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The Offer
Check your American Express Membership Rewards cards for the following offer:
- Redeem 17,500 Membership Rewards points for a $250 Ralph Lauren physical gift card.
Others are seeing 20,000 points or 18,500 points. Others are not seeing any discount, just the regular 25,000 points = $250 gift card.
Our Verdict
Most gift cards redeem at 1:1 or worse, while occasionally Amex will run specials for better than 1:1 redemptions on gift cards. We rarely see such steep 30% discount.
A lot of people will do better by redeeming their points for travel or even Schwab redemptions, but this is an interesting option for someone who is happy with cashing out for gift cards. You may even be able to sell this and land up ahead of a 1:1 return.
Hat tip to SD
I called in to redeem 17.5K for $250 GC. Amex is overnight ship for free, cause I asked. There is a 40% off web sale going on now, so combined w/ this 30% bonus, it’s a winner. Can also get 6% TCB thru portal.
I have an AMEX Offer for $40 back on $200 (exp. 12/31). Depending on which GC offer you have, how you value AMEX points, and how much you’re planning on spending, it might be a better offer (if you have it) as the $200 can be in multiple transactions.
I have this offer as well
The above discussed offer is effectively 20% off which is much less than 30%. To get the discussed 20%, you HAVE TO spend $200 even if it is in multiple transactions.
With this offer it is a flat 30% off, with no restrictions on “offer expiration” which is 12/31/2019 and no restrictions on how much you need to spend by that date.
I could go to the store today, or a month from now, and spend $50 from my discounted gift card and effectively get 30% on top of whatever promotions and coupons they have running.
So pretty much in every way, the offer discussed in this post by DoC is better than the amex offer of 40 back on 200 spend.
I have the same offer only mines 20% off
20,000 points for $250 and I still go ahead to redeem it. 20% is not bad. Thank you.