How we earned 100,000 AMEX Platinum Bonus… TWICE

Success! It finally happened. Today, we earned 100,000 Membership Rewards bonus from our AMEX Platinum Card not once… but twice! And it took only…

15 years

😅

(Here’s our short story)

Once upon a time, we frugally traveled between Philly, New York, and California often. Money was really tight & we wanted to find creative ways to save money on a student budget. Back then, 100K bonus was like a rich baller bank account to us!

We would go out on dates and use the card as an excuse to meet the “minimum spend”.

The very first time we got our 100K bonus, we felt like the queen and king of the world 😛

And then Paul even (mistakenly) redeemed it for a roundtrip economy trip to Asia. Looking back, it still stings that we used over 100K to “save” 1000 USD in airfare. But hey in the moment, it was super exciting to have our first “free” international trip.

Sadly after a year or two, our student budget couldn’t afford to keep up with the hefty annual fee, so we had to part ways and say goodbye to the awesome card…

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Fast forward a decade… the global pandemic bombed the world and AMEX shockingly offered a 100K Bonus PLUS 10x spending bonus at U.S. Gas Stations and U.S. Supermarkets to select members.

But wait… isn’t AMEX spending bonus only “once per lifetime”?

Answer: Yes and No

(Plot Twist)

Before 2014, American Express didn’t have the “once per lifetime” policy implemented yet. So any bonuses issued before then does not count for the “once per lifetime” quota. Plus, it’s been rumored that the “once per lifetime” policy is the length of the account in the American Express system ― which is around 7-10 years after cancellation of the account.

So after spending $5000 in our first 6 months of the card membership, it finally happened again!

We finally came full circle…

It’s actually possible to get an AMEX Bonus twice….

It just takes only… 15 years 😅