@KJinNC wrote:If I were them, I'd create some formula to identify cardholders who are net costs, and look closer at that group, without bothering everyone else. Keep in mind that many of these cards have annual fees. BCP is $95/year. So even at 6% cash back, there's a lot of margin for that cardholder to be profitable or at least break-even. BCE has no annual fee, but someone who was really looking to exploit this would probably get BCP for the higher percentage. And you also have to consider perception in a couple of ways. 1 - More cardholders = more merchants accepting the card = more cardholders. 2 - You don't want to create a scare among profitable cardholders who are now afraid to buy gift cards for their nephew's graduation or the like. I'm sure Amex knows this and won't be too extreme in how they handle this, but I guess we'll see. Meanwhile, I did buy a $50 Lowe's gift card from staples.com to capitalize on the $10 off for $40 spend offer (stacked on extra points per $1 Staples offer) and am curious to see how they handle.
Staples.com is one the merchants that provides Level 3 processing which lists all the items in your purchase. Once it posts if you click on it Amex will show you the details, so you should see it listed as a $50 gift card. If they don't give you points at least your got the $10 off. I've been using my BCP at Safeway grocery and Circle K for gas & cigarettes (yeah, I know). When I click those Amex just shows me the store address & category, so I know those aren't providing L3 processing. And yes, the cigs got 3% as gas. 
Right - as long as the only people affected or targeted are those extreme users. But if a reputation gets out that you shouldn't use Amex for gift card purchases because you won't get points for it, it could have unintended consequences. And, it's really not that difficult for rumors like that to spread far beyond a tiny niche of users. It's the type of thing that could easily become small talk at backyard barbecues. I have no objection to Amex doing this on philosophical grounds, I just hope (and expect) that they don't overdo it.
Data point
July 24th I earned the 800 points for MS at staples plus the Offer counted for the spend 40 get 1000 points.
I don’t know when the changes went into effect but my very recent purchase counted
I wonder how this will be enforced while I don't do much gc purchasing with my amex gold card, I do buy the occasional amazon gc or gas gc at my local supermarket, if it becomes a big deal to amex will just move those purchases to chase ink card where i would get 5x, I am not really all that enamored with UR these days but not much else you can do it amex decides they want to crack down on all GC purchases.
