Amex does makeovers! SimplyCash now features a $250 statement credit, up to 8% Hyatt cash back, and no annual fee.
This is shaping up to be a great week for new credit card offers! Yesterday, American Express gave one of their cards a makeover. The Simply Cash Business Credit card has been around for awhile, but it wasn’t too exciting – at least not for me.
However, now that it’s been glamorized, the card has caught my attention. Here’s why:
No Annual Fee
Yay! Enough said.
$250 Statement Credit
You can earn a $250 statement credit after you spend $3,000 or more in qualifying purchases on your card within your first 3 months of card membership. To be eligible for this offer, you must be approved by April 28, 2014.
Cash Back
You will earn a rebate for eligible purchases on the SimplyCash card:
• 5% on your first $25,000 of combined eligible purchases made at office supply stores located in the U.S., and on monthly wireless telephone services purchased directly from wireless telephone service providers in the U.S.
• 3% on your first $25,000 of eligible purchases made in the category that you select. Choose from:
- Airfare purchased directly from airlines
- Hotel stays
- Car rental companies listed at americanexpress.com/rewards-info
- U.S. gas stations
- U.S. restaurants
- U.S. purchases for shipping
- U.S. purchases for advertising in select media
• 1% on all other eligible purchases
OPEN Savings
Because this card is an Amex business card, you automatically get up to a 10% discount credited to your statement when you use your card for eligible purchases with OPEN Savings partners including Hyatt, FedEx, Hertz®, and more. Discounts vary by partner – check the site for details. Discounts will be applied in the form of a statement credit.
More Specifically, Hyatt Savings
As part of the OPEN Savings program, you can get a 5% discount credited to your American Express statement for each eligible dollar spent at participating Hyatt Hotels & Resorts in the U.S.
If you choose hotels as your 3% earnings category, you can stack the 5% OPEN/Hyatt Savings on top of that! In other words, you will automatically receive 8% savings if you choose hotels as your earnings category and use your card at a Hyatt hotel.
But you can do better than that – just go through TopCashBack first to book your Hyatt stays and earn an additional 3%.
This is a total of 11% off ALL Hyatt stays.
If you are a Hyatt Platinum or Diamond member, you can also get a special 20% discount called “My Elite Rate.” Stack the 11% on top of this, and do the math (I’m not going to do it for you, because I get into trouble when I do Hyatt math 😉 )
Rock on.
Things to note
When I initially began researching the new benefits of the SimplyCash card, I was especially interested in the 5% rebate on purchases made at an Office Supply store. This is because I thought that I could buy gift cards at a 5% discount. (You can find some interesting gift cards at Office Supply stores!)
However, I carefully read the fine print on this offer, and learned that “eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, balance transfers, cash advances, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, or purchases of other cash equivalents.”
Just to make sure, I called American Express – twice. I talked to two different reps, who each confirmed this information. (It would be great if both of them were wrong, but the fine print does seem to indicate that neither reloadable cards nor gift cards will earn cash back.)
Also, note that the welcome bonus offer ($250 credit) is not available to applicants who have had this product within the last 12 months.
Finally, note that this card is a business card.
And…one more thing…you need to select your 3% earnings category within two months after you receive the card. After that, you cannot change your selection until the following calendar year.
Am I applying for this card?
Since Josh is a happily committed Hyatt Diamond member, I’m definitely intrigued by the Hyatt savings potential with this card. However, I literally just applied (as in, an hour ago) for the “first big offer of 2014” -the Citi American Airlines World Elite MasterCard. Since that offer came with a gigantic spend requirement of (gulp!) $10,000, I need to wait to meet that spend before I even think of applying for additional cards.
How about you? Does this offer float your boat?
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Very very interesting for Hyatt Spend. Going to have to think about this.
BTW, just because Amex says that Gift Cards aren’t going to qualify (you generally can’t buy reload cards at Office Max/Depot/Staples with a credit card anymore) doesn’t mean that’s how its going to shake out. Most of these companies don’t have level 3 type information enabled, so other than Amex guessing what you bought, they only know you spent money at an office supply store. Just about the price being $504.95 or $505.95 and you should be fine. Buy a pack of M&Ms like everybody else.
