2024.9 Update: It seems the previous application links for this card are all showing loading error now. Is it discontinued? Or is it being refreshed?
2021.1 Update: It seems the 25k offer is no longer available. The current offer is 10k.
Application Link
Benefits
- 10k offer: earn 10,000 Membership Rewards (MR) Points after spending $1,000 in first 3 months.The recent best offer is 25k.
- We estimate that Membership Rewards (MR) are worth about 1.6 cents/point, see below for a brief introduction. So the 25k highest sign-up bonus is worth about $400!
- Earn 2 Membership Rewards Points per $1 spent at US supermarkets; 1 Membership Rewards Point per $1 spent on other purchases.
- If you use your card 20 or more times in a billing period, get 20% more points on those purchases: 2.4 MR (~3.8%) at US supermarkets, 1.2x (~1.9%) on other purchases.
- Easy to get approved, you can try to apply for this credit card when you only have a credit history for 3 months (make sure you can see your credit report before applying), there have been several successful data points around.
- No annual fee.
- With this card, you can get access to Amex Offer, which usually offers very good discounts at some stores, such as: spend $15 or more and get $5 back at Walmart; spend $75 or more and get $25 back on Amazon.com.
- The points earned by this credit card is Membership Rewards, they are the same as the points earned by PRG or AmEx Platinum etc which offers very high sign-up bonus, so you can use this no annual fee credit card to keep your Membership Rewards when you don’t want to keep your high annual fee cards any more.
- Refer a friend: You can earn 7,500 bonus MR points for every approved account you refer, up to 55,000 MR points per calendar year.
Disadvantages
- Only first $6,000 purchases per calendar year at US supermarkets can earn 2x MR, after that you can only earn 1x.
- According to the definition by American Express, Target Walmart and Costco don’t count as supermarkets, and you can only get 1x when shopping there.
- This credit card is on American Express Network, not Visa or MasterCard, so some small stores may not accept it.
- The 2x bonus categories are limited within the United States. Well, the Foreign Transaction Fee exists anyway, so better not use it outside the US.
Introduction to MR Points
- You can earn MR points with AmEx ED, AmEx EDP, AmEx Green, AmEx Gold, AmEx Platinum, AmEx Platinum for Schwab, AmEx Platinum for Morgan Stanley, AmEx Blue Business Plus, AmEx Business Green, AmEx Business Gold, AmEx Business Platinum, etc.
- The MR points you earn on different MR cards will automatically go to the same MR account.
- MR points never expire. You will not lose the MR points on one card if you close the account, but you will lose all of the MR points if you close all of the MR cards. In order to avoid losing your MR points, we recommend to keep the no annual fee AmEx ED.
- If you have any of the MR cards, MR points can be transferred to some airline miles. One of the most common and best way to use MR points is to 1:1 transfer them to All Nippon Airways (ANA, NH) miles (Star Alliance). Other good options are: Air Canada (AC) (Star Alliance), Delta Air Lines (DL) (SkyTeam), British Airways (BA) (Oneworld), Asia Miles (Oneworld), Singapore Airlines (SQ) (Star Alliance), Flying Blue (SkyTeam), Virgin Atlantic (VS) (Non-alliance), etc. If you use MR in this way, the value is about 1.6 cents/point.
- If you have any of the MR cards, you can redeem your MR points at a fixed rate about 1 cent/point towards air tickets on AmEx travel portal.
- If you have AmEx Platinum for Schwab, you can redeem your MR points at a fixed rate 1.1 cents/point towards cash. If you don’t want to spend time studying airline miles, this is a pretty good way to cash out the points. If you don’t have this card, you can only redeem your MR points at a fixed rate 0.6 cents/point towards cash.
- In summary, we estimate that MR points are worth about 1.6 cents/point.
- For more information about MR points, see Maximize the Credit Card Points Values (overview), and Introduction to MR: How to Earn and Introduction to MR: How to Use (very detailed).
Recommended Application Time
- [Once per lifetime language] You can only get the welcome bonus once in a lifetime, so be sure to apply when the historical highest offer appears.
- [New] [Family language] AmEx begins to add family language: higher annual fees cards will affect the welcome offers on lower annual fee ones in the same family series. Specifically, having held EDP makes you ineligible for the welcome offer of ED. So if you want both, you should apply for ED first.
- AmEx doesn’t care about the number of hard pulls.
- You can try to apply for it when you have a credit history of 3 months.
- You must wait at least 90 days between the application for ED and EDP, otherwise the application will be cancelled.
- Only 2 AmEx credit cards can be approved within 90 days, but this rule does not apply to charge cards. Multiple cards approved in the same day will only have one Hard Pull.
- You can keep at most 5 AmEx credit cards, but this rule does not apply to charge cards.
Summary
Since you can have it in a very early stage (a credit history for 3 months), this credit card is very worth applying! Also as a good grocery credit card and the only no annual fee credit card to keep MR points, this credit card is also very worth keeping! Note that our most recommended grocery credit card is not this card, see Best Rewards Credit Cards For Grocery.
Here I recommend a way to meet the spending times requirement quickly, in case you can’t meet the requirement in time: Amazon Gift Card Reload. The minimum amount $0.50 each time.
Related Credit Cards
After Applying
- Click here to check AmEx application status.
- AmEx reconsideration backdoor number: 877-399-3083. The “real” backdoor number of Amex is well protected. Different from Chase, the representatives from this AmEx reconsideration backdoor number only have the right to help you submit requests.
Historical Offers Chart
Application Link
If you like this post, don’t forget to give it a 5 star rating!
[Total: 9 Average: 3.9/5]