There has been some rumors circulating that American Express has not been counting gift card purchases towards minimum spend requirements and authorized user bonuses, in particular purchases made at Simon Mall. It should be noted that in the fine print of all American Express offers it states: Purchases to meet the spend requirement do NOT include fees or interest charges, balance transfers, cash advances, purchases of traveler’s checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, or purchases of any cash equivalents.
From what I’ve read this seems to have started in early August. Some discussion of this can be found here:
- Reddit threads: 1, 2, 3
- Flyertalk & another flyertalk
It seems that only bonus points (e.g sign up bonus/authorized user bonuses) are affected by this change and not points earned from regular spend.
Datapoints
Simon Malls
- Met the minimum spend requirement on the Blue Business Plus a month ago but hadn’t received the points. Hit the minimum spend requirement excluding Simon Malls purchases yesterday and received the bonus today.
- Rep stated that they had spent $1,100 out of $3,000 (this didn’t include the $2,000 they had spent at Simon)
- Macerich worked, simon didn’t
Other Stores
- Reader received authorized user bonus on three cards with purchases at Kroger but not at CVS
Our Verdict
For me what is concerning is that other sign up bonuses from the same time period are posting fine and also people seem to be getting their bonuses quickly when hitting the minimum spend requirement not including their Simon Mall/other purchases. I suspect the RAT is at play here, but I don’t say that with any level of confidence.
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