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THE CREDIT CARD OFFER(S) DISCUSSED IN THIS POST HAVE EXPIRED. FOR THE MOST CURRENT LIST OF CREDIT CARD BONUSES, SEE OUR MAIN MENU.
We love Amex Offers here at Loophole Travel! In the past we’ve covered the basics of Amex Offers and how to add them to multiple credit cards. If you need to catch up on this information, see this post. We use these offers to save on normal purchases, but sometimes they can be big money-makers. While we love earning points/miles for exotic trips around the world, sometimes we just want cold hard cash!
Our previous posts about Amex offers include:
- $170 in Free Gas from Quick Trip
- $264.40 in Cash from Staples (done this twice)
- Free Sam’s Club Membership
We got our free Sam’s Club membership almost a year ago, and it’s been great. Seriously… try their chicken salad! Then, last week I discovered a new Amex offer on three of our Amex Business credit cards: 20% cash back at Sam’s Club (limit 1 transaction, maximum cash back of $250). I had to read the offer and terms a couple times before I realized the huge profit potential. I used the multi-tab trick to add the offer to all three cards, and then I headed to Sam’s.
How it Works
The first thing to consider with this offer is that the maximum cash back per card is $250. At a cash back rate of 20%, that means we need to make a purchase of $1,250 in a single transaction to maximize the bonus. Great, now what to buy?
Two Possibilities
Option 1 is to buy Sam’s Club gift cards, which can also be used at Walmart. You could use these for future purchases at Sam’s or Walmart. These gift cards can also be sold on the secondary market for around 90% of their value. If we decided to buy $1,250 in Sam’s Club gift cards with each Amex card, and then re-sell them at 90% value, the math would look like this:
- Spend $3,750 ($1,250 x 3 transactions)
- Sell Gift Cards for $3,375 ($3,750 x 90%)
- Loss of $375
- Earn $750 Cash Back ($3,750 x 20%)
- Net Gain of $375
We can do better…
Option 2 is to buy MasterCard gift cards. Sam’s sells variable load ($20-$500) MC gift cards and individual cards in increments up to $200. The trouble with the variable load cards, is that you can only purchase one per transaction. Since we need our single transaction value to be as close to $1,250 as possible, we need to buy the $200 gift cards. If we buy six $200 gift cards ($6.48 fee per card), the total purchase comes to $1,238.88. Cash back on that transaction will be $247.78.
One transaction with the cash back credit
We can then cash these gift cards out by buying money orders, or your preferred liquidation method. For the following math, I’ll use a fee of $1.60 per $1,000 in money orders.
- Spend $3,716.64 ($1,238.88 x 3 transactions)
- Buy $3,600 in money orders ($6.40 in fees)
- Earn $743.34 Cash Back ($247.78 x 3)
- Total Fees = $123.04 ($6.48 x 18 + $6.40)
- Net Gain $620.29
Final Thoughts
We went with Option 2 and pocketed a nice little sum of $620.29 for a quick visit to Sam’s Club! This was easily our most profitable Amex offer play so far. If you have Amex Business cards, you can probably still grab this offer. If you don’t have any business cards, the following two cards are great options:
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- Amex SPG Business Card – 25,000 Point Offer
- Amex Platinum Business Card – LIMITED TIME 100,000-Point Offer
You can also browse business cards under our Top Offers drop down menu. Keep any eye out for future posts about lucrative Amex Offers and how you can use them. Cheers!
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Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
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