Update: The below promotion is now expired. The New Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN now offers 3X points on airfare, 2X points on advertising, gas, and shipping and 1X point on everything else. The annual fee for this card is $175 but it is waived for all new cardholders. You can also get unlimited additional gold cards for an extra annual fee of $50 but this fee is waived for the first year as well.
Thanks to Aruna for pointing out in my Two $100 Business Credit Card Bonuses post that on top the $100 statement credit for the New Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN, you can also get a boatload of Membership Rewards points during the first year. It starts at 5,000 free points for doing nothing, and goes all the way up to 100,000 points with enough spending. That’s 100,000 not just 10,000!
It’s a bit hidden – if you click on the ‘Learn More’ link on the application page, you’ll see the bonus points offer, which works out to:
5,000 free points for doing nothing.
10,000 free points total for spending $20,000 in the first year
30,000 free points total for spending $50,000
90,000 free points total for spending $60,000 ($5,000 avg x 12 mo)
(The last 10,000 points for the one-year card renewal, which you’ll be charged $125 for, so you’ll have to decide if it’s worth it. The first year’s annual fee is already waived.)
Membership Rewards points are similar to Citi ThankYou points, but you can also transfer them into frequent flyer miles with many programs like Delta and Southwest Airlines. You get 1 point per dollar spent on your AmEx card, although there are occasional ‘Double Mile’ promotions. Overall, I would value them at about 1 cent per point, as you can either go for airline miles or things like gift cards (10,000 points = $100 gift card at stores like Banana Republic or Home Depot). In the past, I used to transfer my points into Southwest Airlines credits, and then sell the flight vouchers on eBay to get more like 1.5 cents/mile.
At 1 cent/point x 5,000 points, you are getting $50 for doing nothing. So in essence with one purchase you get the $100 statement credit and $50 in points for $150 total.
If you can spend $60,000 in one year, things get interesting. You get 60,000 points directly for the spending, and then you get 90,000 bonus points, for a total of 150,000 points on $60,000 of spending. That works out to a healthy 2.5% cashback, again at 1 cent per point. On top of that you also still get the $100 statement credit.
Remember, anyone can apply for a business credit card!
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The offer isn’t working–the site gives an error of ‘unable to process this request’.
Hmm… I just tried it and it worked for me.
Sorry, left my comment on the wrong post. The TradeKing offer wasn’t working this morning, but looks like others may be having luck with it.
I really enjoy reading your blog — you really stay ahead of all the financial stuff. I was wondering if anyone had been offered the American Express Rewards Plus gold card whereby you receive
50,000 rewards points if you can absorb $1,000.00 charged to the card before October 31. I did take advantage of this but the points appear to be slow in materializing. Have you heard of anyone else’s experience with this particular offer.
The AmEX targeted 50k offer takes a very long time to show up. If you read carefully it states that the points will show up 8-12 weeks after your spending window has closed. That means if you had to spend the $1k before October 31st you will not see your bonus points until 8-12 weeks after October 31st.
Jonathan, how many cards do you have? Driver’s Edge, AMEX Gold, Citi Professional, Citi Dividend (still has 5% for like 2 more days?), AMEX Starwood, MTVu, Chase Cash Reward, Capital One, Fidelity 529… + a few ATM cards? You must be carrying a wallet and 2 money clips!
One more thing, my gf is very into horroscope. She has been a routine visiter of your site now (after my recommendation) and she believes you are either a Taurus or Capricorn. Please proof her right/wrong.
I have probably between 10 and 20, not sure of the exact number. I only keep about 5 on me at a time (ATM/Debit + Drivers + 529 + AmEx + Business ATM). I don’t carry Dividend, CapOne (only for international use). I don’t have the Chase cash card.
LOL, I’m neither Taurus nor Capricorn 🙂
LOL, unless you are an almighty sharp scorpio like herself then I could probably go back and point to the flaws of her study.
I am a little unclear on the Amex Startwood card (I’ve been approved and the card is coming). The purchase rewards goes into a pool of airline points and starwood hotel stays accumulate starwood points?
I think I have about 17000 points with American, United and NWA (which all seem short of a free ticket). This means I can transfer my pool of airline points to each one of those airlines to get a free ticket?
Not exactly, I should move this to the Starwood post as it shows I didn’t explain it well enough. I’ll probably add this comment to it later.
You get ‘Starwood points’ with the card. You can either use these as hotel rewards points towards free hotel nights, or you can convert them into airlines miles on a 1-to-1 ratio. This is great for ‘topping’ up to get an award. Like maybe you have only 20,000 miles at American but need 5,000 more to reach a 25k award. Lots of flexibility.
In addition, if you convert 20,000 points, the will give you 25,000 miles (5k bonus), making it a 1.25 to 1 ratio. This let’s you get free flight for only $200 of spending, even less if you stay at Starwood hotel.
It looks like there is a double-count in the details of the Amex offer above. The 60,000 points related to average spend of $5,000 per month is simply the 1 point per dollar, not an additional bonus. If you spend $60k for the year, you will earn a total of 90,000 points (excluding the Year 1 renewal bonus).
Opened my account back in Oct 06 and have been waiting for the $100 statement credit. Called million times and have been on the phone with Amex literally over 10 hours and finally they said I was not eligible for that offer, with no reason given.