Amex Handing Out $50 "Goodwill" Credits + Hilton Card Refresh Coming? (Rumor)

In this video I want to talk about several things. We have the Amex Platinum issuing so-called goodwill credits to some card members to make up for the loss of the sax credit. And in addition to that there are a load of Platinum-only Amex offers that are designed to do the same thing, make up for losing that $50 credit that we just lost at the beginning of July. Then we have possible changes coming to the Amex Hilton business card and a cheeky little way that you can get an increased bonus of 60,000 points plus $100 when you apply for the Citi Strata Premier Card. Hey credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges aka The Credit Shifu 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. All right so Saks Fifth Avenue has filed for bankruptcy and thus in their restructuring the Saks credits on the Amex Platinum and the Centurion cards are going away. On the Centurion Black card they replaced their $1,000 Saks credit with a $1,000 Resi credit so it's a like-for-like replacement. But no such luck on the Platinum. We haven't seen any evidence of a new $100 credit coming out on the card and they already have a Resi credit so they can't just give you a Resi credit in place of it. But instead Amex has done a couple of things. One, they have been sending out so-called Some cardholders have noted a $50 credit appearing in their account. But it seems that this is for cardholders who signed up recently. There are certain things in the Card Act of 2009 that prohibit changes to benefits particularly in your first year of membership. So maybe they're just giving this to everyone who is in their first year of having the card. So if you are in your first year take a look in your online account and see if you got a $50 credit. But if you're not in your first year like me, is there anything special that Amex has given us to make up for losing the Saks credit? Well yes, we do have some special Amex offers. You know those Amex offers that you add to your card. Some of these are retail offers and some are travel offers. Now I was able to find the complete set of special retail offers that are designed to make up for losing the Saks credit in my account and I'm going to take you through them now. Nordstrom, spend $200 or more, get $50 back. Toomee, which is luggage, spend $250 or more, get $50 back. Bose, which is like headphones and speakers and stuff, spend $300 or more, get $75 back. Perplexity, which is an AI system like ChatGPT, spend $200 or more, get up to $100 back. 8sleep, which is this company that does this like mattress cover thing I think it is, and then a kind of computer that like senses your temperature during the night and adjusts your like temperature or whatever for the perfect sleep. Anyway, 8sleep, spend $1,000 or more, earn $200 back. So there's actually more than $50 in value to be had there if you happen to want to shop at one of those retailers anyway. But if you weren't planning to and you're just buying extra stuff in order to get a deal, well you know it's like girl math. If I return something, I'm making money. You're not making money. Yeah, I am. I'm returning something, so I'm making money from it. You're recouping your money. Anyway, moving on to travel offers, let me put on screen all the offers that are supposedly available to platinum card holders. You can see there are a lot of high-end hotels and you can pause the video to take a look, but personally I didn't get any of these. So not sure if Amex sees me more of a retail guy, you know. I do do a lot of cashback redemptions, putting the points into my Charles Schwab account these days instead of using the points for travel, so I'm not sure if that plays a role. Anyway, all those Amex offers are making up for losing the $50 SAX credit, so check them out now and you may just find a way of getting over $50 in value. And speaking of Amex offers, if you want all your Amex offers activated for you so you never miss a deal and secret additional offers unlocked, you've got to check out Max Rewards, the sponsor of today's video. It's the ultimate credit card management app where you can see all your transactions, balances, and points and rewards balances in one place, even if you have cards from multiple different issuers. In addition, they have just revamped the offers tab, so if you have Max Rewards Gold, the premium version, it'll auto-activate all of your Amex, Chase, and Citi offers, but also you can search the offers tab across Amex, Chase, and all the other card issuers so you can see offers from all banks. Amex, on their own website, doesn't even let you search on different cards. You have to search one card at a time, but with this you can search offers across all your cards from multiple issuers. There are now also new features in here like the For You tab where you can go in and look at offers Max Rewards thinks that you would be into, and then within that, my favorite feature, the Shopped Before filter where you can see offers that are available at stores that you have shopped at before, and Max Rewards knows where you've since it's able to pull the transaction data from all your credit cards for many years going back, and it knows where you've shopped at before. I really like that. Check it out. Look, it knows that I often get gas at Sunoco, and there is a 2% cashback offer that it's recommending on the Chase Freedom, and the Chase Freedom this month is giving 5% on gas anyway, so that's 7%. So, if you're interested, get a free trial and then a three-month discount if you continue after the below. If you download it directly from the App Store, use code BEN for the same deal. Alright, let's move on to our next story. So, we have a Reddit post in the r slash Hilton subreddit talking about possible changes to the Amex Hilton business card. There are screenshots of a survey that the Redditor received, and there are three options that Amex seems to be asking opinions on. I'm just going to give you key points here. You can click down into the link below if you're interested. So anyway, first up, the annual fee could either stay at $195 or go as high as $345. All three options would still give you gold status and an upgrade to diamond if you spend $40,000 in a year, which is what the current card gives you. There would be a possible increase to the Hilton credit up to $320 per year, and maybe a $150 credit for AI services like ChatGPT. The $345 annual fee version has an interesting feature where they would give you 200,000 points if you book seven stays in a year through Hilton business. That could be pretty lucrative. Anyway, I'll put a link to that Reddit post down below. I'm not sure when this will happen or even if it will happen at all because it's just a survey, so basically just like a rumor at this stage. But if you are interested in this card, it does currently have a limited time welcome bonus offer of a waived first year annual fee, which is $195 in value, plus 130,000 points. That runs until July 29th. And if they do add new benefits, whether you're in your first year or it happens in your second year, you would get all the new benefits without having to pay the higher annual fee. Or if you are in your first year, no fee at all since it's waived. All right, let's move on to our last story, how to get a cheeky little extra bonus on the Citistrada Premier. So the Citistrada Premier currently has a welcome bonus of 60,000 points, which is down from a high of 75,000 a few months ago. But there is a way of getting this card with an additional $100 in cashback on top of the 60,000 points, and that is through Rakuten. So if you just search the card on their site, as long as you are redeeming for cashback, not Amex or built points, it will show a $100 cashback offer when you click through from Rakuten to Citi's site and apply for this card. If you are set to earning Amex points like I am, then it will just say no points, okay? And that's probably the same for if you're earning built points through Rakuten as well. Citi doesn't want to let you get their rival bank's points when you sign up for a Citi credit card. If you are not currently a Rakuten member, it is a cashback and points portal where you can earn extra cashback or Amex or built points for clicking through from their site to many of your favorite stores and sometimes banks where you can apply for credit cards and financial services. There is a welcome bonus of $50 after you make your first purchase through Rakuten. It was supposed to end at the end of June, but it seems to still be active. Yeah, look, I click through and I still see it, all right? So I don't know what that's going on because it still clearly says, you know, end of June as the date, but whatever. But anyway, if you want to sign up, I will put my link down below. You can get a $50 welcome bonus, $100 for applying for the Citi Strata Premier, clicking through Rakuten, and then 60,000 points as the signup bonus. Pretty good deal. And that's the video for today, guys. If you want to get a free trial and then a three-month discount, which is 25% off the year with Max Rewards Gold, do click my link down below. Otherwise, happy Independence Day for tomorrow. Please subscribe if you're new, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye.