SPG American Express Ups Their Sign-Up Bonus

For the past two summers, the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express credit card has offered a better-than-normal promotion where you can earn 30,000 SPG points after a fairly reasonable spend requirement. These offers typically lasted only a month or two, and then the card would return to the normal bonus, which was 10,000 SPG points after your first purchase, and 15,000 SPG points after spending $15,000 within the first 6 months. Last month, however, SPG reduced the spend requirement on the regular offer, so you could get the latter 15,000 SPG points after spending only $5,000 within the first 6 months.

And now, they've gone a step further and upped the points amount to 20,000 SPG points after spending $5,000 within the first 6 months. And you still get the 10,000 SPG points after your first purchase, for a total of 30,000 SPG points. This pretty much matches the summer promotion (with a tiny bit higher spend requirement), and I would suggest you take advantage of this deal before it ends on December 12, 2011. The annual fee of $65 is waived for the first year. In addition, there is a personal and a business version of this card, and you can receive the bonus for both if approved!

I've written extensively about the benefits of the SPG American Express card both earlier this summer and also just two months ago. You can read about why it remains one of my go-to cards for everyday spending. If you decide to hold off on applying, I fully expect the 30,000 SPG points bonus offer to come back sometime in 2012, so don't worry too much about missing out!