Amex BACKTRACKS, Will EXPAND Resy Benefits + get 115k Sapphire Bonus

Well, a few days ago we talked about Amex possibly limiting the number of restaurants that you can get refunded for dining at with the Rezzy credit on their Platinum and Gold cards. But it seems now they have backtracked, or you could say, just clarified what they meant. So this is good news for cardholders, I'll tell you exactly what they said in a moment. And actually Rezzy may be getting a whole load more restaurants as well, we'll talk about that too. Then we have a popular credit card from Wells Fargo that just closed to new applicants. And lastly, how you can now get 115,000 bonus points on the Sapphire Preferred. Hey credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shofu. And on this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance, and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, please subscribe, but let's get into it. And this video is brought to you by Max Rewards, but more on that later. So I uploaded this video a couple of days ago, where we talked about language that Amex had added to their latest statements on the platinum card. Basically saying that now only select restaurants would be eligible for the Rezzy credit. And you would have to check the Rezzy website to see which ones. So we assume that this meant that it would now only be available at select restaurants, basically a devaluation of the benefit. Although there was also the theory floating around that because Amex acquired dining platform Tok about a year or so ago, and they plan to fold those restaurants into Rezzy this summer, that this was just preparing for that. And that the Tok restaurants wouldn't count, but the Rezzy ones still would. Well, it seems that that may be correct, since Amex has now released a statement that several blogs have repeated. And I guess it's a standard statement that they sent out to everyone who inquired. So let's read it. We have added a Rezzy credit eligible badge to Rezzy venues pages to provide additional clarity to diners at the time of booking. We have not removed Rezzy venues that are eligible today and will be adding more eligible venues later this year when Tok venues become bookable on Rezzy. So there you go. They give the idea that they aren't removing any venues and will actually be adding venues when the Tok restaurants become part of Rezzy. The way it is worded, though, still kind of makes you feel that they could remove some Rezzy venues if they really wanted to. They kind of left themselves a way out there. You never know what's going to happen in the future. But overall, the feel of it seems to be saying that the Rezzy ones will remain. And once Tok restaurants join, they will add those in, maybe not all at once. So maybe that's why they need this new note on the booking page to tell you if they're part of the credit or not. I am certainly relieved at this, since on the platinum card, this is $400 in easy value and on the gold, it's $100. So a total of $500 per year offsetting those annual fees. And if you haven't used these credits on the gold or platinum yet, remember, we are almost at the end of the quarter and the end of the half year in the case of the gold. So use them up before the end of June. And actually, we have some more news about this that indicates that Amex is expanding Rezzy and potentially the Rezzy credit to even more restaurants. Let's check that out now. So check out this press release. American Express announces proposed acquisition of The Fork, a leading European restaurant booking platform. I'll read you out a little bit of what this says. American Express today announced a proposed acquisition of The Fork, a leading online restaurant reservation and management platform in Europe from TripAdvisor, growing its dining offering in the region. The Fork connects millions of diners with more than 50,000 restaurants across 11 European countries through its restaurant management, booking and customer engagement platform alongside a consumer facing restaurant discovery and reservation app and website. The proposed acquisition builds on American Express's broader dining strategy and its successful acquisitions of digital dining platforms Rezzy and Tok. Later, these platforms are expected to expand American Express's dining network to 75,000 bookable venues. So wow, we've gone from some of our restaurants may not qualify for the Rezzy credit anymore to actually they will. And by the way, we're going to add like 50,000 more restaurants and reach a total of 75,000. Now, since The Fork is European and foreign venues currently don't qualify for the Rezzy credit, they would have to let you know that on the Rezzy booking page. So it's looking more and more like this change was just in preparation for them expanding Rezzy both domestically to perhaps restaurants from Tok that didn't qualify yet and internationally since the credit is US only, although hopefully in the future they will update the Rezzy credit and make it international. All right, let's now look at a credit card that was just continued and then we will go on to talk about how to get 115,000 points as a welcome bonus on the Chase app I preferred. But first, if you have Amex cards, Chase cards or any credit cards for that matter, I really recommend using the