What to do with that $50 Saks Credit from Amex [Repost]

Update 12/30/18: Not much time to use your credit up for 2018, do this now if you haven’t already.

A lot of people are trying to figure out how to use up the new $50 Saks credit from American Express. We’ll do a quick recap of options here in this post.

As a reminder, American Express added a new benefit to the American Express Personal Platinum card offering a $50 credit towards Saks Fifth Avenue purchases. You receive a $50 credit on purchases made from January 1st until June 30th and another $50 credit for purchases made from July 1st until December 31st, 2018.

You need to enroll first at this link. You’ll see ‘Enrolled’ if already enrolled.

A few options (some affiliate links below):

• Buy gift cards. Officially, gift card are excluded in the terms. In practice, they seem to be working to trigger the credit.
  • You can buy a $50 Saks gift card at a Saks store. If you have two Amex Platinum cards, you can buy a single $100 Saks gift card and split the charge. Note, some stores seem to have difficulty doing this. Also remember, outlets and Off Fifth won’t work. 
  • You can buy a physical Saks gift card online. Problem here is that Saks recently changed the minimum gift card to $150 so you’ll be getting a 33% discount on the gift card if all works out. Not the best deal, but an option.
  • Don’t buy an e-gift card. Those appear to be routed through a third-party seller, and I assume it won’t trigger the offer credit.
• Shop online for $50 items.
  • You can find sale items $50 and under in the Men’s department here, and you can sort it high-to-low to get the ones close to $50. Also check this filter for items $50-$150, sorted low-to-high.
  • You can find sale items $50 and under in the Women’s department here, and you can sort it high-to-low to get the ones close to $50. Also check this filter for items $50-$150, sorted low-to-high.
  • Above is just a sample from the sale item selection. You can also go department-by-department and filter to find items in the $50 price range. For example, here is a link for men’s shoes $50 and less. And here’s for men’s shoes $50-$150 sorted low-to-high.
  • Here’s a link for sale beauty items $50 or less, sorted high-to-low.
  • And of course, there’s always socks. 
• Shop at a Saks store. Only advantage of shopping in-store is that you can split-tender across multiple Platinum cards by putting $50 on each. Note, some stores seem to have difficulty doing this. Also remember, outlets and Off Fifth won’t work. Use Ebates in-store cashback for Saks store shopping.

Let us know what you’ll be buying in the comments or if you have a good idea. Only a month left for this credit, and worth doing it a few days early to ensure it credits in 2018. I’d recommend reviewing all the details about this Saks $50 credit in this dedicated post.

Remember to use a shopping portal for your online purchases. Also, there’s an Amex Offer to get 2x Membership Rewards points; worth adding that before shopping as well. You can use Shoprunner to get free two-day shipping.