If you’ve got an American Express Personal Platinum (or literally five of them like me), then you’re probably repeatedly annoyed at the twice a year $50 Saks credit. The best option to liquidate these is to take your stack of Platinums to a physical Saks and buy a $50 gift card with each, which isn’t supposed to reimburse but always does. That’s all fine and dandy, but the closest Saks to me is literally 698 miles by car which leaves me either 1) schlepping a bunch of Platinums around to a store I wouldn’t normally go to while I’m out of town, or 2) buying some overpriced stuff on Saks.com.
Reader Ryan let me know about another way that has more modestly priced receptacles choices:
Check out at Saks Off 5th with PayPal rather than using the Saks checkout and the $50 American Express credit will still post, even though it’s not supposed to
Office Depot/OfficeMax has an instant discount of $15 when purchasing at least $300 worth of Mastercard gift cards between now and Saturday. Two $200 gift cards worth (checks notes) $400, will cost you $398.30. Use a card that bonuses at office supply stores (duh).
Check your American Express offers for $150 back on $1,000 spend at Dell.com. Don’t forget about the Xbox gift card XBOX10 promo code, and ideally add this offer to a Business Platinum with unspent Dell credit if available. With XBOX10 and the resale rate hovering around 82%, this deal is profitable and you’ll earn a nice shopping portal bonus at Dell to boot.
PointApp has 10x earning at BestBuy between now and Sunday with a cap at $500 in spend. It’s definitely worth it for a few clicks to buy a BestBuy GC for resale if you’ve already got a Point card. They’re also offering a targeted 1,500 point bonus for using the card once per day for five days in a row, at least $5 per purchase. For this one, just use Debbit.
Remember, we do this so we can buy tickets and hang out at the airport for 14 hours due to a mechanical delay.
Check CashApp for a 5% back on online orders at Sam’s Club boost, usable once per day for up to $400 in spend each day through Thursday. I’d buy a couple of Visa or Mastercard gift cards each time, and don’t forget to go through a shopping portal, which often tracks gift card purchases at Sam’s Club (though not always). If you don’t have CashApp, find a friend for an invite and you’ll earn $15 after sending another CashApp user five bucks.
Ting SIM cards with $30 credit are now $0.99 at BestBuy and $1.00 at Target. The Visible $100 Mastercard deal is still running strong, and reader Yun let me know that TopCashBack is currently at $40 for new bring your own phone plans with a port-in of an existing phone number, in addition to the $100 Mastercard that you’ll get from Visible after two months. Additional background is available here and here.
Those last two bullets will pair well together. If you don’t have CashApp, I guarantee someone out there that you know has it. Reach out, say hi, and get a referral. I reluctantly put a referral for Point in a post last week because it was the only way to get a good sign-up bonus, but I can’t bring myself to do it again this week, that’s not why I’m in this; so find a friend!
Three month long spending bonuses on co-branded credit cards seems to have become a regular event at Chase. The current iteration started on Saturday and runs through August 15. Going to chase.com/mybonus used to be the easiest way to get registered; however in the current iteration that link won’t always show your bonus. Instead, you’ve got a much better chance of getting an offer by going to one of the following links, painstakingly compiled by JC, with a few minor edits and updates:
Marriott Bonvoy Premier Visa: 9x points on Marriott purchases, 5x on travel and gas purchases up to $1,500 combined
Ritz Carlton Visa: 10x points on Marriott purchases, 5x on travel and gas purchases up to $1,500 combined
United Club Visa link 1 or link 2: 8x or 6x points on United purchases, 5x on travel and gas purchases up to $1,500 combined
Southwest Rapid Rewards (RR), RR Plus, RR Premier, RR Employee, RR priority Visa link 1, link 2, or link 3: 6x or 5x points on Southwest purchases, 5x on travel and gas purchases up to $1,500 combined
United Explorer Visa: 6x on United purchases, 5x on travel and gas purchases up to $1,500 combined
United Gateway Visa: 6x on United purchases, 5x on travel and gas purchases up to $1,500 combined
United MileagePlus Explorer Visa link 1 or link 2: 6x or 5x points on United purchases, 5x on travel and gas purchases up to $1,500 combined
For the “travel and gas” category, personally I’d pick up $500 Vanilla Visa Gift Cards at 7-11, $500 SecureSpend Visas at Speedway, or $500 BestBuy gift cards at Speedway. For the United cards in particular, consider funding the United Travel Bank. Of course, there are other options — a hint for experts that I’d use with extreme caution only: refunds usually only refund at 1x.
