Amex Blue Cash Signup Bonus: 10% off at Amazon
American Express has announced a unique promotion for new customers applying for their Blue Cash Everyday and Blue Cash Preferred Cards. The entire signup bonus could potentially be worth $450, depending on the offer you receive.
The regular signup bonus is $100 for the Everyday and $150 for the Preferred. These cashback bonuses come in the form of a statement credit after spending $1000 in the first 3 months after approval. If you are a targeted customer (or if you use your browser’s “incognito” window), this offer may be as high as $250 for either card.
In addition to the regular cashback incentive, the promotional bonus offers 10% credit on up to $2,000 of purchases at Amazon.com within the first 6 months of Card Membership if you apply by 1/11/17.
To decide which card is right for you, use the spending calculator at the end of this post.
Blue Cash Everyday
- 3% Cash Back at U.S. supermarkets, up to $6,000 per year in purchases (then 1%)
- 2% cash back at U.S. gas stations
- 2% Cash Back at select U.S. department stores
- 1% Cash Back on other purchases.
- No Annual Fee
Blue Cash Preferred
- 6% Cash Back at U.S. supermarkets up to $6,000 per year in purchases (then 1%)
- 3% Cash Back at U.S. gas stations
- 3% Cash Back at select U.S. department stores
- 1% Cash Back on other purchases
- $95 Annual Fee
Bottom Line
This deal is not for everyone. You would need to spend $2,000 on Amazon in the next 6 months to maximize the value of the offer. Once you spend that much, there’s no incentive to use this card beyond the $2,000 limit.
In addition, there is the opportunity cost of shifting your Amazon spend to Blue Cash. I buy Amazon gift cards at Staples with my Chase Ink card which earns 5 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points per dollar. If I value UR points at about $.02 each, I am already getting an effective 10% return on Amazon purchases all the time.
As with all credit card benefits and offers, do the math and decide for yourself if the deal is worth it for you.
Calculator
Enter the values that you feel are most appropriate based on your personal annual spending. After you press the “Calculate” button, Cashback Comparison table will be updated. Then you’ll know which card is more appropriate for you.
| Cashback Comparison | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Everyday | Preferred | Difference | |
| Groceries | |||
| Gas Stations | |||
| Dept Stores | |||
| Annual Fee | 0 | -95 | -95 |
| Totals | |||
2 Comments
Jack
You’ve put a way lot of expenses in Groceries, Gas & Dept store. If you’re really putting that much, then only CSP card is useful. For an average person, groceries, gas & dept cost will not be what you’ve entered as default & in that case, Blue cash every day card would be much better to use!!
Yak
You can change the numbers to whatever you want for Groceries, Gas & Dept store. I initially populate the inputs using data from the 2014 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those are the average annual consumer household expenditures in each category.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.htm
CSP only earns 1 UR point in each of the bonus categories discussed here, so I don’t necessarily follow your point on that.