Amex Referrals Appear to Earn at Rate of Card Referring (Cross-Product Referrals)

Last week, just in time for the launch of the Amex Gold card, American Express launched a new feature whereby you can refer friends (and, it appears, even yourself for the time being) for almost any Amex card, even ones you don’t have.

While there are certain restrictions – for example, you may not be able to refer from a co-brand card to all Amex products – you are able to refer from an Amex Membership Rewards earning card to what appears to be any other card. When you send the referral, the referee needs only to click the “View All Cards With a Referral Offer”

The big question, then, was what the referral would earn. By example, the offer for a Gold card referring another Gold card was 10,000 Membership Rewards points. But I didn’t have a Gold card. I used my Amex Business Platinum card to refer (myself, and apparently one more person used my link).

This morning, I have the following in my MR history:

So, while I’d love others to chime in and post your own experience, it certainly appears that you will earn based on your card that refers.

Strategy

That means you have several ways to strategize your referrals. First, look at all your cards and figure out which have the highest bonuses. I believe that Amex Plat at 15k is the most valuable referral bonus – worth around $262.50.

So if you have that card, refer from Plat until you hit your 55k calendar max. Then use your next most valuable card. Remember that (for now) you can even self refer yourself from one product to another.

Have your cross-product referrals posted? Did they post at the rate of the referring product? Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.

New to all of this? My new “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available now.