American Express sometimes sends out complimentary gifts to some Platinum cardholders. For example recently they sent out $250 BLADE gift cards and last year they sent out Amazon Echo’s. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how cardholders are selected (but I highly doubt it’s random. It’s most likely criteria the the gifters choose similar to AmEx Offers).
Some TPG readers are reporting that they have received a $250 gift card from Tiffany & Co. Unlike the BLADE gift card, this does look like a true gift card and you should be able to resell it (85.5% of facevalue is the best public price) Update: Looks like it’s not a true gift card and is restricted to a single item purchase at a specific store and any funds not used are forfeit. Everybody likes a freebie but I actually think that this does more damage than good as other cardholders end up resenting American Express/Platinum for not receiving any gifts, this is less of an issue when the gifts are relatively small but $250 gift cards are significant. I think American Express would do better by providing some sort of information about why certain cardholders are selected over others. It’s currently possible to get a sign up bonus of 100,000 points on the Platinum card.
What Tiffany stores in San Francisco accept this gift card
T rube
my husband rec’d a $250 Tiffany card, but I did not, although we each have separate Platinum cards. Yesterday I bought 2 beautiful silver baby gifts for free, ie using the card, the excess of just $34 went on my amex card, as required. The saleswoman said they are getting many Amex folks coming in with the card. Nice deal, but why didn’t I get one? must admit we put more $$$ on my husband’s.
Not sure how they target people but 1/2 is pretty good, lots of couples have received 0/2.
Chatted with AMEX online rep who stated cardholders are selected randomly. He later went onto say it was based on card activity. Who knows…
American Express don’t leave home without it!
How is that different from getting high amount targeted bonuses and retention offers. I still haven’t received any good offer from Citi Sears even though everyone seems to had like 10% of everything offers. But I suppose unlike Amex, Citi is a brand people like to hate – i.e. “shitty bank” , so I guess it’s less hurtful not getting love there
I have been an American Express card holder since 1980, and platinum for many of those years. Back in the day (before getting into this game) I put all of my spend on Amex – and that was a lot of spend! Have never received so much as a free calendar! Yep, a little resentful.
Keep in mind that the typical Platinum card holder is not actively following blog coverage of special gifts to certain cardholders. There’s little resentment created here, especially amongst the real cardholders Amex actually wants to keep (the ones who use 20% of the pricey Platinum benefits, charge thousands a year and reliably cough up the annual fee year after year without complaint)
Yup, before I got into this, my only card was Discover, and they’d randomly send me starbucks gc couple times a year. Absolutely no resentment when others got it and I didn’t because I wouldn’t know about it at all. It just made me appreciate Discover more for the surprise gifts I did get.
I do wonder how much spending is the quota for Amex’s gifts though.
The Discover offers are a little different as the GC are like $5.
+1
I agree with you to an extent but we do have some big spenders on the site that don’t fully optimize their spend.
$250 may make your mistress happy, but not your wife.
Then don’t tell your wife about it
It does have some “strings” attached according to a friend of mine who received one. It was restricted to a single store (Manhattan), single item purchase. Any remaining funds are forfeited. Still a generous gift but not great for resale.
Thanks for that detail. I sure resent AmEx a lot less now :p
That’s basically an ad at this point. Here is $250 “gift card” for this $5,000 purse!
You could actually use it at any of the 3 Tiffany Manhattan locations (Wall Street, Greene St in SOHO, and 5th Ave Trump Tower), I was at two of them and saw people using at both.
Are you able to go in store and get a gift card from Tiffany & Co? Since it looks like you cant use the AMEX gift online.
Thanks, Jeff! Updated. If you or your friend receives anything in future let us know ([email protected])!