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AmEx offers is a great way to make a bit of additional money without too much work, it’s also a great way of getting some discounts on products you might already be thinking of purchasing. Once I worked out AmEx offers I quickly dusted off a lot of the AmEx cards I had put in the sock drawer. Here are the basics:
- Enrollment eligibility is dependent on a per offer basis. The following cards should be eligible:
- Serve is eligible even though it is is a prepaid card (Bluebird is not eligible)
- Business & consumer cards issued directly by AmEx and authorized users of these cards
- Primary card holders of AmEx cards that are issued by a financial institution other than AmEx
- Serve is eligible even though it is is a prepaid card (Bluebird is not eligible)
[Read:Â How does being added as an authorized user affect your credit?]
- The offers are rebates that come in the form of statement credit. They post automatically, and you are usually notified that you will be credited for the purchase instantly.
- The easiest way to keep track of AmEx offers is through the http://www.amexoffers.com/Â website, alternatively these methods will also work:
- Account page: Scroll down to the bottom of your account page and you will see a tab labeled my offers. All you have to do is click on the offer and it will be loaded onto that card.
- Facebook: Search for Amex Offers, and it will bring up the App. You just need to enter your card information, and then any offers you select through Face book will be linked to that card. Just one card can be linked to a Facebook profile, but if you have alternate profiles like one for a business or just for online gaming you can use those for other cards.
- Twitter: Same deal. Only one card can be registered with one Twitter account. But it can be a different card than you have linked to Facebook. If you follow the Amex twitter feed they will tweet deals as they come up. All you have to do to enroll is retweet the deal. Ex. #AmexHomeDepot . A few minutes later, Amex will respond with a confirmation tweet that they have loaded the offer to your card.
- FourSquare: Most of these deals are limited to locations in major cities like Los Angeles,NYC, Chicago, Washington D.C. I can’t say this avenue has been terribly useful to me.
- Tripadvisor: This site is going to offer up good travel deals, but is not the place to find deals conducive to manufactured spending.
The easiest way to make money through AmEx offers is to look out for deals at stores that sell cash equivalents (commonly referred to as manufactured spending). The obvious choice would be gift cards, Visa cards are preferable as they are the easiest to liquidate through Bluebird/Serve or money orders. Merchant gift cards for Amazon or Target can also be useful too.
Contents
An Example Deal: Cash Equivalents
The best opportunity right now is $15 back on a $75 purchase at Home Depot. Here is how you could profit from this deal:
- Purchase a $100 Visa or Mastercard gift card, or the highest denomination you can find. If you do luck out and find a $200 card ask to split the payment between two Amex cards to get two rebates for the price of one activation fee.
- $100 + 5.95 activation = 105.95 -$15 credit = $90.95 cost for $100 plus points and miles. That’s a profit of 9.05 plus points and miles which should be equal to $1-2 depending on valuation
The Home Depot deal is the best manufactured spend opportunity available right now but it pales in comparison to deals offered in the past. Last month Lowes offered $10 off 50, and Staples had $25 off $100. So I said, Visa gift cards are the obvious choice as they are easy to unload for cash.
An Example Deal: Store Gift Cards
Update: The ticketmaster deal specifically states that gift card purchases are not eligible and this is enforced. This is why it’s always important to read the fine print. If you want another (working) example of how a store gift card deal would work then read our post on Bonefish grill here.
There are some more creative ways to manufactured spend at retailers that don’t sell Visa or 3rd party gift cards. So what do you do if the only gift cards available are the merchants? You can simply purchase a gift card from that retailer and then resell it to one of the many gift card resellers. At the moment Ticketmaster is currently offering $25 off $75 (33% discount). First you’ll want to find out how much these gift cards are selling for, the easiest way to quickly do this is by using giftcardgranny. At the moment Giftcards.com is paying the most which is 85% of face value. You can actually get 87% of face value by using a cash back portal in addition to a giftcard reseller. Topcashback is currently offering 4% cash back on gift cards sold to cardpool.com, cardpool is currently offering 83% on Ticketmaster gift cards which means you can get 87% of face value on ticketmaster purchases. Here is how to make profit from this deal:
- Purchase a $75 ticketmaster giftcard using an AmEx card enrolled in the offer
- Receive a statement credit for $25
- Resell the gift card to one of the giftcard resellers:
- Sell to Giftcards.com for 85% of face value, you’ll receive $63.75
- Sell to Cardpool.com using the topcashback.com portal for 87% of face value, you’ll receive $65.25
You’ll make a profit of $13.75-$15.25 per gift card you resell and whatever rewards the credit card you use earns. Obviously if you have multiple American Express cards/authorized user accounts you can make a lot very quickly. One thing to keep in mind is that the prices that these gift card resellers are likely to offer will drop as more people do this, that’s why it’s important to get in early.
An Example Deal: Free After Rebate Products
You can profit even when an offer doesn’t make up for the money lost by selling their gift card to a reseller. Consider NewEgg.com. They are currently offering $15 off $150. It’s only a 10% discount and their gift cards are going for an atrocious 50%. But they do sell lots of Free After Rebate (FAR) items, as does Staples. They are particularly known for their Free After Rebate (FAR) software deals. You can find the latest ones on threads on slickdeals.com or fatwallet.com. So you would purchase FAR items, receive your credit from Amex and then get all your money back in the form of rebates. This requires a bit more work than the other methods, but can still be quite profitable especially when you take into account credit card rewards as well. I would love to hear from readers of any other creative ways you have come up with to turn Amex Offers into cash.
Current Deals
You can view a list of current deals that we’ve covered by reading our category on amex offers. They can also be viewed below:
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thank you
this needs a major update
Not sure if it once worked on cards issued on the AmEx network by other banks, but amexoffers.com now pretty clearly says “American Express Corporate Cards and American Express-branded cards or account numbers issued by other financial institutions are not eligible.”
The bullet points for eligibility could use a refresh (there’s also a duplicated one).
Do you need to spend the entire amount needed for the offer in one transaction? Thanks.
Fix this post! The TsCs say no gift cards on Ticketmaster.
Done, sorry about that!
Have you personally received the Amex credit by purchasing a gift card at Ticketmaster? The T&C for the offer say that it excludes gift cards. I’ve done a search on some of the forums, but I haven’t found any confirmation either way.
Just a heads up. I just opened up a Wells Fargo Propel card https://www.doctorofcredit.com/credit-cards/rewards/wells-fargo-propel-world-american-express-card-review/ and was given the opportunity to sync it to Amex offers. I have a few other Amex cards held by other banks that were ineligible. So Wells must have cut a special deal with Amex.
Are you sure the ticketmaster deal will work with giftcards? The terms state otherwise…
Did you actually do the Ticketmaster gc idea?
T&C seem a drop vague to me if it works on gc’s, though I do believe you are correct. Just wanted a hard-data confirmation.
Also, why does it say Los Angeles, CA next to the gc? Isn’t it for use anywhere?
Now I see on slickdeals that they wonder whether it works on gc’s. They seem to have some slight indications that it does not work.