In these challenging times of Covid-19, Amex India have decided to show some love to their cardmembers by adding more value to their rewards program with the launch of a 3 month long promo called Double Rewards for select cardmembers (only on Platinum Charge for now).
With this offer, you can now earn 2X more points on select spend categories & also get 2X more value while redeeming points. Here’s everything you need to know,
Amex Double Rewards Offer
- Offer Period: 21st April – 20th July 2020 (3 months)
- Eligible Cards: Amex platinum Card only (as far as I know)
- Max Cap: There is no cap on the number of points that you can earn.
- Offer T&C
Earn Double the Points
Enjoy 2X points on select type of spends like: online shopping, groceries, healthcare and daily essentials. Also You will get 1 additional point for each INR 100 spent on Fuel. So for every Rs.100 spent, the numbers goes like this
- Fuel Spends: 2 Points (1% Value)
- Domestic Spends in select categories: 5 Points (2.5% Value)
- International Spends: 15 Points (7.5% Value)
This means that the default 1.25% reward rate on Amex Platinum Card (as per my valuation) now becomes min. 2.5% and if by any chance you’re now stuck overseas, you may enjoy massive rewards as well, though markup fee will eat 4.5% out of 7.5% but still its good.
Enjoy Double the Value
You don’t just get 2X points but additionally if you choose to pay (or part-pay) for any item on your Card statement with points now you get 2X value.
That means, in usual case scenario the value of 1MR point = 25ps when you redeem for cash but now you get 1MR Point = 50ps which means getting 2.5% reward rate is very easy even if you don’t plan to travel.
Bottomline
Its good to see American Express responding fast to the situation, as expected, as we spoke previously about the Impact of Coronavirus on Credit Card Industry.
While that’s good to know, its sad to see Amex ignore other cardmembers. But I’m sure Amex will definitely do something or other for everyone, soon. Let’s hope that too is as good as this 🙂
So far only Citi (2X rewards on Citi Debit cards) & Amex have come up with offers during the Pandemic period. Let’s see when others join the train.
Have you received the Amex Double Rewards offer? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
Thanks to: Amex Guy & Saurav for sharing the offer details.
buying a VPN service will earn those bonus points ?
Yes, online intl transactions gets the benefit as well.
Btw, why VPN if I may ask? (other than privacy reasons)
Privacy reasons ofcourse
MT,
which VPN you considering ? Even I am contemplating a VPN
i use express VPN , its expensive at 99.95$ a year , but it gives protection even at router level….just for surfing and accessing sites , there are much cheaper ones , you need to find for yourself which one suites you
Thank you Sid I received this offer today
hello, i have 3 cards. hdfc regalia, standard chartered Manhattan , citi cashback card . which would them is best for rewards point and which has rewards points which doesnt expire?
HDFC Regalia, 1.2% normally but they have 10X program as well. Rewards point tend to expire but they generally have a validity of 2 to 3 year.
Hi Siddhartha, if i make rent payment via paymatrix.in (normally I get points), will I get 2X points?
Amex is not clear on that. But ideally You should get, as long as its not reported as Utilities.
Hi Sid , it’s time
To renew the plat charge card , today the executive given me
The option stating there is double value of existing points . I suggested him if that’s the case you instEdvod double value give me same points ( I have 1.9 lac points so give me 1.9 new points which makes the equation correct ) so I will renew the card. Any one got any offer for renewal? Any new thoughts on renewal of Pat chat card … AMEX GUY can guide with his views how to approach them
For renewal at this difficult time !
Hi Sid,
Hope you are well & staying home & staying safe.
Is this offer for all platinum charge card holders or is it for the one’s who specifically receive email communication from AMEX mentioning their card is eligible for the offer.
Because i hold platinum charge card but i haven’t received any email communication from AMEX.
Hope to hear from you soon.
All Plat chard holders (those I know) got it, but not 100% sure of that. Do check with support.
No email, this should pop up in the offers section when you login on the web .
So i was thinking, 2X gives 5%, CRED rentpay takes 1.5%. Benefit of 3.5%. Any other platforms which charge a lower txn fee ?
Its 2.5% value and not 5% value. so net benefit of rentpay is less than 1% id one takes GST into account
It should be 5% if i am valuing amex MR at 1:1. Default platinum rate is 1MR/INR 40.
Honestly, if one is valuing Amex MR at less that Re. 1, then outside of Gold cards none of the other cards should interest them. Imagine paying 70K in fees for a 1.25% card! I mean, Paytm card beats it for spends under 2.8 crores!
I value it at Re. 1 in my calculations but can’t remember a time when I redeemed it for less than Rs. 1.25 per point, worst case. And that was at a Fairfield during low season.
Amex Guy,
Valuing 1 MR at Re 1 does not put the Plat Charge in high pedestal. The transfer partners and ratios are same across cards. So one can get the same value of MR with a Gold card as one can get with a Platinum card.
