Unless you walked in to Dan Murphys and tried, my advice to those experiencing online difficulties would be DO NOT take the T&C's as absolute gospel. If it hasn't been tested, you've got nothing to lose trying, right?
People *have* tried doing it instore in the past and failed.
The SC offer is for spend ONLY on DM online.
And yes, Amex can tell. It goes by the merchant code on the transaction.
Wanna know how?
Because I spent $120 on one of my Amex cards on 14 Jan in my local DM, and on my statement it comes up as
"DAN MURPHY'S ~~~suburb~~~" <I edited the suburb name out for privacy.
I didn't do this with the intention of trying to get the statement credit, I was shopping for other reasons, but I didn't get the activation email, nor did I get the statement credit.
Yesterday, I purchased a few DM $50 gift cards from the DM website on my various Amex cards, purely for the purpose of getting the statement credit. On my statement (they've already been processed), it comes up as
"DAN MURPHY ONLINE 8305 BELLA VISTA"
I instantly received all my SC activation emails.
The merchant code is what triggers the statement credit for this offer.
And in store, they do not use merchant code 8305... it's a unique merchant code only used by DM online when processing transactions.