Goodbye coupons hello discounts – American Express simplifies reward offers

There’s been a huge increase in the availability of coupons and reward schemes over recent years, and while the idea of a discount seems awesome – actually taking the coupon with you or going through the process of applying for the discount can be a bit of a pain.  American Express reckon they’ve got an industry-first way of making discounts easy.

Credit Cards have for a long time offered rewards for spending.  If you’re like me and have a card you use for regular spending almost specifically to earn reward or frequent flyer points then this might just appeal to you.

If you’ve got an American Express card, and have the AMEX iPhone app or visit their website you’ll now see specific offers an discounts targeted to you and your location.

The offer might be $20 off when you spend $80 at a particular store, or some other loyalty based reward.  The simplicity comes in how you get the discount.  You see the offer in the app, click “Save to Card” and that tells the Amex system to keep an eye out for that purchase and simply add the reward or discount at the time of purchase.  The discount is applied as a credit on you statement.

It’s a simple theory and you’ve got to wonder why it’s not been done before.  Certainly the big shopping chain have similar mechanisms for their in-store loyalty cards, but on a credit card – this is all new.

To access the offers “Made-for-you” you just need to open the American Express app or visit their website.  Cool stuff!