Amex Reward Multiplier ends 30 September 2026: what each card loses

If you were going to buy a MacBook on your Amex this year, buy it before 29 September.

American Express is switching off Reward Multiplier in India. That is the click-through route that has paid up to 5X Membership Rewards points on Apple, Tanishq, MakeMyTrip, Nykaa, Myntra and about a dozen other brands since January 2021. Cardmembers were emailed on 26 August.

What Amex is switching off

Amex's own page now carries the notice:

"Effective 30 September' 2026, the Reward Multiplier program, through which you earn accelerated Membership Rewards points on purchases with select brands and through the e-voucher platform, ShopWise, will be discontinued."

Read that sentence carefully, because the next one on the same page walks half of it back. ShopWise survives. What dies is the direct route: logging in through Amex, clicking to Apple or Tanishq, and buying on the merchant's own site.

The programme terms give the window as 1 January 2021 to 29 September 2026, and the cardmember email puts the last eligible transaction at 11:59 PM on that final day. Starting a purchase before the deadline is not enough. It has to be completed inside the window.

Your points balance is not affected. The base Membership Rewards programme, the standard earn rate and the fact that points do not expire all stay as they are.

What your card is actually losing

Every write-up of this has said "up to 5X". That "up to" is doing a lot of work, and Amex publishes the full ladder in the programme terms:

Gold sits at 5X alongside Platinum, which surprises people who assume the charge card always wins. Platinum Travel is on 3X, and plenty of its holders have been earning three times base on MakeMyTrip hotels without ever reading the number. Platinum Corporate matches Platinum at 5X, Gold Corporate 3X, Green Corporate 2X.

Turn that into money. A ₹1,50,000 laptop through the portal earns 18,750 points on Platinum, of which 15,000 are the bonus you are about to lose. On Gold the same purchase earns 15,000 points with a 12,000 point bonus. On the Membership Rewards Credit Card it is 6,000 points, 3,000 of them bonus.

Key takeaway

Amex does not publish a rupee value for a Membership Rewards point, so use your own. At ₹0.30 a point the Platinum bonus on that ₹1,50,000 purchase is worth about ₹4,500. At ₹0.50 it is ₹7,500.

The 25,000 point ceiling nobody mentions

Here is the part that matters if you are planning to empty your wishlist in September. The bonus is capped:

Watch out

"The maximum number of Bonus MR Points that could be earned by you would be capped at 25,000 Bonus MR Points per month." That is the programme terms, clause b.5, and almost nothing written about this shutdown mentions it.

Divide the cap by your card's bonus rate and you get the monthly spend at which Reward Multiplier stops paying you anything extra:

So a Platinum holder buying a ₹1,80,000 laptop and a ₹2,00,000 Tanishq piece in the same September earns the bonus on the first ₹2,50,000 and nothing extra on the rest. Split across two statement months and you would have earned on all of it, except there is no second month left.

There is no way to plan around this now. It is the reason a single large purchase is a better use of the last four weeks than five medium ones.

The purchases where the rush will backfire

The exclusion lists do not soften because the programme is ending, and they are where a last-minute buyer loses everything.

Apple. Excluded: iPhone 17, iPhone 17e, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, MacBook Neo, Studio Display, Studio Display XDR, Apple Vision Pro and its accessories, gift cards, Apple Developer Programs, monthly AppleCare+ and shipping. The newest iPhone is the most likely panic purchase this month and it is the one that earns nothing extra. There are also order limits: two iPhones and three other Apple products per 30 days, plus lifetime caps of six units per model.

Flipkart and Tata CLiQ. This is the wider trap. Excluded on both: all mobile phones, AirPods, smart watches, iPads, laptops and desktops, tablets, televisions, cameras, IT accessories and peripherals, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, gift cards and all precious metals. If you were planning to buy electronics on Flipkart to beat the deadline, there is nothing there to beat.

Tanishq. Mia by Tanishq, digital gold, the Golden Harvest scheme, all silver and all gift cards are out.

MakeMyTrip. Only flights and hotels, only through the web flow you reached from Amex. App bookings earn nothing, and a partial or full cancellation reverses the bonus.

And on every merchant, bonus points are not paid on taxes, delivery charges, insurance, conversion fees or customs. You earn on the goods, not on the invoice total.

