The Offer
- Spend $400 at Saks Fifth Avenue with a registered Amex card and receive a bonus 6,000 Membership Rewards points.
If you spend $400 at Saks, you’ll get the standard 400 Membership Reward points for the purchase, plus an additional 6,000 bonus points through this special offer.
If you want to spend exactly $400, you can purchase a $400 gift card, as these are not excluded in the Terms. A $400 e-gift card purchase should work as well to trigger this bonus offer, as the e-cards appear to be processed by Saks themselves, not by an outside party.
The Fine Print
- Valid until 9/24/15
- Online or in-store
- ” Limit 1 enrolled Card per American Express online account and limit of 6,000 bonus Membership Rewards points per Card.” If you use the multi-tab trick to enroll multiple cards, you should be able to get the bonus points on each card.
- “When we calculate the extra points benefit for Amex EveryDay Card products, points awarded under this offer will not be included.”
- Don’t pay with Paypal – must pay directly on Saks site
Our Verdict
Really interesting to see a different sort of Amex Offer than they typical $ discount.
Now let’s look at the reselling angle: You can resell a $400 Saks gift card for 83-84.5% of its value. Let’s assume the lower number of 83%. Your yield on the sale will be $332. You’re effectively paying $68 for 6400 MR points. Not a bad deal.
But wait…it gets much better with the portal: in the Laboratory, there are reports that Saks physical gift cards have worked to trigger Discover portal cashback. The 5% cashback will be double for many of us and will yield 10% cashback. You can also try using the BeFrugal portal (my referral link) or the ShopAtHome portal for 11% cashback. We don’t know if it will work on gift cards though, and it may be smarter to go with Discover, although there are risks in using the Discover portal when not paying with a Discover card.
Assuming you can get 10% from the portal, your cost for the 6400 points will be just $28 instead of $68. That’s a great deal!
Ultimately, I’d only advise this deal for someone who’s willing to pay $68 for 6400 MR points since there are risks involved with the portals.
See these posts to learn more about Amex Offers:
- AmEx Offers: An Introduction & Profitable Examples
- Amex Offer Credit Not Posting, What to Do?
- Online Credit Card Purchases – Transaction Date and Post Date
HT: Dannydealguru and runningwithmiles
I’m seeing this now on the Saks.com links for AA Shopping. This seems to mean gift cards are not longer eligible for AA miles credit?
Please note these terms & conditions: Not eligible on purchases made with coupon or discount codes that are not found on this site. Not eligible on gift cards, gift certificates or any other similar cash equivalents.
Did anyone shopped through Discover Deal received cashback?
I ordered a couple physical cards thru Discover Deals. It’s been a couple weeks and no emails have come.
Got anything? Nothing here. I guess discover deals are a no go now for this merchant at least with respect to buying GC.
Reposting.
Does anyone know if authorized user has this offer and they use it, will the original cardholder still get bonus points? I, as a original cardholder have already redeemed this offer (on my card)
If it’s loaded on their card, the primary will get the points.
Tested out on 2 cards from the same online account (same Membership Rewards #) and only got 6000 once. (I guess I could call AMEX to argue but don’t wanna do that just yet…)
I wonder if it would be better to create one separate online account for each card. Could you have different online accounts for different cards but with the same MR number?
Alex, did you ever receive the 6,000 MR points from the other cards?
Yep, multiple posted from my AU accounts.
Do you know if it would post to separate cards (not AU)?
do you know if authorized user has this offer and they use it, will the original cardholder still get points? This is in top of original cardholder also having the offer.
Is there a way to get free shipping? $4 charge for shipping physical gift card makes the deal a tad bit more expensive.
The way I calculate the deal –
600 MR (400*1.5 everyday preferred) + 6000 MR (bonus) + 4600 AA (8x AA shopping click thru + 3.5x AA shopping bonus)
11200 points for $68. Great deal assuming AA shopping portal tracks correctly.
I was thinking about jumping on this offer, but I guess to MS a 6400 MR in grocery stores with PRG, the fees will be ~$25.
You’re also using some of your unload capacity to do 6.4k in MR at grocery store though.
Great post – one thing I want to point out though, is, that when you calculate the resale value of a gift card, most of the time you should multiply the whatever percent the site is willing to offer, by the amount you are willing to sell for.
In your case, you mentioned that you can sell $400 for $332, which is (83%). Keep in mind though that if you list your $400 at $400, it’s 0% discount to the buyer. There isn’t very much merit here. Sometimes the listings are competitive among sellers, often requiring a larger discount rate, like 5~10%. So if you decide to sell it for $380, which is 5% discount off $400, the 83% of $380 would be $315. So you would actually have to pay $85 for 6,400 MR points. I’m not saying your logic is invalid, but just to be on the realistic side I wanted to be nosy. But still, $85 for 6,400 MR points sounds like a good deal for many.
Hi sadface,
You might have missed the link where it says 83-84.5%?
Chuck is talking about reselling through website, not to buyers directly. In this case price is guaranteed and there’s no competitions involved. (But of course the rate changes over time)
I’m assuming you have just joined the community recently, (really sorry if I’m wrong!) Welcome, and I recommend you reading this post about gift card churning.
DoC is really one of the best blogs out there about GC churning.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/must-read-giftcard-reselling-series/
Thanks for the helpful comment, Vic! It’s great to see people that are more experienced taking the time to explain to others in the comments in a friendly way. We need more of this on the site!
Hi Vic – thanks for the message. I guess I was wrong on how it works! I thought I would get paid only when the card sells. Do the resellers like Cardpool, Raise, and etc. pay you upfront whenever you register your GC info? Thanks!
Raise is a market place so you need to wait for it to sell, whereas other companies will pay you once you’ve submitted the card (although there is usually some waiting period to actually receive the funds).
I’m sorry for the dumb question, why would anyone wants to pay $68 for 6400 MR points? This MR is equivalent to $64? I’m new to this guys…
6400 = $6400 spent at $1 per 1 point rate.
if you can transfer to an airline partner and get say 2 cents of value, then you’re getting about a 50% discount. Not awesome, but if the portal works out, then you’re getting a really nice discount (~78%).
6400 points for $28=$.004375/point
Which gift card is easier to resell, electronic or physical?