There is nothing I like more than receiving free money. And since I equate airline miles and hotel points with money (though of course some are worth more than others…), getting free miles and points!
I use Award Wallet to track my miles and points balances, and the other day, I noticed that my wife had 50,000 extra American Express Membership Rewards. I was confused to know where those had come from.
One of her first cards that she had signed up for was a targeted offer for 50,000 Membership Rewards point when spending $1,000 in the first 3 months. This was about a year ago and I was not as good at tracking my spending, and I missed the deadline (by ONE DAY!).
So I did not receive the bonus. I tried for months to talk with American Express to try and get it. I thought that there was somewhat of a valid argument, depending on the definition of the date that we received the bonus. This was somewhat complicated by the fact that the card was in Carolyn’s name, so I was limited to chatting. I would actually get the chat representative to agree with me that the bonus was deserved, but then somehow it would be overruled. There may actually have been a phone call with me talking in falsetto pretending to be her 😀
The disagreement
So to me it boiled down to when my account started. I applied for the card on June 14 but didn’t actually get an approval notice until June 15, and didn’t actually receive the card until a week or so later. I completed my $1000 in spending on September 15, but my argument was how could my 3 months to spend on the card start until I actually received the card? It was kind of a weak argument but I thought it was worth a shot.
In the end, like I said, despite multiple chats and a few calls, I never was able to get the points.
I gave it my best shot, because I’ve had pretty good success with companies giving in “just this once” on things like this. But in the end, I just chalked it up to a rookie mistake for not meeting the (very minimal) spending requirements earlier. In the end, it shouldn’t have even come down to the definition of 3 months.
One year later
So one year later, as we were going through our cards and figuring out which ones we wanted to pay the annual fees on, I logged into Award Wallet, only to find:
Wait, what? Indeed, when I logged on to the American Express account, the 50,000 points had posted. I assume those are the original points, but I am not sure why it took a year to post. Maybe it was something involving her anniversary, or maybe it took months and months to be reviewed by senior management.
In any case, I am not complaining, nor am I violating the #1 rule of travel hacking (DO. NOT. CALL. EVER)
Since I value Membership Rewards points at nearly 2c each, this was like nearly a surprise $1000 – so to say I was pleased would be quite the understatement!
What about you? Have you ever gotten a bonus you weren’t expecting?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Wow. That’s incredible! Really happy that worked out for you! Kudos to Amex for making the right decision as well!
I also believe it isn’t fair not to know when your 90 days starts and ends. I was not approved instantly so I found out about two weeks later. I was told three different dates and then was told that it could not be revealed to me. I waited about a week, and ask through a secure message and now I have it on record. Why does the dates have to be such a secret?
Totally agree. It should be in bold print on your My Account page!