Check your Amex Offers section and you should see a brand-new offer for $30 back upon spending $60 on groceries three times – for an easy 17% discount on your grocery order per eligible American Express card. 

Spend $60, Up to 3 Times, Get $30

The offer is valid at seven participating grocery retailers in Canada: Farm Boy, FoodLand, FreshCo, Longo’s, Safeway, Sobeys, and Thrifty Foods. Notably, it’s not eligible at Save-On-Foods or Metro locations, or with any grocery delivery services.

Any purchases made at these retailers of at least $60 after taxes will count towards this offer, and after three such purchases, you’ll earn a one-time statement credit of $30. The offer is valid until August 31, 2022.

The structure of the offer is indeed a little strange, as you’ll need to effectively spend $180 (in three increments of $60) to earn $30 back – equivalent to a 16.67% discount on your grocery purchases.

The offer is limited to the first 80,000 cards registered, so be sure to take action and click “Add to Card” as soon as possible to secure your spot. 

Note that the offer specifies that only “participating” locations of the above-mentioned retailers are eligible. Upon clicking on the “View Participating Locations” link, you’ll be shown a list of participating grocers with their addresses listed.

Comparing this to the “Our Stores” lists of each grocery chain, it does appear to be an exhaustive list of all locations across the country, but it’s still worth clicking the link and doing a quick check that the location you’re going to is eligible.

Between seven different eligible outlets, this Amex Offer provides good coverage of the grocery chains in Canada that accept American Express. Ultimately, this should be an easy one to take advantage of for most Canadians, making this as good as $30 back in your pocket.

The terms and conditions of the offer do specify that the credits will be applied to your account “within 90 days after 31/08/2022”. However, in practice, they should show up within a few business days of competing your purchase.

Do Gift Cards Count?

Some readers may be familiar with the fact that places like Sobeys and Farm Boy don’t just sell groceries; in addition, they also sell gift cards that can be used towards other stores or retailers in Canada.

The terms of this offer do specify:

“Any purchases not made directly with an eligible merchant are excluded. Purchases of non-grocery items including, but not limited to, gift cards, oil, gas, fuel, protection plans, service plans, insurance plans, financial services, technology services, postal services, lottery services, floral services, cash & carry, convenience stores, wine, liquor, and alcohol purchases, grocery purchases at wine, liquor, or alcohol counters or locations, charitable donations, and medical or pharmacy services are also excluded.”

In practice, however, a $60 gift card purchase should work just as well as a regular grocery order, since charge shows up as the grocery store either way.

Then again, given that most offer recipients probably need to buy groceries anyway, I think it’s easiest to simply make three separate $60+ grocery purchases over the summer without having to bother with gift cards.

The End of $150+ in Free Groceries?

Previous iterations of “free groceries” offers from American Express during the summer of 2020 and 2021 had come with $150, $200, or $250 in entirely free groceries on the premium travel credit cards..

In comparison, this one is significantly less generous: not only were the dollar amounts higher previously, but it was also a one-for-one statement credit, where you’d receive the full amount credited back.

Now that most aspects of life have returned to “normal”, the regression to the mean of Amex Offers is entirely within expectation as well.

I imagine American Express has decided that there’s no longer a need to incentivize travel credit card users to keep their cards with statement credits on things besides travel, so the grocery incentives have accordingly scaled down from $150+ in free groceries to a more modest 17% discount on $180+ in purchases.

I’d love to be proven wrong, but I do think it’s the end of the era in which premium American Express cardholders could expect to receive $150, $200, etc. back in their pockets all in one go.

Scotiabank American Express Cardholders Can Register Too

As usual, this Amex Offer is scalable through Scotiabank American Express primary and supplementary cards. 

A manual registration option is available on the Scotiabank American Express Card, Scotiabank Gold American Express Card, and Scotiabank Platinum American Express Card. Registration can be done via this link. 

Unlike Amex-issued Amex cards, you can register as many Scotiabank-issued Amex primary or supplementary cards for this Amex Offer as you wish, so this is a great way to multiply your $30 statement credits if you’ve built up a large roster of these cards.

Conclusion

It’s awesome to see Amex Offers for groceries returning for another round, even if it’s less generous than the $150+ in free groceries we had seen throughout the last few years.

If you hold any American Express card that has started to see Amex Offers rolling in, you can earn a $30 credit upon spending $60 three times at participating grocery chains, for an effective 17% discount on $180 of groceries this summer. Be sure to register as many Amex cards as you can and hit up a grocery store by August 31, 2022.