Will Gift Card Purchases Activate Amex Offers?

American Express cardholders are looking for ways to maximize their returns with purchased gift cards from Amex Offer deals. The biggest question that revolves around this method of saving is if your purchased gift card triggers the offer credit and it’s safe to say that it varies; some do and others don’t, it’s all a matter of checking the terms to see if exclusions apply.

Editor’s Note: if there’s no valid reason for it to not work, it might be worth giving it a shot. You should know immediately if it worked or not with AMEX sending out an instant confirmation email. Always evaluate the URL on the checkout screen, If it looks different than the regular checkout of goods, odds are, it won’t trigger the offer credit.

Amex Offers Credit : How to Get Credit Offer:

1. Log into your AMEX Cardholder Account
2. Check to see “Gift Cards“
3. Purchase Gift Card. Can be a Store Specified card or VISA
4. Register before the given expiration date (ex. Best Buy $25 Back on $250, Expires 09/05/2016)
5. Make purchases on the gift card.

For extra saving, purchase your gift card using these Credit Cards:

• Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express
• Amex EveryDay® Credit Card
• Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express (Keep in mind, there’s a $75 annual fee)

Reasons To Purchase Gift Cards:

1. Meet the Spending Requirements instantly and more conveniently. Simply click through a portal to Amex gift cards and buy as many Amex gift cards as are needed to meet the spend requirement. You’ll no longer have to put all your concerns on meeting the sign-up on time.
2. Portal rewards eliminates fees associated w/ manufacturing spend.  Buying Visa gift cards and Liquidating Visa gift cards sometimes involves fees.  Cash back earned from purchasing Amex gift cards via a portal is usually more than enough to compensate for those fees.

Example of American Express Offer Deal Fine Print and Exclusions.

Amex Offers Credit: In-Store vs. Online

In-store offers and online offers are significantly distinguishable and sometimes you’ll encounter an offer valid in-store online or online only (many are valid both in-store and online),

Gift cards are rarely ever excluded on in-store offers. Keep in mind that they charge utilizing the same checkout complex as all the other goods sold at the store, thus, the checkout system will usually not be able to distinguish between gift cards and other goods, which will enable the triggered offer credit.

When taking advantage of an offer in-store, gift cards are rarely excluded. It won’t make a difference whether you choose to purchase store’s own gift card or a third-party gift card (Visa gift cards). Since the charge is running over the same checkout system as all other goods sold at the store, the system usually won’t be able to differentiate between gift cards and other goods, and they’ll all trigger the offer credit. If you do run into an offer which has terms excluding gift cards in-store, it might be that their checkouts code gift cards separately, furthermore making the offer credit invalid.

Amex Offers Credit: Online w/ Physical Gift Card

A physical gift card exclusion isn’t very common, but time to time, there’s that rare occasion where online offers even exclude physical variants of gift cards. This can be for only two reasons: Gift cards could be ran and processed through a third-party processor and not the retailer itself.

Or, the retailer has gift cards coded in their system more distinguishable from their  goods; The offer would most likely be coded to only trigger for common goods.

Amex Offers Credit: Online w/ E-Gift Card

Usually, it would state on the shopping portal via Amex Offers as to which if e-gift cards will be eligible for the promotion or not. We’ve seen in Best Buy’s terms that E-Gift cards aren’t eligible for the offer but physical gift cards will work. The distinction between the two is because e-gift card purchases don’t run through the retailer itself, instead, it goes through a third-party.

It’s understandable that major retailers aren’t invested on processing their own e-gift cards, so third parties such as Cashstar.com processes it for them. Since the gift card is not being processed by Best Buy themselves, the checkout won’t trigger the offer. One common indicator that you’ve been transferred to a third-party site is the URL; you’ll know when it’s a third party site when it gives you something along the lines of “Bestbuy.cashstar.com”.

Amex Offers Credit: Corporate Gift Card Exclusion

One of the many concerns that people have with Amex Offer terms is when they exclude corporate gift cards. It doesn’t exactly mean that gift cards are excluded It just refers to companies buying corporate gift cards in bulk in a means to encourage their workers through a reward-like program.

Corporate gift cards are more commonly purchased outside the standard checkout complex, thus deeming the Amex Offer credits as invalid. You don’t have to worry about  the corporate gift card exclusion for your common purchases. In fact, it’s nice for ordinary consumers because they evaluated the gift card at every aspect.

Common Corporate Gift Cards Include:

• Best Buy corporate gift cards
• Walmart corporate gift cards
• Target corporate gift cards

Final Analysis:

There’s always ways to maximize your spending and without a doubt, we have to mention Gift card deals through Amex Offers. You can fundamentally eliminate your spending requirement on your credit card even faster that way and save big on your purchases. Now there are issues when it comes to gift cards, minor I should say the least, but what is it that is deemed acceptable when it comes to receiving your offer credit through AMEX Offers via your purchased gift card? There’s not much factors involved, usually it will tell you in fine print with the gift card deal as to what is acceptable and what isn’t.

There’s times when physical gift cards are eligible as well as E-Gifts and there’s times when only one of these options work. I recommend physical gift cards because working with a third party is rather risky in aspect. Make sure you register for your gift card prior to the deal’s expiration date, otherwise, you won’t be saving as much on your purchases; in-store or online.  Don’t forget to check out our full list of Credit Card Bonuses for all of your credit card needs.