American Express launches ‘pay by Tweet’ service

American Express (Amex) has synced with Twitter to enable its cardholders to tweet specific hashtags to purchase products online.

Amex's technology, dubbed Card Sync, had initially been launched in March 2012 to deliver couponless savings to card holders who tweeted special offer hashtags from merchants.

The update to the technology means that card members can now tweet hashtags to buy American Express gift cards and products from Amazon, Sony, Urban Zen and Xbox 360.

On its Twitter page, American Express has said that it will have "great prices available for the Kindle Fire HD, Xbox 360 and the Sony Action Cam" starting today at 12pm EST (5pm GMT). However, Amex has not confirmed whether the new service will extend to the UK or any other countries.

American Express card holders can sync their eligible cards at this website. They then have to tweet special product hashtags by looking at the @AmericanExpress Twitter favourites page. Then customers should check their Twitter mentions for a response from @AmexSync containing a confirmation hashtag. This should then be tweeted within 15 minutes of the response to confirm the purchase.

"Based on the initial success of Amex Sync for offers, we know there is significant power in combining our assets with Twitter's platform to bring value to card members and merchants," said Leslie Berland, senior vice president, digital partnerships and development at American Express.

"Now, we're leveraging our unique technology and closed-loop network to introduce a seamless solution that redefines what's possible in the world of social commerce," she added.