The Offer
- Spend $50 in-store at Smart & Final and receive a $25 statement credit. Each offer can be used 3 times.
This offer can be added to your card via Twitter by tweeting #AmexSmartFinal. It’s also showing in some people’s Amex logins, on some of their cards.
Smart & Final is a warehouse-type grocery store, with over 200 branches in the Western USA.
One unique aspect of this Offer is that each registered card can be used 3 times for a purchase of $50 and you’ll receive a $25 credit for each charge. We’ve seen that before with Amex Offers (here), but it’s a rare breed.
The Fine Print
- Valid until 6/30/15.
- Valid in-store only.
- Excludes Cash & Carry brand name stores.
- Not valid outside the US.
- Limit 3 Statement credits per registered card.
Our Verdict
I don’t know much about the Smart & Final store, but this seems like a remarkable offer. If you can get 50% off your ordinary groceries and the like, that’s an offer which is hard to beat. You should also be able to buy gift cards in the store and use them for future use (though I don’t know this for a fact).
[UPDATE: In the comments on this post it’s being reported that the store sells Visa gift cards and other gift cards. That obviously makes this offer unbeatable; probably the best Amex Offer that ever existed. MilesToMemories found a list of gift card they carry here.]
Since the offer is available via Twitter, it’s easy to get it on all cards. And each card can be used 3 times!
Let us know how you made use of this offer.
See these posts to learn more about Amex Offers:
- AmEx Offers: An Introduction & Profitable Examples
- How To Sign Up For Multiple American Express Sync Offers
- Amex Offer Credit Not Posting, What to Do?
- How Does American Express Decide Who Receives What AmEx Sync Offer?
- Credit Card Purchase Date and Post Date as it relates to Amex Offers
Hit and miss for me. $100 GCs were cleared out at one store; at another overzealous manager would not allow me to buy multiple GCs on multiple credit cards and would not allow split payment. Managed to purchase few via split payment at a third store. Every store checked ID.
Glad to hear you got a few done.
…and today I got “debit card only” in Fullerton on a VGC. The two $25 amazon GCs sitting on the check stand should have tipped me off!
That’s a bummer.
Just had a crazy trip to Smart and Final, all said and done it took me an hour to get out of that place. Took in 2 Amex Cards both in my name (1 Account holder+ 1 AU) first swipe of $50 dollars went through perfectly, second one? Denied. Im thinking fraud alert but I don’t get a text alert so I called AMEX and they said that the transactions were approved, said the denial was on S&F’s side. Long story short I try two more times at the same register and get denied again, both ended in 2 more charges on my AMEX.
End up working with the manager and all said and done it took 7 swipes in total to get 4 $50 Nordstrom cards, I ended up getting 3 of the purchases returned on my card.
I am now curious if when those 3 “returns” post, will the amex offers return also? Or will I have wasted 2 amex offer statements because of S&F outdated “K-Mart” retro registers?
The cards which the charge didn’t process on won’t get the offer credit. However, those cards aren’t ‘used up’, so you can go back and use them again.
Did we ever find out if smart and final extra stores work?
“Extra” stores work. I’ve gone to two, and have received credits already. AmEx also lists these stores when you log into your account, add the offer, and view the details which include a listing of nearby locations.
Thanks Shaun
Don’t forget you can Sync your BB’s as well.
Thanks for the reminder!
I’m curious about the exclusion of Cash & Carry brand items. How can the exclude the offer from a specific item? If they can, what’s to prevent them from excluding gift card purchases?
I believe the exclusion is for Cash & Carry brand name STORES, not items.
Just checked this morning. 3x credit posted on 3 of cards from Amex! Side note, Citi (I used an Aadvantage Amex as well) posted its credit as well. Happy day
Link for those curious:
http://i.imgur.com/6nLnS46.png
Awesome! Thanks for the image.
Thanks for the heads up. I thought the Lowe’s and Chevron offers were pretty decent, but this one definitely blows them away. I added this to 3 of my Amex cards so I could get 50% off of a $450 purchase somewhere. I’m thinking it might have to be Bed, Bath and Beyond. Nine $50 BB&B gift cards plus a 20% off coupon would really maximize the value for a bigger purchase.
Great idea for shopping at BBB! Or you could use it for Visa/MC/Amex gift cards.
Well done Chuck. This is the first worthy Amex offer that has ever showed up on all of my Amex cards (I did not do this through Twitter). Just signed up for this on 6 cards, so I am hoping for some healthy savings. I think I will hold off on making all my purchases in one trip, as Lei did, just to be certain that it all goes smoothly. Especially since I have until the end of June.
Thanks for the tip.
Yeah, but they may crack down somehow (e.g. stop allowing cc on gc purchase) so it could be worthwhile to do it soon.
Can anybody report success doing more than 2 swipes?
From the pending transaction:
Category: Merchandise & Supplies – Groceries