In the last few weeks, an insane offer popped up on the Brex Cash Card, offering up to 110k points. I posted about this offer previously. Later on, I was forced to take down the post due to a plagiarism claim (completely false) that someone put in against that post (I’m still investigating this, but in the meantime, I took down the post). 

The offer was first available exclusively from OMAAT, offering 80k points after just $1k spent on the card. Plus, you can earn another 10k points after $3,000 is spent on the card within the first 3 months. In addition, you can earn another 20k points after you link your Brex Cash card to your payroll account or deposit sales revenue to your Brex Cash management account (you are able to trigger this by transferring money through PayPal to Brex). This offer has already expired.

Later on, a very similar offer popped up, offered exclusively from PYED offering 75k points after just $1k spent on the card. Plus, you can earn another 10k points after $3,000 is spent on the card within the first 3 months. Additionally, you can earn another 20k points after you link your Brex Cash card to your payroll account or deposit sales revenue to your Brex Cash management account.  As per PEYD, This offer is currently paused.

Many of my readers signed up when the offer was live, but a lot of readers also bumped into issues and concerns which I’d like to address in this post.

Is Brex legit?

Many readers are concerned about the legitimacy of Brex. 

A recent post on Frequent Miler painted a dark picture on the legitimacy of BREX. I highly respect Nick from the Frequent Miler, his content is always top-notch. Nick, later on, released a new post clarifying on the previous one. Here is what I found, based on my research.

The CEO of Brex is a Brazilian entrepreneur named Henrique Dubugras.

Henrique founded Brex four years ago, when he was just 22 years old! You might think, ok. Let me stop here. I heard enough. But, no, a little more research on Henrique shows that he is far from your usual 22-year-old. 

When Henrique was just 16 years old, he founded, together with his partner, Franceschi, a company called Pagar.me.

Pagar.me is an online credit card processing company, similar to Stripe, etc. Later on in 2016 Pagar.me was sold (Henrique was just 21). At the time, the company processed over 1.5 billion dollars in transactions and had over 100 employees!

With this experience under his belt, in 2017, he went on and founded Brex. Today, just 3 years later, Brex is valued at over $2.6B, and has over 500 employees. Brex has raised over $732M in capital, coming from well-respected investors like PayPal founders Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, and former CEO of Visa Carl Pascarella. 

My Brex Cash Card not getting approved or pending for a long time?

Many users sent me messages complaining about not getting approved for the card. In most cases, the issue was for readers who did not have an LLC or a company email address (using a Gmail address in most cases did not get approved).

Some people got declined even if they had a legitimate LLC and company email. I’m not sure why Brex is declining certain applications; it could be they suspect fraud or maybe they don’t like certain industries.  

Some have reached out about applications that went pending for a week or more and they never heard back from Brex.

 It’s quite obvious that because of all the hype, Brex is currently flooded with applications and this can be the reason that pending applications are taking longer to process. Some have seen success with expediting the process when they tried to chat with a Brex representative or emailed [email protected]. 

I deposited funds but still not showing an available credit limit on the card?

I saw many complaints of users who have deposited funds to their Brex cash management account, but still don’t see the deposited funds become available to spend on the Brex Cash card. I’m not sure what’s causing this issue and all data points will be appreciated. Many were able to get this corrected by emailing  [email protected].

Is the money deposited in my Brex Cash Management account safe?

The money deposited in your Brex Cash Management account is FDIC insured, so I would call that safe.

I don't see the first 80k/75k bonus points listed under bonus rewards

When you login to Brex and click on rewards the bonus points section will only list the final 30k bonus points of the offer, but will not list the first leg of the offer which is either 80k/75k bonus points after spending $1,000 (depending on which offer you signed up for). This is a glitch on Brex’s end and everyone has the same problem. But everyone else that completed the spending did get the full bonus points once the spending was completed (as far as I am aware of). 

Will Brex honor the welcome offer?

This is the million-dollar question. After all this insane activity, will Brex back off from the welcome offer?

It seems to be pretty obvious that Brex bit off more than they can chew. Underwriters, customer service agents, and no one at Brex seems to have been ready for such an influx of applications. But will Brex be able to afford to payout the welcome bonus for all the people that signed up?  I do not see an ultimate concern in Brex not honoring the offer altogether. Again, Brex is a company that is currently valued at more than $2.5B. Not honoring the offer will be extremely devastating and I believe they will do everything possible not to go down that route. At the end of the day, though, everything is possible.

But I do see a place of concern for Brex to crack down on accounts that they feel abused the offer and signed up just to grab the points. We have seen this activity already started with people suddenly getting an email that their account is suspended. And my prediction is that this will only increase.  In such a case, Brex might confiscate the points or entirely close the account.

My suggestion to my readers (and I will do the same as well) would be the following,

1. Complete the first $1,000 spend asap by using only real business transactions (don’t swipe it in the grocery).
2. Do not deposit just yet any money from PayPal as that can possibly get your account flagged. Wait first until you receive the first 80k/75k from the offer. (I am just speculating, but I do not have any confirmed data points that this is triggering shutdowns)
3. Once you receive the 80k/75k (should happen about 5 days after you completed the spending) then redeem the points asap.
4. Once the points are redeemed then proceed with the final two steps of swiping the additional $2,000 and complete a Paypal transfer to your Brex account.
5. Once you receive the additional 30k points then redeem them right away.

Using this strategy will hopefully save your account from being flagged, and even if it is flagged later on, your points will be already gone!

I hope this post clears up your concerns with the Brex offer. If you have any additional questions feel free to leave a comment and I will respond. 

How can I redeem Brex rewards?

Brex points can be redeemed as cashback at 1 cent per point, or redeemed for gift cards at also 1 cent per point,  or transferred to any of the following airlines at a 1 to 1 ratio

• JetBlue- TrueBlue
• Air France – KLM Flying Blue
• Avianca – Lifemiles
• Cathay Pacific – Asia Miles
• Emirates – Skywards
• Aeromexico – Premier
• Qantas –  Frequent Flyer
• Singapore Airlines – KrisFlyer