PSA – Add those AMEX offers when you see them!

Introduction

After emailing with so many readers about the Ralph Lauren deal, I’ve confirmed a couple of things that everyone should know about these AMEX Offers of late.

Rule #1 – ADD THEM FAST

Did you add the Bloomingdale’s offer the day it was posted on the blogs?  Well it’s probably gone now.  Did you add the J.Crew offer?  That was gone in a day or two.  In the past, you only had to worry about Twitter offers expiring, but it seems these days, they are disappearing off account pages if you don’t add them.  Procrastination is the killer here.

There are some exceptions to this rule.  For instance, the Sams offer didn’t show up for some people/cards initially, but it may pop up later.  I think this is rare though.  The lesson here is – if you see them, first up those tabs and start adding them!

Rule #2 – Be careful about removing ‘unwanted’ offers

I had written recently about the “trick” to clean up your offers list, which sounded great at the time, but now some of you are regretting “removing” the Ralph Lauren offer.  But there’s a workaround for this if you accidentally did this – Demflyers wrote about this.  it’s painful but can be done.  But don’t go doing this for the Ralph offer because it’s gone (see rule #1)

Going forward though, before you decide to “wipe” it out – let’s say you have a bestbullysticks.com $20 off $100 offer – just ask yourself first, “Do I have a dog?”  No?  “Do I have a friend with a dog?”  No?  “What the hell is a bully stick?”  “Let me Google it.”  “Ooooooohhh man I DID NOT NEED TO KNOW THAT!”   Wipe it out!

The lesson here is – Do I know this site?  Have I EVER heard of this place?  Do they sell gift cards?   If you answered YES to 2 out of 3 of those (the 3rd being the most important,) then you should add it “just in case.”

Rule #3 – Scale up

Here and here.   Note that personal card AUs usually show up on CR’s, but not on business cards.