It’s now been nearly a year since I decided to apply for the American Express Platinum card. Of course, the landscape is quite a bit different now than it was at the time when I was looking forward to all those airport lounges I’d get to visit. Despite this, as my annual fee gets ready to hit, Amex has continued to roll out some extra benefits to appease cardholders who are grounded. Previously, I’ve noted this while writing out their added mobile and streaming credits as well as their Shop Small promotion. Now, there are a few other potential perks floating around that may equate to essentially free stuff.
Before I go any further, I do want to note that these offers may be at least somewhat “targeted.” This means that they may not show up for or apply to every cardholder — especially those with different versions of the card such as the coveted Charles Schwab flavor. Therefore, if these deals don’t display for you, please don’t be mad at me.
First, the more exciting of the two offers (in my opinion) is one from Dell. With this deal, you can score a $100 statement credit when you make a purchase of $100 or more. According to the terms of this one, cardholders must use their enrolled Platinum card to spend a minimum of $100 “in one or more transactions” and points to the URL Dell.com/AmexPlat. Also nice is that this doesn’t expire until January 31st of next year. What’s more is that I also have an offer from Dell for +1 Membership Reward point per dollar spent, which I’m thinking should stack with the $100 credit — although I’m not sure. Similarly, both Dell and the other company we’ll talk about in a moment are on Rakuten, so that may or may not be a double-dip opportunity.
Something you may not realize about Dell (especially if you’re a Mac user like me) is that they don’t just sell computers on their site. Instead, you can find headphones, storage devices, or even video games that will help you get as close to that $100 requirement as possible. Thus, this seems like a pretty usable perk… I guess what I’m trying to say is, “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!”
As for the other “freebie,” it comes from WineInsiders.com. At first, I didn’t pay a ton of attention to this Amex Offer because there are at least half a dozen other wine deals available right now. However, when I took a closer look, I noticed that this one was somewhat special. That’s because it offers $20 back when you spend $20. Even better, this can be redeemed up to three times for a total of $60 in statement credits. The fine print notes that “Refer a Friend” promo codes are excluded here and there may be other exclusions in the terms. You also have less time to use this deal as it expires on Halloween.
Looking at Wine Insiders, it seems that they do have a number of reasonably-priced bottles. The only problem is that, in some cases, the shipping can double that cost. Therefore, you may need to get a bit more clever when using this one to its full potential. Still, even if you do end up buying six bottles to unlock their free shipping, you can probably still spend as little as $60 and get $60 back — which isn’t a bad discount by any means.
Finally, as another bonus, American Express recently sent me an e-mail informing me about a deal on Amazon. Through the end of the month, I get $20 off a purchase of “Ready for School promotion eligible products” totaling $50 or more when I use Membership Rewards points at check out. First, I’m not exactly sure what qualifies here, other than that the products must be sold and shipped by Amazon. Regardless, I’m pretty sure I could find something worth buying to take advantage of this deal. Second, as for that “use Membership Rewards points at checkout” bit, it’s worth noting that using MR points on Amazon is far from the best value. Therefore, if you want to maximize, use just 1 MR point to unlock this offer and keep your points. By the way, unlike the statement credit offers, this one should show up in your total when you check out. In other words, if you don’t see the discount, don’t make the purchase!
If you’re an American Express Platinum card user, hopefully at least one of these deal appeals (and applies) to you. As a tip, when looking for Amex Offers, sometimes the desktop site will show more than the app (although the app seems to be catching up). Additionally, since you’ll only ever see a max of 100 offers at a time, you can try adding some other offers to your card to see if you can get either of these deals to appear. Happy shopping!