Doctor of Credit shared this useful offer over the weekend, and I saw it again when I was making my usual weekly Amazon purchase on Monday. If you have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points, you can save $30 on a purchase of $60 or more when you redeem points at checkout. Similar offers pop up time and again; I’ve saved a couple hundred dollars just in the past year. (This offer is targeted, but I have almost always been eligible.). For sellers, features like tactical arbitrage discount code can be useful.
The catch is that you must spend $60 on items sold by Amazon. Most resellers don’t count, so when I initially checked my shopping cart I saw that the offer wasn’t applied because I had some coffee sold by a third party in addition to some Amazon Basics light bulbs. I added a Whole Foods gift card (which is fulfilled by Amazon), and then the discount kicked in.
You don’t need to redeem Membership Rewards points for the entire purchase. A single point is enough to apply the full $30 discount. (Enter “$0.01” in the field to apply one point.) In fact, I advise against it. The conversion rate is not very good — Amazon gives you just one cent per point — and you can get a better value by redeeming your Membership Rewards points for other things, such as transferring them to an airline loyalty program.
Before you try to take advantage of this offer, make sure you have added an eligible AmEx card to your Amazon account. Then, go to the offer page to register for the discount (affiliate link). You can even pay the balance of your order with an Amazon gift card, but you need to have the card information on file in order to redeem your points.