Finally, why are there so many damn versions of Marriott cards between Chase and AmEx? I actually don’t really care to know, so don’t tell me.
I had another Weekend Wisdom planned for today, but Meijer majorly blew it out of the water, clearly because they weren’t happy to be left out of yesterday’s Grocery Store Manufactured Spend Deals post, or something. So we’ll save the Weekend Wisdom for another weekend. In the mean time, this deal is crazy:
This includes BestBuy gift cards, which are currently selling at 96-96.5%. That means you can manufacture spend at 6% profit, plus grocery store rewards and credit card rewards. There are other options at slightly lower profit too. This is bananas, and if you’re near a Meijer you should hop on it. I’m unfortunately not near one myself, but I am almost ready to book a cheap round trip to Meijer country for a weekend getaway.
The only rental cars currently available in Meijer land, cause #carpocalypse
There are a few grocery store deals going on this week (remember, grocery store weeks usually go from Wednesday to Tuesday because reasons). Just make sure you clip the coupon and save it to your accounts. Yes, accounts is plural, right? Right? The deals:
Kroger is offering $3 off on fixed value Visa gift cards or Mastercards, limit one per transaction, but multiple redemptions allowed. You can scale this at self-checkout with back-to-back-to-back transactions
1.Check here for Chase spending bonuses between May 15 and August 15 on co-branded credit cards, like Hyatt, United, IHG, AARP, or Marriott if you’re a masochist. My Hyatt card offer was for 8x on Hyatt Properties and 5x for spend on travel or at gas stations, up to $1,500 per month. My United card got nicely worded “go eat dirt” letter.
2.Simon has 50% off of Visa Gift Card purchase fees using promo code FS50MAY between now and Friday. Just don’t use an American Express card when buying because you won’t earn points or rewards. Personally I’m still (im)patiently waiting for a new promo code at VanillaGift.com.
3. You can kill two birds with one stone with your Saks American Express Platinum credit; check out with PayPal after shopping through Rakuten and you’ll get 15x, your $30 Personal Platinum monthly PayPal credit, and you’ll still be reimbursed for your Saks purchase too.
4. The Point 1% cash back debit card is offering 10x points on Amazon purchases, or just 10% cash back on up to $500 in spend. This seems to be a recurring theme with Point, a few weeks ago the app was offering 15x on Target purchases on up to $500 in spend. With the Target deal I was able to buy gift cards and still got the 15x despite it being excluded in the offer’s terms and conditions. With the Amazon deal, I’m going to do the same thing and I’m 99% sure it’ll pay out. There’s also a BestBuy offer for 5x for what it’s worth.
If you already have the card, this deal is a no-brainer for a few clicks. If you don’t have it, should you get the card? I’m still not sure honestly: It has an annual fee of $49 so it’s not an obvious winner like Cash.app used to be, but if these deals keep coming it’s well worth the entry fee. If you sign up through anyone’s referral link you’ll get 10,000 points or $100 back after spending $1,000 on the card instead of the stupid $5 you get back for signing up directly with Point. So if you go for it, find a friend or another MS buddy and get a referral from them and you’ll both earn $100. Please just go that route, but if you can’t find anyone else with a referral link mine is here (*), as small as I can make it.
1. You can generate a $750 bonus for a Chase Business Checking account at this link. You’ve got to deposit $10,000 and hold it there for 60 days, then make 25 qualifying transactions. If that sounds daunting, believe me, it’s really not. Just set up Debbit to do 25 $0.50 Amazon gift card reloads, or Xfinity bill payments, or something else with your new business debit card. (Also, don’t forget to deposit an extra $13 to cover those $0.50 reloads and maintain that $10,000 balance.)
Even if you’re not ready to do this one just yet, enter your email address on the Chase form, click “Open account in branch” and you’ll get a code for using the offer in the future. It should be valid through at least July 23 so you’ve got plenty of time to get ready.
2.Rakuten is offering 15% cash back or 15 Membership Rewards per dollar spent on a dozen or so stores this week. You should be interested in at least two of them for liquidating your American Express Platinum and Business Platinum Credits: Saks and Dell (Business Platinum). Just make sure you’ve activated your Saks and Dell credits before buying.