So if redemption is at par, then what about earning? Here, Gold and Plat Travel comes out ahead as they have bonus categories (1K MR / month for Gold, and 17.5K MR / year for Plat Travel). So for a 10 lac INR spend, Platinum will get you paltry 2.5K points, while Gold will get you 14K points and Plat Travel will get you 19.5K points. You need to spend 24 lac / year to be at par with Gold from MR accumulation, and 35 lac / year to be at par with Plat Travel. After those levels Platinum will start yielding 25% more MRs for incremental spends. That is lop sided given the fees one pays to hold Plat (those other cards are either free or offer waivers). This relation breaks if you are spending a lot of FX, as then Platinum gives you 3X, so these break even levels in terms of earning will come somewhere around 8 lac for Gold and at around 10 lac for Plat Travel.
So the value of Platinum is not clearly in either earning or redeeming MR. It is purely through other lifestyle attributes – Golf, Hype, IAP, FHRs, hotel status (which gives more benefits and increased earning, the earning part I have not considered in my calculation above), and other offers like those with Oberoi and Taj hotels.
SH,
If one is valuing it less than Re. 1, then they aren’t using MR for travel. Then Gold Collection should be the only thing that should interest them. Platinum Travel card benefits are still hooked to travel.
It doesn’t put Plat on a pedestal but it is a strong indicator that it is a wrong card for the person. Getting Re. 1/MR is mindlessly simple with even reasonable domestic business travel.
While Plat does have benefits outside travel, I don’t think I’d keep it if I wasn’t actively spending on it (it remains my everyday use card) or wasn’t travelling.
Hope to get this offer on Amex Platinum Reserve card
citi 2x on debit card?didnt receive any communication till now
You should have got an email with subject “Important updates to your account” which explains no charges for NRV shortfall, etc. Scroll down that email and Debit Card offer is mentioned. It is up to 30th June.
Not received such mail..are there any terms? or all spends included?
I do not think lock down to be lifted very soon and also I can not make any travel plan for few coming years. So just encashed 1.5 lacs points for 75K.
Good move.
encashed my 2.3L points for 1.15 L rs.. good option now in lockdown
@rakesh and amit and siddharth, how did you encash your points like 1 point to 50 paisa? For infinia and dcb, its 1 point to 30 paisa? Please clear a confusion asap…
@Hardik, why are you confused ? Its about Plat charge not dcb or Infinia !
How to manage points for Electricity bills, I tried through Paytm, but it still shows it as Utility and doesn’t give me points
Is there any work around this
The best workaround is fill your Paytm wallet with the money first and then pay the electricity bill. Paytm wallet filling is counted as transaction while paying directly goes through Paytm gateway and hence counted as a utility.
Also, for 2X offer of Platinum Travel, utilities will also get the points.
Ya I tried that but there is a limit to monthly wallet reloads,
Platinum charge card doesn’t give any points for Paytm utility during offer period unliike on Plat travel
Any other suggestions or payment portals which won’t code it as a utility transaction?
Have You tried Amazon Pay? You can load money to amazon pay and then pay the electricity bill.
Yes,
There is a limit of 25k on the bill value,
Any other suggestions ?
Bro how much are your electricity bills? Coz if Paytm and Amazon aren’t going to work for you because of the limits then I guess you don’t have any other option. You could try calling Amex and asking them directly on what you can do. They are usually very helpful; infact, it was them who told me to use Paytm wallet recharges for doing my 4k MRCC transactions. Who knows, they may tell you a special way or if you aee guaranteeing them business, give you special permission to get points.
@FrequentFlyer15
The Paytm and Amazon Pay options work fine for the Residential bill, it’s not enough when I add the commercial bill as well ,
I guess Will have to give them a call And see what they suggest
@Kiran
As I mentioned about the limit on Amazon Pay,
Wrt Payzap it kept giving me error
Karan,
You can use Amazon or PayZapp I get points for EB transactions on these platforms.
Anyone of you using other than Paytm to pay electricity bills over 1 lac bill payment ?
Other platforms doesn’t accept bills paid over 1 lac.
Cheers,
Kiran
@ Karan Singh – I have paid EB upto 94K on Amazon Without any hassle.
PayZapp also you can pay bills without any issues upto 99K if the value goes to 6 digits then it throws the error.
I’m telling this after having made payments earlier.
Cheers,
Kiran
PayZapp doesn’t accept Amex
Amazon no longer accepts bill payment above 25K.
I know, i am too late or my comments wont help anyone right now.
Just for an update, this offer was amazing! Really.
I see few members had converted MR points to cash, but I used this opportunity to gain more points.
Thanks to this offer, I gained approx 4,90,000 points. I would just transfer it to Marriott now 🙂
@Author- Is there any card in India which allows us transfer the rewards to Marriott bonvoy?
Any other ways or tricks to gain Marriott Bonvoy points?