All of the Amex cards carry this language regarding reload cards and cash equivalents. To date it has never been enforced, presumably because it’s too difficult for them to get that level of detailed information
Phew hit me where it hurts! Now I have to do some thinking. Restaurants vs Hyatts vs airlines! What do I do! Rotating categories at Chase are garbage (to me) this year. I’ve got a couple of Amex Biz cards all w/ annual fees, but this is very attractive.
Glenn – I just think it’s important that we all know what the fine print says…just in case. Better to be safe than sorry 🙂
MilesAbound – Agree, I’ve never had a problem so far – but it would suck if someone got the card with the assumption she would get 5% back on all gift card purchases, and then Amex started to enforce the fine print!
Heather – 🙂
Have had this card for 5 years now. And it works on gift card purchases. Oh yes. It works …
These statements you make are confusing, I don’t believe you get the 10% OPEN savings credit for Hyatt, and then another 5% Hyatt credit, or do you? I do get the stackable nature of choosing the categories + the savings
OPEN Savings
Because this card is an Amex business card, you automatically get up to a 10% discount credited to your statement when you use your card for eligible purchases with OPEN Savings partners including Hyatt, FedEx, Hertz®, and more. Discounts will be applied in the form of a statement credit.
More Specifically, Hyatt Savings
As part of the OPEN Savings program, you can get a 5% discount credited to your American Express statement for each eligible dollar spent at participating Hyatt Hotels & Resorts in the U.S.
Does anyone know if there is a fee to link MR with a paid card? Monthly maintenance?
BTW, I was confusing this card with Blue for Business but am still interested if anyone knows the answer!
I can also confirm that gift card purchases do receive the 5%.
Jon – great!!!
Erndog – You get a 5% OPEN savings credit for Hyatt (up to 10% for other partners, but not for Hyatt), then you can stack a 3% savings on top of that if you choose “hotels” as your savings category. In addition, if you go through the TopCashBack portal and navigate to Hyatt, then book your rooms that way, you can stack another 3% on top of that. Total = 11%. Hope that helps!
Heather – Do you mean is there a charge to link your accounts?
Chuck – right on!
@PointsPixie, yes but I was referring to Blue for Business & a paid card rather than this card.
Heather – If I understand your question correctly, I don’t think there is a way to do what you are wondering about. As far as I know, you cannot connect a paid card (such as Bluebird) to a card that earns Membership Rewards points. However, you can absolutely accrue Membership Rewards across multiple cards (for example, a Blue For Business card and a Platinum card), then combine the rewards you earn across all the cards…and there is no fee for that.
Does that help?
Sorry I am not being clear. I meant is there a fee to link MR points pools between annual fee cards and no annual fee cards. For the hot second that I had Biz Gold and Personal Plat, I didn’t incur any fee. The second that I got rid of one, Amex automatically charged me a $10 fee to my Blue for Students card. When I inquired about the fee, they said, Oh we thought that you would want to link this card to earn MRs on the Blue for Students and link with with the Biz Gold MR pool of points.
I want to know if there is any fee to earn MRs on the Blue for Business (a free card) and pool it with my existing annual fee card pool.
Heather – Oh! I got it now. Well, I have the Blue for Business (no annual fee) and the points I earn from that card are shared with my other MR earning cards that do carry an annual fee. They have never charged me a fee to share points.
To be 100% sure, I would just give them a call.
Kendra, is this your referral link? If you have one, I want you to get credit. But if this is just a generic, I will use Daraius’ link. LMK.
Heather – you are so awesome! This is not my link, just a generic. Thanks so much for asking!!
Reading the fine print seems to be a lost art, so at least you did that. But you called AmEx, twice for the love of god, to see if you can game them by buying gift cards for cashback? Please put on your thinking cap. Why not do a little original research and just buy a low value card and see what happens?