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The New NFL Extra Points Amex Pays $100, and NFL Purchases Do Not Count
September 11, 2026
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The NFL Extra Points American Express® Credit Card relaunched on the American Express network on August 26. No annual fee, $100 cash back after $500 of spending in the first 90 days, 18 teams live at launch.
$500 in 90 days is easy to lose track of. Kudos tracks your progress toward a welcome bonus for free, so you find out you are behind with weeks to spare. Track your sign-up bonus progress with Kudos.
What the card actually offers
- $0 annual fee and $100 cash back after $500 in spend in the first 90 days.
- 3% back on qualifying NFL and NFL team purchases.
- 2% back on grocery, food delivery, restaurants, gyms and sporting goods.
- 1% back on everything else.
- 25% off NFLShop.com with code EXTRAPOINTS, plus Amex Offers and Amex Experiences presale access.
One clarification, since the relaunch confused this: Bread Financial is still the issuer. What changed is the payment network, from Visa to American Express.
[[ SINGLE_CARD * {"id": "24708", "isExpanded": "false", "bestForCategoryId": "15", "bestForText": "NFL and Team Purchases", "headerHint": "$100 WELCOME OFFER"} ]]
Kudos tells you which card in your wallet earns most on the purchase in front of you, which is exactly the question a card with one high category and one big exclusion creates.
Worth checking your odds before you apply. Kudos shows your approval likelihood before anyone runs a hard inquiry. Check your approval odds.
The footnote that changes the offer
Footnote two of the official release states that the offer excludes all NFL purchases, including NFLShop.com, NFL stadium purchases, and NFL tickets bought at NFL Team Ticket Offices, Ticketmaster, SeatGeek and Sports Illustrated Tickets. Read that against the earn table and the shape of it becomes clear. The category the card pays its highest rate on is the category the welcome offer will not count toward. So the obvious route to the minimum spend, buying season tickets or a jersey, is the one route that gets you nothing.
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How to actually hit the bonus
The answer is boring, which is usually a sign it is right:
- Put 90 days of groceries and restaurants on it. Those are the 2% categories and they count toward the $500.
- Clear the minimum there, not at the stadium. Football spending earns 3% but moves you no closer to the bonus.
- Then use it for football. Once the $100 has posted, the 3% category is the reason to keep the card.
Why this is not a trick
It is worth being fair about the economics. On a co-branded card, the partner funds a share of the rewards, and no partner wants to subsidise a welcome bonus on its own inventory. Excluding partner purchases from minimum spend is standard across the category, not something the NFL invented. The problem is not the exclusion. It is that the exclusion lives in a footnote while the 3% category lives in the headline.
Bottom line
If you want the $100, spend the first 90 days on groceries and restaurants and keep the card away from anything NFL-branded until the bonus posts. A no-annual-fee card paying 3% on football is a reasonable thing to carry. Just do not expect it to get you to the bonus. The card is now live in Kudos, so you can see the full terms and earn rates alongside the rest of your wallet, and Kudos will track your progress toward the $500 once it is in there.
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Editorial Disclosure: Opinions expressed here are those of Kudos alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
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