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Amex Rewards: Gift Cards

August 1st, 2016 at 05:47 pm

My husband got a American Express Gold card earlier in the year. I believe the offer was to spend $2000 and receive 50K reward points. We did the spending and the points accumulated to just over 51K. Last week we finally went through the process of redeeming those rewards. It wasn't as simple as ordering online, although I tried. In the end, my husband had to talk to customer service to confirm the order wasn't fraud. I suppose that is because the order was for over $500 worth of gift cards!

The cards we ordered arrived three days later by UPS. No need to sign for them, just dropped on our front porch.

We got cards to places like Home Depot, Staples, Bath&Body Works, Chili's restaurant, Bone Fish Grill, and iTunes. There weren't not as many options as I would have liked to be honest. The Target and American Express gift cards 'cost' far more points per dollar than the ones we did redeem.

On Saturday night, three of us went to dinner at Chili's. The bill was $45.29. I had the server run the card, left the balance and a $5 bill as a tip. So only $5 out of pocket for three people to eat. That was nice!

I now see that I'm eligible for this same credit card offer when I log into my Amex account. It might be worth it...just wish the rewards were better (to places I tend to shop).

Posted in Snowflakes | 6 Comments »

6 Responses to “Amex Rewards: Gift Cards”

  1. MonkeyMama Says:
    August 1st, 2016 at 06:29 pm 1470072545
    1470072545

    Are Amazon gift cards an option?

    I presume no. I had looked up our other AmEx rewards and Amazon was on the list, so I thought that sounded useful. But after reading your post I checked my *new* AmEx reward card and there wasn't any gift cards that we'd want or use. No Amazon. I expect I probably won't apply for that 50,000 point bonus/Gold card after all.

  2. creditcardfree Says:
    August 1st, 2016 at 06:31 pm 1470072712
    1470072712

    No Amazon gift cards with the Gold card. Frown I was disappointed too. I couldn't even get Kohl's, where I shop with some frequency. Target was available, but I would have needed to use more points to get a similar value I got on the others.

  3. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    August 2nd, 2016 at 03:51 am 1470106281
    1470106281

    You couldn't get cash back?

    I just got the AE charge card with the offer to spend $1k and get 25k points. I'm hoping that an option is cashback! (Put towards medical debt.)

  4. creditcardfree Says:
    August 2nd, 2016 at 01:24 pm 1470140646
    1470140646

    @FT, No cash back option on Amex Gold that I can see. We have the Amex Blue Cash Everyday card that has 'cash back' redeemable in $25 increments but is provided as a statement credit. So you could use the statement credits to pay the bill and then use those funds to pay medical debt. I've noticed that Amex rewards don't post very quickly...usually takes two months to get the points.

  5. creditcardfree Says:
    August 2nd, 2016 at 01:28 pm 1470140883
    1470140883

    My Amex Blue Cash Everyday card does have Amazon.com gift cards as an option. Smile

  6. Frugaltexan75 Says:
    August 2nd, 2016 at 05:18 pm 1470154728
    1470154728

    Statement credit would work just as well. Smile I remember they do take forever to post rewards.

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