one then you might not want to rely on it. From Amex's perspective, what would stop 2 people from each getting a card with a hefty sub and venmoing each other $5k?

[Anonymous]

I’m pretty sure you could get away with gift cards from your local supermarket. I have the offer as well. I could spend the $5k I’m sure, it’s the AF that’s stopping me. Wish I could justify it; it needs to be in my wallet.

[Anonymous]

Regardless of whether Venmo would work, the offer itself isn’t that great.  I’d wait until another 100k Platinum offer comes around and it usually has a smaller spend requirement than $5k

[jacetx]

I would not even try it, using Venmo, Paypal (send only), Square Cash, or the likes will get you a FR and your accounts frozen faster than you can say Amex. They do not like their cards being used for P2P payments.

[MrDisco99]

I can personally vouch for the fact that purchases through Square or PayPal are hit or miss when it comes to being credited for rewards or minimum spend.  I wouldn't risk it.

[redpat]

Godspeed with that one.

[QuakerOatmeal]

Paypal/Venmo are very shaky for AMEX. I would never ever ever send money to someone via paypal with my AMEX, especially if I live with them.

AMEX may flag you, freeze your accounts, and possibly cancel them.

[Anonymous]

Irish80 not that great? 60k MR for $5k is the standard platinum SUB. If you've already had a platinum and have the opportunity to upgrade your gold to a platinum, that's a pretty great bonus, especially if you were able to previously nab the 100k SUB for the platinum. I'm hoping I can get a decent upgrade with my Ameriprise gold here at the end of year 1.

[Anonymous]

Charge cards, unfortunately don’t link through Venmo. Revolvers do, but there is a 3% fee. They’ve coded as purchases when I’ve used them. Once I used 2800 through Venmo to pay the balance of a vehicle purchase and wrote a check for the rest. Didn’t mind the fee because it’s a 0 interest card for a year (Discover It.) I imagine it is a completely YMMV situation but I’ve been fortunate. You could always pay all other bills; phone, cable, utilities, etc with your card and if they’re shared have a roommate give you cash or Venmo you. I hope that if you map out your spend and can plan ahead you’ll be able to make it work for yourself and your budget.