I remember years ago there was an incentive from Amex to shop at small businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving where they would refund a certain dollar amount of your purchaces. After looking online for this year, I’m seeing reference to the event but no incentive from a cardholder perspective. Has this been watered down so there are no rebates offered by Amex?
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I still have some Amex gift cards they made available for SBS during a particularly generous promotion in the past. Then I think they switched to giving cardholders statement credit for a $10 purchase at a small business that day. Lately, it’s just a feel-good marketing event.
Bummer. Seems to be the case.
Ah those were the days–running around town to all the little stores using up the credits on my four amex cards. My favorite was the Near Eastern market where we would pick up baklava, dolmades, lahvosh tortillas, yogurt/spinach dip. Yumm.
I believe 2016 was the last time they offered an incentive.
I believe 2014 was actually the last year they had a credit.
It was $25 a card, then $10 a card then Nothing from what I can recall.
Was really fun while it lasted.
You’re right, the last open to all was 2014. There was a targeted offer for $10 off $10 at any small business in 2015. I happened to receive one such credit in 2016 for a 2015 transaction, which made me think 2016 was the last year.
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The days of the $25 off were awesome. In 2012 I ran out of places to buy anything I actually wanted, so I got 25 lottery tickets from a liquor store. No winners, unfortunately.
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2011 was the year for Gift Chain. I still have the spreadsheet that shows more than $800 profit with 4 Amex cards.
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We going back in time? WishList was even more fun (and more profitable)! 
Can’t say I blame Amex. Many ppl opened sub accounts–it was free–(read of 80+ per person in family in one instance) and then proceeded to buy GCs and then split over a bunch of cards. It was a huge pain for the small business and a huge expense for Amex. (not to mention ppl waiting in line for this to happen) Sure, not a fully thought-out offer from Amex. but then again, they didn’t think it’d be abused as such. Sorry to see it gone too, but people gave them ample reasons to not offer anything this year.
I believe orig. it was able to be used 2x or 3x per card…then it went to once…now none.
Disagree – you don’t pull an offer from all customers because of a few “bad apples”. My guess is they’ve simply decided to stop hemorrhaging money after losing Costco & JetBlue, the Hilton exclusivity, the Marriot/SPG merger. They’ve made Offers harder to get and I haven’t seen any good ones in a while anyway.
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