The Offer
Check your AmEx Offers for the following offer:
- Get 1 additional Membership Rewards point for each dollar spent on eligible purchases made using your enrolled Card online at bestbuy.com by 12/15/2022. Limit of 5,000 Membership Rewards points. See terms for exclusions.
The Fine Print
- Offer valid only for online purchases made at BestBuy.com (U.S.website only) or BestBuy.com/outlet. Excludes in-store purchases. Excludes GeekSquad.com, PartStore.com, Best Buy Private Store, Best Buy Business, Best Buy Health, Best Buy Education, Best Buy Ignite, Best Buy Secondary Markets, Best Buy Auction site, corporate gift cards, electronic gift cards, group gift cards, phone purchases and purchases shipped outside of the U.S., U.S. Virgin Islands or Guam.
Our Verdict
This goes until December so definitely save the offer and keep it in mind for future purchases. There are often a number of these kinds of bonus Membership Rewards offers for various retailers that pop up as the year continues; for now I just see this offer and also a +4x offer for Fanatics.com.
These offers are very lukewarm. The AMEX MR card already gives you 1 MR/$ on every purchase as it is, and with this deal it makes it 2 MR/$. 1 MR is not really worth $0.01 because the best redemption options (Amazon gift card, Amazon linked point redemption, cash back, etc.) is all at $0.007/point. Thus 2 MR/$ is more or less like $0.014 per MR. If you just use any of the countless 2% Cash Back cards, you are doing better than this deal.
This past Christmas they had a 20% redemption discount on various gift cards, including Apple: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/american-express-membership-rewards-20-discount-on-select-giftcard-redemptions-apple-gap-saks-delta-panera-more/. Apple is normally valued at $0.0085/pt (which is better than Amazon’s $0.007/pt). With the 20% discount it goes to $0.0104/pt. So with 2 MR/$ it brings it to $0.0208/pt. So yes, it makes it “better” than 2% cash back from any 2% cash back card, however, you need to wait for this deal to show up. Nov-Dec 2021 was the first time I’ve ever seen this deal pop up on AMEX Blue. Perhaps I never watched that closely in prior years. We shall see if it comes up again in November of this year (fingers crossed). I used the deal to cash out my points for Gap gift cards, which has a redemption rate of $0.01/pt, and with the 20% discount it went to $0.0125/pt. So at 2x MR you would get $0.0250, which is better than 2% cash back cards of course.
Without the 20% discount promotion, and assuming you want to cash out to Amazon Gift cards or use them during an Amazon purchase at $0.007/pt, you’d need at least an additional 2 MR/pt to make it worth purchasing on the AMEX MR card vs an unlimited 2% card. (Keep in mind that at least once a year, maybe twice, a +5 MR deal pops up on AMEX MR offers).
While I agree that an extra Membership Reward point per dollar isn’t necessarily that exciting on its own, wouldn’t most people interested in this be setting their valuation based on transfer partners they value at greater than 1 cpp?
I got it on BBP, so it’s 3x with this offer
From social media and the Best Buy forums it seems like they are pushing folks to their TotalTech subscription and co-branded credit card to approximate the benefits (extended return period, free shipping, points banking) and earning benefits of Elite or Elite Plus.
We got that! Thanks 🙂
Whoops! Thanks
Chuck
Thanks
TDD – will do!