New Amex Offer $10 back for the purchase of Amex Gift Card $200 or more

New Amex Offers are available. I glanced all of them, and one is a really good offer.

Get a one-time $10 statement credit by using your enrolled Card to spend a total of $200 or more online at americanexpress.com/gift by 12/31/2015

I’m glad that all of my Amex credit cards have the offer. And, it’s funny!? Amex Serve also has the offer. I believe that Amex doesn’t accept GCs including reloadable prepaid cards. Last year, they offered exactly the same one for my credit cards and Serve. Redeeming the offer with credit cards was no problem, but I couldn’t do it with Serve because they declined the order and sent an email saying ” At this time we do not accept gift cards as a form of payment.” Money was on hold for around two weeks and returned. (see details here) Then, around two months later, Amex credited $10 to my Serve account as “Good Faith Credit” because they offered something that was impossible to redeem. (see details here)

Now, there is the same offer to my Serve card. What is going to happen this time when I use Serve for the purchase?

Probably, the order will be declined, and luckily get $10 good faith credit later or they don’t give me good faith credit this time.

Whatever it happens, I don’t lose money. So, I checked out $200 gift card with Serve via Topcashback (1.5%) portal. As I expected, I received an email of “You just used your Amex Offer” right away. And, 15 minutes later I knew that my order was approved. I was surprised. Last year, they said in the email, “At this time we do not accept gift cards as a form of payment.” So, do they accept GCs as a form of payment now? Can I use Amex GCs to buy Amex GCs?

If they accepted Amex GCs for Amex GCs purchases, and cash back from portals pays $2000 GC purchase, it would be great. For example, you order $2000 Amex GC via 1.5% cash back portal (say you have enrolled in premium shipping plan) and you use that GC for smaller denominations of Amex GCs purchases.

  • 1st order: spend $2003.95 out of your pocket and earn $30 cash back
  • 2nd order: spend $1003.95+$503.95=$1507.90 with $2000GC and earn $15+$7.50=$22.5 cash back
  • 3rd order: spend $503.95 with $1000GC and earn $7.50 cash back
  • Now you have 4 Amex GCs, $1988.15 in total (2*$500, $496.05, and $492.10.) and earn $60 cash back!

However, the rule of cash back has changed recently. They pay cash back for the purchase of $200 or less. A purchase fee of $200 GC is roughly 2%. 1.5% cash back isn’t good enough to earn extra cash back.

Please note that I’m not sure that Amex accept Amex GCs for Amex GC purchase. And my order ($200 GC purchase with Serve) can be declined in the future.

Update 10/09/2015

$200 Amex gift card (the order placed on 10/3) has arrived on 10/6, and $10 statement credit has been posted on 10/9. So, they now accept Serve as a payment for the purchase of gift cards. What about other cards? Probably, they accept Bluebird as well, but what about Amex Gift cards. Can I buy a gift card with a gift card over and over? On the order placed on 10/3, I didn’t use a promo code to waive a purchase fee. That was stupid of me because cash back earned from Topcashback is only $3. It won’t even cover a purchase fee. I shouldn’t have expected cash back and just used a promo code. So, on my next order (paid with one of my Amex credit cards), I used a promo code. However, just in case I clicked Topcashback’s link. Then, I received email from them and saw $3 pending cash back posted in my account. I hope this won’t be clawed back.

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