AMEX Small Business Saturday

[Munch]

Not sure how many of you are aware of Amex's Small Business Saturday campaign.

Essentially AMEX matches member spending on $25 purchases. You spend $25 with a local small business, and AMEX credits your statement back.

This year it's on November 30, 2013.

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/small-business/shop-small/about/

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/small-business/pdf/shop-small/ShopSmall_General_FAQs.pdf

I bring this up for two reasons:

1. To help spread the word - who doesn't like free money?
2. To find our which of our local vendors do take AMEX?

I happen to have 4 AMEX cards so I plan on doing a lot of shopping (yup, you can register each of your AMEX cards and get the credit).

They've been running this for a few years, I think I saw a figure that this has generated 5.5b in spending.

I'd like to spend my $$ this year at my local fish vendors/suppliers. So who take's AMEX???

 

[CRW Reef]

5.5 billion? wow so AMEX gave away 5.5 billion dollars last year? Thats insane!!!!!

* NICE POST SCOTT THANK YOU !!!

 

[Munch]

They gave away a small portion of that. Their calcs include the overall spending on that day alone since the start of the program I believe (based on estimates). But still, you figure $25 for every AMEX card that shopped that day, still a ton of $$ contributed back to members in the form of credits.

I've done this a few years now, and to be honest, without the program I wouldn't have done the "extra" shopping.

It's a nice way to encourage members to SPEND and help local businesses get some additional sales

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I should re-iterate, it's really costs nothing (not looking to get into argument over what it costs to take AMEX over VISA), but essentially, if a Vendor already takes AMEX it's a win/win. As a consumer, you are essentially spending $25 of AMEX's $$ that day - they hope you spend more obviously...

 

[FinsUp]

This makes me wish I had an Amex card...

 

[ReefCheif]

Aquamart is on the list of approved businesses for this. For the past 3 years Ive gone to Aquamart, used my AMEX and got $25 for free basically, and of course, you always spend more than the $25.

 

[Munch]

This makes me wish I had an Amex card...

Are you a Costco member? If so, bump your membership to their AMEX version...

Over the last three years, I have increased my card count to 4 for this program, and their winter AMEX Gift Chain program (that program was off the hook - I made around $2500 on that program last Christmas).

 

[ReefCheif]

Are you a Costco member? If so, bump your membership to their AMEX version...

Over the last three years, I have increased my card count to 4 for this program, and their winter AMEX Gift Chain program (that program was off the hook).

This is exactly what I did.

 

[FinsUp]

Are you a Costco member? If so, bump your membership to their AMEX version...

Over the last three years, I have increased my card count to 4 for this program, and their winter AMEX Gift Chain program (that program was off the hook - I made around $2500 on that program last Christmas).

I am... hmm! I may have to look into that. You MADE money at Christmas?? That's not possible. LOL

 

[Munch]

They had a gift exchange program, you had a limit of 10 gifts per card. Essentially, for each transaction over $25, you'd get a gift in return. Some were small, like $5 statement credits, others were large. I received a $500 AMEX gift card, and a few $200 cards on a $25 purchase. Most of mine were in the $20 - $50 range. I had 40 gifts by the end of the program, so yup - I made $$

 

[CRW Reef]

So...Im sure Im being naive here or heck rpob even greedy. Is this a $25 limit per card or per business and per transaction?

 

[Munch]

It's per card... so to simplify, example if you have two cards. You spend $25 on each card, AMEX will credit you back $25 on each card. So you have spent $50, but you get $50 back in credits, resulting in 0 balance on your cards.

Say you goto AquaMart, buy a $50 coral, have them charge $25 to one card and $25 to the other.

You can only get a $25 credit one time per card. And it must be atleast a $25 transaction. You can't charge $20 at AM and then $5 someplace else... won't count...

Again, you can hit the min and take advantage of it - most do. Or you can spend a lot more

We have 6 weeks until this event, plenty of time to sign up for new AMEX's

 

[SkyShark]

You can even use your Amex to buy a gift card and still get the credit. I'm going to be out of town, but will try to call and buy a gift card over the phone if the business can do that.

 

[soliver]

Just a reminder that the Amex Small Business Saturday is Today November 30th.

 

[Munch]

They did drop it down from $25 to $10, but still free $$

 

[fishguy69]

It's Sunday but we still take AMEX!!! LOL