{"id":3871,"date":"2022-02-24T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=3871"},"modified":"2023-04-18T11:53:42","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T17:53:42","slug":"hacking-american-express-sign-up-bonuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/24\/hacking-american-express-sign-up-bonuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Hacking American Express Sign-up Bonuses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Note:<\/em> I\u2019ll be on a mostly disconnected vacation this week, and while I\u2019m still planning on posting M-F, expect slower than normal responses from me. If you do write a note though I will get back to you.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike most credit card issuers that deal checking accounts and mortgages, American Express\u2019s main business is cards and it shows: They consistently have the highest sign-up bonus offers, <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/13\/monday-vibes\/\">weird authorized user offers<\/a>, <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/27\/american-express-goes-catatonic\/\">$19,000+ cash back offers<\/a>, and of course <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/02\/tuesday-triple-8\/\">coupon book offers galore<\/a>. Let\u2019s focus on the first of those today, sign-up bonuses.<\/p>\n<p>When you visit American Express\u2019s website to look at card options, they offer different sign-up bonuses based on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your browser (Chrome, Brave, Safari, Edge)<\/li>\n<li>Your operating system (Windows, macOS, Android, Linux, iOS)<\/li>\n<li>How you got to the site (<a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/americanexpress.com\/\">direct<\/a>, <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/google.com\/\">google<\/a>, <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/bing.com\/\">bing<\/a>, <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/baidu.com\/\">baidu<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Your browser\u2019s cookies (incognito)<\/li>\n<li>Where you\u2019re coming from (mobile network, residential, business)<\/li>\n<li>Whether you clicked on an ad<\/li>\n<li>When you visit<\/li>\n<li>Maybe a dice roll?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you systematically vary each of the above, you\u2019ll almost certainly find a different sign-up offer. In my quick tests, I was able to see sign-up bonus offers for the American Express Business Platinum card of between 110,000 and 150,000 Membership Rewards by switching my browser and visiting incognito through a search engine on a particular week. But then the next week, no matter which option I chose, the minimum offer for the same card was 110,000 and the maximum was 120,000 Membership Rewards. <\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the takeaway? When it\u2019s time for a new American Express card, make sure you try several different methods to get the best sign-up bonus. This is true of both Membership Rewards earning cards and co-branded cards like Delta, Hilton, and Marriot AmEx cards. And a final note: never assume that a link from an article will be the best offer. Experiment!<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-editorskit-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3872\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/amex-algorithm-1024x804.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/amex-algorithm-1024x804.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/amex-algorithm-300x236.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/amex-algorithm-768x603.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/amex-algorithm-1536x1206.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/amex-algorithm.jpeg 1600w\" width=\"420\"\/><figcaption>Breaking: The American Express algorithm for sign-up bonuses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Note: I\u2019ll be on a mostly disconnected vacation this week, and while I\u2019m still planning on posting M-F, expect slower than normal responses from me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":1,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3871"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7090,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3871\/revisions\/7090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}