AmEx Explorer Card via Referral: 150,000 Bonus Rewards Points, $400 Travel Credit, $4,000 Spend in 3 Months, $395 Annual Fee

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tombarbera on 07/03/2022 - 15:43 americanexpress.com (1201 clicks)
Last edited 07/03/2022 - 18:22 by 1 other user

I went to refer a friend for the American Express Explorer, and saw that the bonus is higher than usual:

Receive 150,000 Bonus Membership Rewards® Points

When you apply online are approved and spend $4,000 on your new Card within the first 3 months. T&Cs apply. New Card Members only.

Seems to be available via referral only, but great news - you can help out a fellow OzBargainer and apply using a referral link below, they'll also get a bonus (50,000 I think). If you go straight to the website in the deal, you'll probably only get the 100k points offer (your mileage may vary, it seems to have dynamic offers to some extent).

Annual fee is $395 but you get a $400 travel credit each year, a range of insurances, etc. 150,000 points is worth $750 in statement credit, but you can probably get better value out of them by converting to airline points (2 Membership Rewards points to 1 airline point for most airlines - Virgin, Krisflyer, Enrich etc). Can't be converted to Qantas.

Key benefits:

• 150,000 bonus points for new AmEx members
• $400 travel credit each year
• Earn 2pts per dollar spent (with ability to earn more e.g. with Shop Small)
• Domestic & International travel insurance (international includes COVID-19 coverage)
• Smartphone screen insurance covering up to $500 for repairs if you break your screen when you pay for your phone outright or monthly bill with your American Express Explorer Credit Card
• 2x AmEx international lounge entries

Other insurances:

• Buyer’s Advantage, extending the manufacturers' warranty by up to 12 months on eligible items purchased with your Card
• Purchase Protection, covering you for the replacement of eligible items purchased on your Card
• Refund Protection, cover for eligible items purchased on your Card should a store refuse a return

Related Stores

American Express

• 

  YLD1 on 07/03/2022 - 15:50

  +1

  seems its referral only

  Your link is to new customers

  • 

    tombarbera on 07/03/2022 - 15:52

    It shows up as 150k for the new customer link in Chrome, and 100k if I open in Edge. Some tricky stuff going on in the background… I'll update to say it's via referral only.

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    ShouldIBuyIt on 07/03/2022 - 15:53

    +1

    You can't have any amex across any provider for the past 18months anyway, so yeah new customers.

    • 

      ck009 on 07/03/2022 - 16:10

      No….AmEx DJ are considered as a separate product line. If you haven't had an AmEx DJ card in the last 18 months, you are eligible for bonus points on the DJ cards even though you already have an AmEx card or held an AmEx card in the last 18 months.

      The DJ cards are only offering cashback as of now instead of bonus points as a sign-up bonus.

      • 

        tombarbera on 07/03/2022 - 16:29

        Yeah, business cards also don't count, which is useful if you have/had a corporate card issued by work.

        • 

          ck009 on 07/03/2022 - 16:56

          +1

          @tombarbera: Business cards count but not the Corporate cards. If you have a business card on your name then you are not eligible for signup bonus points on a personal card.

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  BJReplay on 07/03/2022 - 16:39

  Yeah, something weird is going on.

  If I click through the OzBargain referral link (whether incognito or not), I see 110,000 points for $3,000 spend.

  If I click though the main link in the post I see 100,000 points for $3,000 spend, but if I click through the main link in the post in incognito mode in chrome or In Private mode in edge I see 150,000 points for $4,000 spend!

  Seems cookie related.

  Suggest adding this to the main post - open link in In Private / Incognito mode to get the higher rewards bonus for a higher dollar spend (but no referral bonus).

  • 

    hunter108 on 03/04/2022 - 12:00

    deal is over?
    not getting 150k points anymore, tried incognito mode too.

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  EarlyBird on 07/03/2022 - 19:04

  Amex still hasn't changed the value proposition of the Explorer card despite all the uncertainties associated with travel.

  If you have had to cancel several trips, you could end up with multiple travel credits that expire around the same time. But their travel booking site only allows you to use one travel credit per booking, and any balance is forfeited if the booking cost is lower than $400.

  Also, travel credit cannot be used with any promotional code.

  • 

    squarepants on 08/03/2022 - 09:52

    Amex has been refunding and extending my travel credits by 12 months (even if they were meant to have expired) whenever I've had to cancel trips.

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  squarepants on 08/03/2022 - 09:58

  There seems to be an issue with the referral links for the Explorer cards. Out of 4 times that I clicked the referral links, a 400 Bad Request (Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand. Size of a request header field exceeds server limit.) was returned 3 times.

  Is anyone else having this same issue? Perhaps a referral purge needs to occur?