I was one of the lucky customers to get a promotional offer from Amex to apply for the new Rose Gold version of the card with 50,000 MR point bonus and 20% back as statement credit on dinning purchases at US restaurants for the first three months of card membership. I applied, got approved and immediately book a trip to St Thomas Margarita Ville for a weekend getaway (Upon approval Amex immediately made available a virtual card). The intention of this trip, besides relaxation, was to meet minimum spend of $2,000 on purchases to obtain the 50,000 points, get 4X and $100 back from statement credits on dinning purchases. The huge mistake that I made was that while I was in the hotel, I spent around $300 on dining in the hotel restaurants. That should have been $60 dollar back to my pocket, but… I used the room number to pay at the restaurants and while the Gold Card was the card registered for transactions, at the end of the trip, the bill was registered as a hotel stay (travel) expense rather than dinning (shame on me, I know). I have to admit that this was dagger to my heart since I’m a credit card points enthusiast and consider myself a strategic card user in regard to points and miles but this time I failed miserably. Fortunately for me, I still have plenty time to recover. I hope someone find this information(story) useful.
Yes, I paid at other restaurants in St Thomas and got credited. Also in Puerto Rico.
@longtimelurker wrote:
@eaviles83 wrote:I was one of the lucky customers to get a promotional offer from Amex to apply for the new Rose Gold version of the card with 50,000 MR point bonus and 20% back as statement credit on dinning purchases at US restaurants for the first three months of card membership. I applied, got approved and immediately book a trip to St Thomas Margarita Ville for a weekend getaway (Upon approval Amex immediately made available a virtual card). The intention of this trip, besides relaxation, was to meet minimum spend of $2,000 on purchases to obtain the 50,000 points, get 4X and $100 back from statement credits on dinning purchases. The huge mistake that I made was that while I was in the hotel, I spent around $300 on dining in the hotel restaurants. That should have been $60 dollar back to my pocket, but… I used the room number to pay at the restaurants and while the Gold Card was the card registered for transactions, at the end of the trip, the bill was registered as a hotel stay (travel) expense rather than dinning (shame on me, I know). I have to admit that this was dagger to my heart since I’m a credit card points enthusiast and consider myself a strategic card user in regard to points and miles but this time I failed miserably. Fortunately for me, I still have plenty time to recover. I hope someone find this information(story) useful.
Would this count as a US restaurant anyway? (US territory vs "in the US")
LTL as usual is on the ball , so you probably wouldn’t have gotten 4x since it was not part of the United States, even though STT is part of the USVI. I could be wrong in that assumption though. Thats one thing i don’t like about gold card is that restriction in that respects CSR is better for dining
edit: well scratch this response if you got it to work at other islands that are considered part of the US.
FWIW most hotel restaurants will usually code as travel/lodging transactions whether they're charged to your room or paid standalone. It all depends on how the merchant accounts are set up, and often the hotel and restaurant will share the same merchant accounts.
Edit: An unexpected example of this is the Starbucks next to the entrance for the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square. I used my Starwood card and got 2 Starpoints (6 Marriott points) per dollar because it coded as a Marriott property. And if you've ever purchased a complete breakfast for four at a Starbucks in NYC, you'll know that the transaction earned a lot of points. On the other hand, someone using a Chase Freedom for 5% back on restaurants would have been disappointed to earn 1% back for a "travel purchase" at Starbucks.
I've actually run into a similar issue. I work in a medical school tied to a hospital so I often find myself going to the hospital cafeteria for food. Using my Chase Sapphire Reserve at this cafeteria had always coded as a restaurant and had gotten me 3x points. So when the Gold card revamped to 4x on dining I just started blindly using it instead of the CSR at the cafeteria. Only after about a month or so did I look at the statement and see that all of those purchases had coded as a hospital instead of a restaurant! Missed out on a lot of points but lesson learned - and I'm glad you did as well!