app Max Rewards to keep track of your spending and rewards across all of your cards. You do a read only link to your banks so info on all your cards can be displayed in one place even if the cards in your wallet are all from different issuers. You can see your transactions, your balances, your points and rewards balances, and even things like credit utilization and the value you are getting out of your cards versus your annual fee all in one place. If you have Amex cards, the pro version of Max Rewards, Max Rewards Gold is especially useful since it activates all your Amex offers for you so you never miss a deal and you may even use an Amex offer and save money without realizing it. You can also search for Amex offers across all your cards, something the Amex website and app doesn't let you do so it's way easier to find offers that could save you money or earn you extra points. And actually, with recent updates to the app, they've added Chase and even Capital One offers to this too so I can seamlessly search offers across multiple issuers. You can see I'm finding offers from both Amex and Chase here. There is also the most popular tab where you can find offers that many Max Rewards users are taking advantage of which normally means they offer great value or are for popular merchants. So check out Max Rewards, link is in the description below. You can get a 7 day free trial and a 3 month discount on Max Rewards Gold if you choose to continue after the trial ends. There is also a free version of the app that you can check out as well. So two years ago, Wells Fargo launched their Attune card and I made a video on it where my editor went to all this effort to make it look like I was from a 1980s workout video. But it was all in vain since Wells Fargo has now discontinued the card. This card's selling point though was that it earned unlimited 4% cashback. Here are the categories as explained in that video. So the card earns 4% on the following categories. Rewards on fitness and wellness like gym memberships, exercise classes, salons and spas. Select sports, recreation and entertainment including live shows and sporting events, gardening and floral stores as well as pet supplies, boarding and grooming. Rewards are on purchases like public transit, EV charging stations and select thrift stores. But as of June 15th, the card was discontinued. Now I can't say I'm surprised. It's such a niche thing. I think the only categories that really have broad application would be EV charging and public transportation. But EV charging is better done at home anyway since it's cheaper to use your own electricity. We have an EV and we try to avoid public charging as much as possible since it's way cheaper to charge it at my house overnight with just electricity from the power company. It is slower but I find that if I just leave it plugged in all the time, it charges enough for the amount of driving that I use that car for. So I would only really say that public transportation is the one category that would cover a lot of spending for large numbers of people. The other things like gym memberships, salon visits, theme parks for most people would be limited to like a hundred or so a month in spend or to the occasional larger transaction like a vacation at Disneyland or whatever. And so if there are some people who do have a lot of spending in those categories and really are a great fit for this card, those people I think are going to be few and far between. Basically, I just don't think there are enough people who would find this card useful. So I don't think large numbers of people applied for it. So sorry if you were thinking of getting this, but I could totally see this coming. Good news though for now is that if you are a current card holder, you should still be grandfathered in, although that could change in the future. All right, let's move on to how to get an unusually high bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred. All right, guys. So the Chase Sapphire Preferred just brought in a 100,000 point welcome bonus. This you should know. I've done a video on it, but that bonus is now live on referrals too, meaning that if you are in two player mode, so your wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend has the card, they can now refer you and get 15,000 points up to 100,000 points per year if they do loads of referrals. So if you are using the points together for travel or you're cashing them out for cashback to buy something together like a big appliance for your home, if you live together, you can see it as either 115,000 points that you use together or $1,150 in cashback that you can spend together. It's definitely worth it if you're in two player mode to get that extra 15,000 points slash $150 in extra cashback. If you're thinking of getting the card for the 100,000 point bonus and you are not in two player mode and you don't know any friends who have it to refer you, I would appreciate it if you'd help me out. I will paste my referral link down below in the description. It really means a lot if you help me. All right guys, that is the video for today. Don't forget to get a seven day free trial of Max Rewards and a three month discount with my link below. Please subscribe to the channel if you're new and we'll see you next time. Bye bye.