There’s a targeted Amex Offer found on some business cards to get 20% back on a in-store purchase at Sam’s Club with a maximum of $250 cash back. We wrote about it in these two posts:
The key here is that the offer is only valid on a single purchase, so you’ll want to spend $1250 in one transaction to get the full $250 back. Many have noted that, in practice, doing multiple back-to-back transactions (probably anything in the same day) also works to trigger the offer credit. This makes it easier, especially for variable-load Visa gift card purchases which require each $500 card to be processed separately.
Visa/MC gift cards and Sam’s Club gift cards are the easiest way to maximize. Some people are getting cashiers telling them that they can’t take credit card on gift card purchases, but I think most people aren’t having that issue. Try the customer service desk if a regular cashier doesn’t work.
The offer expires on January 31, 2017. So long as you swipe the card before midnight on 1/31 it will trigger the offer credit.
I don’t know if this offer is still available to save now, but if you saved it previously you can use it until that date. Interestingly, people have been reporting over the past month or two that the offer was continuing to pop up in logins that hadn’t seen it before. So it might still be available for saving and might even have popped up since you checked last.
This is the most profitable Amex Offer I’ve ever seen on a card-per-card basis. Of course, it’s less scalable than other offers since it’s only found on select business cards.
DP: Amex Simply Cash Plus Business card
Main card: 3 $500 gift cards, each rung up separately back to back – $250 Amex credit posted next day
Authorized user card: same purchase, no credit posted 🙁
Even after fees $220 for half an hour of time isn’t bad. Plus I got a free membership, free pizza, free cookies, free chips and 17 metric tons of napkins for $5, so overall pretty decent haul.
And I assume you registered the authorized user card separately on AmEx offers?
The AU card is on a separate log in and the offer didn’t appear. This was a “do it and hope for the best” scenario. I was prepared to be disappointed if it didn’t work out.
Understood — thanks.
Unfortunately I don’t have a sam’s club near. Fortunately I happened to near a sam’s club a couple times this winter. Today the Sam’s Club I was at was completely out of Visa/MC gift cards. Got $1250 in sam’s club instead. not bad. At least I did not get the dreaded cash only.
I bought in 3 transactions 2 $500 master card and walmart gift card one after another. So charges were, $504.95, $504.95 & $250 walmart gift card. I got $250 credit back next day.
if you added the offer on the primary card, and made the purchase on the authorized user card, will it trigger the offer?
Bought $7500 worth of MC GC. Made a profit of $1425.75.
Not a bad hobby we have here.
Had his this on 18 cards. Did $1250 on each of them. 2 x $500 plus split a $500 across 2 cards. Did about $5000 total per trip.
All credits posted as expected. $4500 baby! Best amex offer ever.
Nice work 🙂
Plenty of locations are cash/debit only. At least half out of the 20 I’ve been too. And places thay once accepted credit can quickly move to cash
How recently? I was able to use a credit card to buy Sam’s gift cards less than 2 weeks ago.
probably means VGC or MCGC. which is true. but merchant GC shouldnt be cash only.
Cash and debit only at my local SC today… though one cashier did not get the memo. Had to try a few times. My recommendation is try the 6x$200 route which rings up much faster and attracts less attention from wandering supervisors.
YMMV as always and highly location dependent.
I wish my nearest Sam’s wasn’t 3 hours away. I have this on my SPG biz card. It would be nice if they would allow an on-line purchase. Maybe I could do $1250 in Sam’s GC then go buy VGC or MGC when I am near a store. oh well. Amex, Costco please:)
So we actually have data points that three back to back to back purchases totaling $1,250 will trigger?
Sharing my experience.
I bought 3 $500 GC at SAM’s club on the same day. To avoid detection, I purchased 2 out of 3 $500 GC from SAM’s club A and 1 from another near by SAM’s club B.
Unfortunately, one $500 GC from SAM’s club B posted to my account the very next day which triggered the Amex one time offer for $83 credit. The reaming two GC posted from SAM’s club A after two days. The second post did not credit reaming $166 since offer was one time use.
So the moral of the story is, multiple purchase on same day trigger the credit, but all charges need to be posted to your account on same day. Make sure you complete all transactions from same store on same day.
Hope this will help.
really appreciate this DP…
Yes lots of DP from earlier, less and less recently.
I have not found the visa gift cards. Only Mastercard. Looked in 5 different stores from Florida to Maine while travelling last week. Where are the Visa gift cards?
I bought the Mastercard ones to max the promo. Does anyone know if I can use the Mastercard gift card to buy a Visa gift card at Walmart? Would incur another fee for the purchase but would be worth it to liquidate faster.
the ones sold at Sam’s are vanilla GCs, they don’t sell visaGCs; you can only use them up to $49.99 if loading prepaid or buying MO at WM. Buying Visa GC at WM using another GC is YMMV, some WMs do not allow it, but you can always try at your store.
You should be able to liquidate the Vanilla MCs they have at Sam’s Club by buying money orders at the post office, or at many grocery stores that sell them all over- most areas have at least one such store but I can’t say for sure without knowing where you live. Either way, the post office is a good option and most people are having success using Vanilla cards there.