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AMEX (American Express) runs its Small Business Saturday promotion every year, and it has long been a reliable annual opportunity for AMEX cardholders. In past years, the offer usually came in the form of a statement credit for spending at small businesses, often around $10. The details for this year’s promotion were also released today. However, unlike previous years, this year’s offer comes in the form of double points instead. Let’s take a look.

AMEX Small Business Saturday previous promotional image
Previous AMEX Small Business Saturday promotional image

Shop Small Promotion Details

Through December 31, 2016, purchases made with an AMEX card at eligible small businesses will earn double base points. Registration is required via this AMEX page.

  • For the merchant list, see this map.
  • The cap for bonus-eligible spending is $100,000 on personal cards and $250,000 on business cards.
  • Each card can be enrolled separately, and each card has its own cap.
  • Only base points are doubled, so existing category bonuses will not be doubled again.
  • Only the primary cardholder can register, but authorized user spending also qualifies.
  • The statement credit/bonus points will post within 10-12 weeks after year-end (in practice it will probably be much faster, but there is no data yet).

Eligible American Express Cards

For brevity, we’re only including the more mainstream cards here:

  • Personal and business SPG credit cards: 1x extra Starpoint.
  • All personal and business Membership Rewards cards (including all Everyday cards, The Platinum Card, Premier Rewards Gold, Gold Card, Green Card, etc.): 1x extra MR. This does not stack with the extra 20%/50% bonus points from the Everyday family.
  • Hilton credit cards: 3x extra Hilton Honors points.
  • Blue Cash credit cards: 1% extra cash back.
  • Simply Cash business credit cards: 1% extra cash back.
  • All personal and business Delta credit cards: 1x extra Delta SkyMiles.

An extra 1x point is clearly not as good as the promotion in prior years. Still, if you happen to be shopping at a small business that does not normally earn a high return, it’s worth checking. If you do not have a better card for dining, this can also be worth using at restaurants, since most non-chain restaurants count as small businesses in AMEX’s system. Among all the cards, the SPG card is the most valuable option here: earning 2x Starpoints on all purchases is worth more than a 4% return. Will you be using Shop Small? Share where you plan to use this offer.