I received my first AMEX statement but there is a one month lag on rewards, so I am going to have to wait another 4 weeks to see if my AT&T charge picks up the 10% wireless. I'm very impatient. I want my 10% and my $150!!!
Oh yeah this drives me nuts. They sometimes have other deals (for instance they had a spend X get Y back deal at Newegg over the holidays last year), and it seems like those take ages to show up. I also hate how they don't break down your cash back according to how it was earned. I always heard how awesome AmEx is, but I'm not really seeing it. It's not a bad card, but I don't love it either.
Stack up on those Amex offers and you'll see how it can be really good.
I have added myself as an authorized user on my first party Amex cards (ridiculous, I know, but they haven't batted an eye) so I can get more Amex offers.
I also have several third party Amex cards.
In total, I have 9 Amex cards. When an Amex offer comes out on Twitter, I can add it to all of them.
Suppose an Amex offer came out for $10/$50 at Office Depot on Twitter. Now I don't normally buy stuff from Office Depot, but that's okay. They sell gift cards.
So I'll go there and buy a bunch of gift cards (Chipotle, Amazon, or eBay (I don't remember if Office Depot in particular has eBay gc's but that's not really the point here)). The eBay gc's I use for my gift card arbitrage business (wait for sales on eBay of other gift cards, buy those, and sell for profit).
If you have a significant other, you can have him/her add you as an AU, and vice versa, to increase the number of Amex cards you have.