Amex Offer: Earn Up to 15,000 Bonus Points on Utility Bills

As the Amex double rewards promotion ends on 20th July 2020, American Express has introduced a new, limited-time offer focused on utility payments. This promotion appears to be targeted and available only to a small subset of cardmembers.

The promotion on the Amex Platinum charge card differs from the offers available on other American Express cards. Below is a clear summary of the details:

Offer on Amex Platinum

Offer	Earn 5 bonus Membership Rewards® points for every Rs.100 spent on utilities.
Max. points	5,000 per month (up to 15,000 during the offer period)
Minimum spend	Rs.50,000
Offer period	7th July – 30th September 2020
Eligible spends	Electricity, water and gas bills
Fulfilment	Points credited within 90 days after the calendar month in which eligible spends are made.
Source	Terms & conditions published by American Express

Offer on other Amex Cards

Offer	Earn 5 bonus Membership Rewards® points for every Rs.100 spent on utilities.
Max. points	1,000 per month (up to 3,000 during the offer period)
Minimum spend	Rs.7,000
Offer period	7th July – 30th September 2020
Eligible spends	Electricity, water and gas bills
Fulfilment	Points credited within 90 days after the calendar month in which eligible spends are made.
Source	Terms & conditions published by American Express

Things to Note

• This is a targeted offer—only cardmembers who receive the communication are eligible.
• Enrollment is mandatory for eligible cardmembers to participate in the promotion.
• Payments routed through aggregators (such as Paytm, PayU, Amazon Pay, PhonePe, PayPal, etc.) may not always be recorded as utility transactions and could fail to trigger bonus points.
• Regular Membership Rewards points are not awarded on these utility spends beyond the bonus points specified in the offer, per Amex terms and conditions.
• Refer to your offer email for specific details such as the applicable minimum spend and enrollment steps.

There appears to be an additional variant of the offer for some non-Platinum cardholders that does not require a minimum monthly spend or enrollment. Support indicated that this variant will be active on Amex Reserve from 9th July. Variations like this suggest multiple targeted versions of the promotion are being rolled out.

If you have not received an email, you can call Amex customer care to confirm which version, if any, applies to your account, or wait a few days for the notification to arrive automatically.

To fully maximise the monthly bonus points you would need to spend approximately Rs.100,000 per month for Platinum and Rs.20,000 per month for other cards.

Bottom line

For Amex Platinum cardholders this is a valuable offer, since American Express rarely awards rewards on utility payments. For other Amex cards the monthly cap and minimum spend limit reduce the overall value.

Estimated minimum value from the bonus points is approximately Rs.7,500 for Amex Platinum during the offer period, and around Rs.1,500 for other cards.

Overall, this represents a notable move by Amex to reward utility spending during the pandemic. It also hints at the possibility of other targeted promotions on categories such as dining in the near future.

Have you received this offer? Share your experience and thoughts in the comments below.