What is the Purpose of Coupons?

People criticize American Express for having random statement credits that don’t align with people’s spending, that are often called coupons in a negative way. You may hear that you’ll have to change your spending habits in order to benefit from them. That’s intentional, but it’s not malicious and it doesn’t automatically negate the value if you only went there to use the credit.

Statement credits, coupons, shopping portals, affiliate links, and similar programs have one purpose: to entice you to change your shopping behavior and become a new (or more frequent) customer, with the ideal result from the company’s perspective being that you spend enough to make up for the discount you received.

An Easy Workaround

Many of the statement credits can be triggered in a way that allows you to save them for later and combine them with future credits, which may allow you to get more value from them. Examples include:

• $84 ($7/month) Dunkin credit on the Amex Gold can be added to the Dunkin app and used in the future.
• $100 ($50 semiannually) Resy credit on the Amex Gold, as well as monthly Resy credits on Delta cards, can be used to buy gift cards in person at restaurants. This may be stacked with promos for gift cards, which are common around the holidays. For example, a Resy restaurant that I’ve wanted to try had a Black Friday promotion last year where you would receive an extra $30 gift card after buying $100 in gift cards. That means I would pay $50 out of pocket and get $80 for free if they run the same promotion this year.
• The $200 airline incidental credit on The Platinum Card can be loaded into the United Travel Bank and will last for 5 years. There are other workarounds for this credit with other airlines, but United is the most straightforward.
• $100 ($50 semiannually) Saks Fifth Avenue credit on The Platinum Card can be used to purchase physical gift cards in store.
• Rideshare credits on the Delta Platinum/ Reserve cards can be added to Lyft balance, but only in increments of $25, which means you will be spending more than the $10-$20 credit each month, possibly making this not worth it unless you use Lyft less than once per month, but often enough that you are certain that you will use up these funds.

Who Benefits from These Cards?

If you’re the type of person who finds value from options such as card-linked offers or buying coupon books, then American Express cards likely make sense, since it is the same concept and you’re willing to do the extra work to maximize your return on spend.

However, if you are the type of person that’s willing to pay more for something in order to simplify the purchase process, it most likely still makes sense to apply for the cards and get the intro bonuses, but they won’t be good as long-term keeper cards since you won’t receive enough value to justify the fees.

I’m in the first category, so I plan to keep the recently refreshed Gold Card long term and continue adding other cards to my setup that I feel will offer additional value. I personally think these credits make American Express cards more competitive; even if they can seem tedious at times.