The Offer
- Receive a $10 statement credit when you use an American Express card that is enrolled in this offer to spend $50 or more online or in store at Pottery Barn.
The Fine Print
- Valid until September 15th, 2015
- Valid in-store and online. Valid at any participating location in the US. Not valid at outlet locations
- Excludes Pottery Barn Kids, PB Teen, Williams-Sonoma, Williams-Sonoma Home, Rejuvenation, West Elm, Mark & Graham
- Not valid for e-gift card purchases
Our Verdict
Gift Card Wiki shows that gift cards to Pottery Barn can be resold for 82% of facevalue to 5 different buyers, price looks pretty stable but there is a lot of unsold inventory so it could drop. Let’s look at your profit if you purchased one $50 gift card:
- Purchase $50 gift card, comes with free shipping (-$40)
- Receive $10 statement credit (+$10)
- Resell for 82% of face value (+$41)
You’d only make $1 profit + any credit card points. Not fantastic, but Frequent Miler’s Laboratory shows that purchasing gift cards through portals has worked in the past. I couldn’t find Pottery Barn on Cash Back Monitor originally, but it’s listed under PotteryBarn.com. Here are your options:
Remember that some of those shopping portals are also offering bonuses at the moment:
- Delta 1,500 Miles Shopping Portal Bonus
- United 4,000 Miles Shopping Portal Bonus & Sweepstakes
- Southwest 3500 Miles Shopping Portal Bonus
If you have enough American Express cards then you could easily hit the highest bonus on those portals, which would bring up the earn rate considerably (basically up to 4x, which means you’d be making $1 profit + 200 miles + credit card points per card).
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?
- Do I Need To Make A Single Purchase For AmEx Offers, Or Is It Cumulative?
Bryan,
You’re right. I was incorrectly thinking that you could only order eGC online. Did you receive the confirmation email from Amex?
Can my authorized user who has the same card number sign up for the offer as well? If yes, how? Thanks.
Are those portals listed at the end of the post (Delta, United, Southwest) going to pay out miles on these types of gift cards?
Some of them have been confirmed to work in the past, but no guarantees as the fine print will exclude gift card purchases.
Fine print doesn’t exclude gift cards for Pottery Barn on the Southwest portal. However, I checked another merchant like Best Buy and the fine print does exclude gift cards for them. So hopefully it will work!
The Amex offer itself excludes eGc. See below.
“Not valid for e-gift card purchases”
It does not exclude physical gift card purchases.
make you sure order PHYSICAL cards – I did an e-card on accident and it won’t trigger the credit.
These gift cards also work at William Sonoma. So it’s an additional 20 percent off a Vitamix, which is like money in the bank.
A little risky for too small profit for me. If a portal doesn’t pay, then it definitely wouldn’t be worth the trouble for me.
Especially considering PotteryBarn e-gift cards are sold by CashStar so you’d have to buy the physical gift cards for this to even work. ~$40 and 8000 Amtrak points are not worth all the effort involved.
#amexwestelm for $10 off $50
Charge posts as ‘West Elm gift card’. I haven’t gotten an email from Amex about using the offer either. Don’t think it’s going to work.
Did you buy a physical or electronic gift card?