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If you received a welcome offer from American Express that you can't refuse, you need to make sure you're on track to earn it. Especially for its higher welcome offers, Amex can require hefty spending requirements over longer spending periods than other card issuers, making it harder to track exactly how much you need to spend before earning those bonus Membership Rewards.
Here are some tips for tracking your progress toward an Amex welcome bonus — without adding up each purchase you make.
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How To Track Your Progress Toward an Amex Welcome Offer
Amex makes it a little difficult to know how much more you need to spend to reach your welcome offer. It doesn't have a built-in tracker on your account homepage like some other issuers, so you have to do some digging.
Track your progress via email
Some new cardholders will receive monthly emails regarding their progress towards earning the “welcome bonus.” In this case, the email had the subject line, “Harrison, you’re on your way to earning your welcome bonus” and arrived about seven weeks after being approved for the card.
Clicking the “Check your progress” button would ideally take you to a tracker. But unfortunately, even after logging in, it just pulled up the cardholder homepage without a tracker. While this works for some, it might not be the most effective solution — especially if the email never arrives in your inbox to begin with.
Related: Best Ways To Redeem Amex Membership Rewards Points
Track your progress using a web browser
Although there isn't a tracker specifically for your welcome offer, you can track your spending through other cardholder benefits depending on your card. Since several Amex cards have benefits dependent on spending requirements, you can use those trackers to plan out your welcome offer.
First, log in to AmericanExpress.com. Then, click on the “Rewards & Benefits” tab at the top of the screen.
You'll be taken to your rewards dashboard where you can see your total available points, the amount of points you've earned during the year, and how much you've saved with Amex Offers. Next, click on “Benefits.”
If you're a cardholder of the Amex Platinum, you must spend $75,000 to earn complimentary guest access to Centurion Lounges and unlimited Delta Sky Club access. So, you can use these trackers to see how much you've spent so far this year. If you have a different Amex card, you can use a comparable benefit spending tracker for your card.
In this case, my $4,172 spending means I'm a little over halfway to meeting my welcome offer spending requirement.
Alternatively, you can click on “Statements & Activity” on the home page, then scroll down to “View Your Spending Report.” If you opened your card in the same calendar year, using the year-to-date option will easily sum up your purchases made since opening your card.
The default setting under “Date Range” will be recent transactions, but you can change that to year to date to see the total amount you've spent so far this year. Note that the annual fee is included in the “total spending” amount, but annual fees don't count toward your welcome offer, so you'll still need to do a little math.
Track your progress using the Amex app
Tracking your Amex welcome bonus progress through the app is essentially the same as doing it online. Once you log in, click on “Membership” at the bottom, scroll to “Benefits,” and click “View All.”
Scroll to the bottom, click “The Centurion Lounge Complimentary Guest Access” (or comparable tracker), and you'll see your spending to date.
Keep in mind that this method isn't 100% accurate. Since it's a tracker for a different benefit, it'll give you a good idea of how much you've spent on your Amex card so far, but you shouldn't use it as a guarantee. It's always better to spend a little more than you need to earn the welcome offer, just in case you don't eliminate ineligible charges.
Confirm through Amex's chat function
Although it takes a bit more time, the best way to confirm your progress toward an Amex spending offer is by chatting with an Amex agent. Thankfully, you can do this right on the website. After logging in, wait about 30 seconds for the “chat” button to appear in the bottom right corner. Click it and ask the chatbot about your welcome offer progress. You'll be connected with a human agent who can confirm your remaining spending requirement and deadline.
Final Thoughts
It's frustrating that American Express doesn't offer new cardholders a clear way of tracking welcome offer progress. However, with one of a few workarounds, you can know where you stand. When in doubt, you can always contact an Amex customer representative to get the most up-to-date information regarding your account.
Looking for a new high Amex welcome offer? Here are some of the best options right now:
(Terms apply)
- 2X miles per dollar spent on purchases made directly with Delta
- 2X miles per dollar spent at U.S. supermarkets
- 2X miles per dollar at restaurants worldwide, plus takeout and delivery in the U.S.
- 1X miles on all other eligible purchases
(Terms apply)
- U.S. purchases for advertising in select media (online, TV, radio)
- U.S. purchases made from electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers
- U.S. purchases at gas stations
- U.S. purchases at restaurants, including takeout and delivery
- Transit purchases including trains, taxicabs, rideshare services, ferries, tolls, parking, buses, and subways
- Monthly wireless telephone service charges made directly from a wireless telephone service provider in the U.S.
(Terms apply)
- Earn 5X points for flights booked directly with airlines or with American Express Travel® (up to $500,000 in purchases per calendar year).
- Earn 5X points on prepaid hotels booked with American Express Travel®.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card (Rates & Fees), American Express® Business Gold Card (Rates & Fees), and The Platinum Card® from American Express (Rates & Fees)
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