Take advantage of these offers so you can get a headstart on your next journey in the skies! Photo by: Evan Berman

Happy day after 2nd Day of Prime Day, everyone! Anyone else find it weird that “Prime Day” is no longer just a day, now occurring bi-yearly? I’ll leave the best deals to the experts, so I won’t be sharing my opinion on the best turkey baster/marshmallow fluffer that also glows in the dark. Instead, let’s talk about two great options to take advantage of.

Pay with Points:

When I discuss the best uses of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points or AmEx Membership Rewards Points I always lead off by saying that you should only redeem for travel, either transfering to airline/hotel partners or redeeming in the Chase Travel Portal. In short, redeeming your points for merchandise is always a bad idea and you will not get much value. So why is this section titled “Pay with Points?” Certain times of the year, AmEx, Chase, and Citi will run promotions where paying with points will drop up to 50% off of the price of your Amazon purchases, up to a certain limit. AmEx and Chase are currently doing this.

Do you have an AmEx Membership Rewards earning card (ex. Gold, Platinum, Everyday, etc.)? If so, make sure it’s added to your Amazon account as a payment type. Follow this link and you will see if you are eligible for the promotion. There are 3 offers:

• Get 50% off on up to $160 of spending (redeem at least 1 Amex Membership Rewards point)
• Get 40% off on up to $150 of spending (redeem at least 1 Amex Membership Rewards point)
• Get 15% off on up to $100 of spending (redeem at least 714 Amex Membership Rewards points)

This time around, I was only targeted for the 15% offer. If you, like me, get the 15% offer, I wouldn’t bother with this promotion, there will be others! All you need to do is activate the promotion and then purchase whatever you’d normally purchase. When selecting payment method, choose the AmEx Card. Select the use points option and redeem $0.01 worth of points (note if you have the 15% offer, this will not work as you’d need to redeem 714 points’ worth or more than $7. 🙂 ) Then, pay the rest as normal and celebrate the savings!

AmEx Member Week Offers:

This week is “Member Week,” AmEx’s answer to Prime Days and the countless other sales and deals that are going on right now. This is a strange setup– you must add the AmEx Offers this week but have varying amounts of time to use them, from a few weeks to 2+ months. Let’s talk about the best offers available, but first a couple of important important disclaimers:

AmEx only displays 100 offers per card at a time. You must add offers to your card before seeing new ones. There is no limit to the amount of offers you can add to your card. However, if you have multiple cards, each offer can only be added to 1 of them.

Here are a few offers I think are particularly valuable:

1. Resy Offer for $25 off $75+ up to 2x. Here is a list of restaurants by city that participate. The cities include Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C. I’m glad Charleston is on that list! It goes without saying that you need to book a reservation through Resy and pay with that card in order to get this discount.
2. Cambria & Ascend Hotels in the US for $100 off of $300+. If you stay at these higher end choice properties, this is a no-brainer!
3. Hertz rentals in the US for $60 off $200+. Know that you would need to book direct with Hertz, not through Autoslash or another discount site. This rebate is enough that it may be worth booking this manner, even if you usually do not do so.
4. Hilton Hotels in the US, but only Curio, Canopy, Tapestry, Motto, and Tempo properties for $80 off of $200+. Note that these are not the most luxurious, nor are they popular family-friendly properties such as Hampton Inns.
5. In the non-travel area, $40 off $75+ at Super Duolingo $25 off of $75+ at Bose. There are many, many other options so I recommend you check your AmEx Offers for anything else that piques your interest.

Recap:

There are a couple of great discounts to take advantage of with your AmEx credit card(s). If you’re lucky, you can get a 40-50% discount at Amazon for just 1 point. Additionally, check out AmEx Member Week Deals in your AmEx Offers as some can be quite lucrative. These are great deals and I hope y’all are able to capitalize on these deals!

Evan