What survives

ShopWise. Amex's notice describes it as "an independent platform offering e-vouchers from 200+ brands across shopping, dining, and travel", and says accelerated points continue there. Note the reclassification: ShopWise stops being part of Reward Multiplier and becomes a thing Amex points you at. It replaced Gyftr in February 2026. It is also a different transaction from buying on a merchant's own site: you buy a fixed-denomination voucher first, then spend it, and ShopWise can charge a convenience fee. On Amazon vouchers that fee went from 0.75% plus GST to 1.5% plus GST in July 2025, with purchases capped at ₹10,000 a month.

RewardXcelerator. Unaffected, and running to 31 January 2027 by its own terms. But check the eligibility line before you count on it, because most Amex holders in India cannot use it at all. Amex's terms read: "Eligible Cards: American Express Centurion and Platinum Cards only." Gold, Membership Rewards Credit Card, SmartEarn and Platinum Travel are not on it. Platinum Reserve has its own separate version, worth 5X across seven brands and running to the same January 2027 date.

That matters because RewardXcelerator is being reported as the surviving alternative. For four of the seven cards in the table above, it is not an alternative to anything.

What to do before 29 September

1. List the purchases you were going to make in the next six months anyway. Only those. A programme ending is not a reason to buy something you did not want.
2. Check the merchant's exclusion list in the programme terms before you buy, not after. Phones, laptops, gold and gift cards are excluded far more often than they are not.
3. Put your largest eligible purchase first. The bonus stops at 25,000 points for the month, and on Platinum that is ₹2,50,000 of spend.
4. Get the tracking right or the points never arrive. Amex asks you to clear cookies, leave cookies enabled, start with an empty cart, stay out of incognito, avoid opening coupon or price-comparison sites in the same browser, and complete the purchase in the same session with the card you validated. Do not switch to the merchant's app.
5. Do not book refundable travel purely to hit the deadline. A cancellation in October reverses the bonus.
6. Then wait, properly. Bonus points are credited within 120 business days of the transaction, so a 29 September purchase may not post until well into 2027. You have 210 calendar days from the transaction to raise a query, 150 days for hotel and airline bookings.
7. After 30 September, compare before you pay. Amex is no longer automatically the best route on Apple or Myntra, and the answer moves to whichever of HDFC SmartBuy, ICICI iShop, Axis Grab Deals or ShopWise is paying most that week.

Common questions

Do I lose the Membership Rewards points I have already earned?

No. The base programme, existing balances and the standard earn rate are unchanged, and points continue not to expire while the account is active and in good standing.

My purchase is on 29 September. Do the points still come?

Yes, if the transaction completed before 11:59 PM and tracked properly. Amex has said points earned up to the deadline are credited under the existing terms, which means the 120 business day timeline still applies. Do not panic in October when nothing has posted.

Is ShopWise a straight replacement for Reward Multiplier?

Not really. It is the same idea reached a different way. Reward Multiplier let you buy from the merchant directly at an accelerated rate. ShopWise sells you an e-voucher in fixed denominations, which you then redeem, sometimes with a convenience fee on top. That is fine for a ₹5,000 Myntra order and awkward for a ₹1,47,300 laptop, where the denominations rarely land on the amount.

Does this affect the Amex dining or milestone benefits?

No. This is one earning route closing. Milestone spends, welcome bonuses, dining offers and the annual voucher benefits on cards like Platinum Travel are separate and unaffected.

Why is Amex doing this?

Amex has not said. The mechanism was an affiliate arrangement, and you can see it in the links themselves, which route through an affiliate network before reaching the merchant. Merchants paid a fee for sales sent that way and Amex passed part of it back as points. When those fees get renegotiated the maths behind the bonus stops working, which is the usual way these routes die.

Will ShopWise get shut down too?

Nothing announced. Worth knowing that Amex moved this channel from Gyftr to ShopWise in February 2026 and is discontinuing the wider programme seven months later, so treat any accelerated e-voucher route as something to use rather than something to plan a year around.

Sources

• American Express India, Reward Multiplier terms and conditions, for the per-card earn table, the 25,000 point monthly cap, the 120 business day credit timeline, the tracking requirements and every merchant exclusion quoted above, checked 29 August 2026
• American Express India, Reward Multiplier programme page, for the discontinuation notice, checked 29 August 2026
• American Express India, RewardXcelerator terms and conditions, for eligible cards and the 31 January 2027 validity, and the separate Platinum Reserve page for its 5X rate, both checked 29 August 2026
• Live From A Lounge, 26 August 2026, which broke the story and published the cardmember email

Only Amex's current terms are authoritative for your own card. If you are planning a large purchase against this deadline, open the exclusion list in those terms first.