Leniency if something is still pending the day an Amex offer ends?

[pointsfan]

Hello

Has anyone had Amex show leniency when a puchase doesn’t post(bill) before an offer ends, and instead is still pending?

For example, let’s say an offer is spend $1000 on Nike before the end of March 26th and receive $500 back. If the purchase is made one on the 23rd March and it goes to Pending but does not Post until 27th of March then is it very likely that Amex won’t refund the $500?

Terms and conditions are normally “Spend must be billed to your Card account by X date, to be eligible for this offer. If X does not charge your Card during this period, you may not be eligible for this offer”

Many thanks!

[degsy]

*Generally*, as long as I’ve made the actual transaction prior to the deadline, then the offer has triggered, no matter how long it has stayed in pending.

At least that’s been my experience, no guarantee of course. I usually try to ensure there’s at least a couple of days to play with – if you get the email to say the offer has been triggered it should be ok.

[pointsfan]

Thanks Degsy – that’s good to know.

[marshy11]

I usually find pending transactions backdate when they go through. Offers trigger at the date of payment for me rather than the date they change from pending to real.

[Andrew.]

It’s generally the transaction initiation date that matters, not the day that it’s posted to the ledger.

The one that you have to watch out for is if there’s a delay in processing an order (eg awaiting stock from supplier) and the pre-authorisation drops off before the transaction completes beyond the cut-off point.

Interestingly. Did you know in the transaction ID of your Amex App, the first 2 characters are the year, the second three are the day of the year the transaction was processed by Amex? So a transaction processed by them today (25/10/2023) will start 23298.