carsonheim

I use my AMEX Plat for EVERYTHING. I barely buy a pack of gum with cash anymore, as I like earning the points. I just redeemed my points for $1200 in home depot gift cards (my favorite and most useful MR redemption!).

Just an FYI, by using the MR bonus mall for purchases, you get 4x MR points. Rather than shop at, say, Target with the AMEX, I purchase Target gift cards via the bonus points mall and earn 4x the points. Then I take my gift cards and puchase what I need from target.

At 4% rather than 1%, that's $4K in your pocket per year on $100K AMEX spend....

just sayin'

stevenshev

OP, your post pains me to read.

I like to be getting between 10% and 15% back on my redemptions. Not 4%.

mia

Do you? Gift cards are specifically excluded from the BonusPointsMall offer...

The following are not eligible to earn bonus points: Service invoice adjustments, reorders, gift certificates, gift cards, online photo services, Mervyn's products, Amazon.com products (which include books, music, movies and DVDs) , and products listed under the "Corporate Gifts" portion of Target's web site.

pjoalfa

400K points for $100k spend is better redeemed for premium airline tickets (by transferring to the airline - sometimes even with a bonus as Virgin is offering right now). 400K points is approximately 4 business class tickets to Europe, for example, which is easily more that $10k worth.

Sorry, but redeeming points at $0.01 ea rather sucks, IMHO.

whynotgo

Generally, I concur that gift cards are a lousy use of points. 120,000 MR points will buy two economy tickets to Asia worth $1,200 to 1,600 each, or $2,400 to $3,200. Upgrades are an even better use of these points (but I am not familar with upgrades as I only use the AX MR points to transfer to airlines for economy saver awards).

whynotgo

Duplicate, deleted

fatnoah

Redeeming at $0.01 per point may not seem great, but for those of us who rarely fly, it's still better than nothing.

I bought a house this year, and converting MR points to Home Depot gift cards sounds like a nice idea!

christianj

Why "better than nothing"?.......I can fully understand that not all people can utilize airline or hotel points but wouldn't it be a better idea to get a cash back card then which gives you a higher return than $0.01? Using points for gift cards seems to turn the stomach of most people here of FT. But hey...I'm sure the credit card companies like those of you that redeem for gift cards and merchandise.

joybuggy

I will echo the sentiments of others and agree that there are much more rewarding programs for someone who doesn't specifically aim to cash in for hotel stays or travel. For example, I like the Costco Amex (3% back gas/dining, 2% back on travel, and 1% everything else) and the Amex Blue Cash reward programs (5% gas/groceries, 1.5% everything else but annual cap to earnings and you have to spend a minimum amt each year). In any case, both are much better than MR in my opinion and for my purposes.

That said, I also pay for MR each year because I have about $50-70K annual spend for my business expenses on my corporate amex. I cashed in every MR point before the holidays and received ~$500 in giftcards (Home Depot, restaurants, Bath & Body Works, Gap, etc) that I used as gifts for my family. These were at a $.01 redemption but I am 100% satisfied because it was my employer's money I spent and the annual fee was more than covered in my redemption. Hope everyone isn't cringing too much but I love cashing in MR for giftcards and plan to do it again next November.

hs1

Use the AMEX Plat for its perks, but dump MR. There are a lot of other better rewards programs out there.

divemistressofthedark

Yeah, but if you *do* aim to cash in for hotel stays/travel, MR's flexibility is a boon.

I live fairly close to ATL and can transfer points 1:1 to DL, so I do that a lot. I can't remember the last time I paid to fly anywhere on that carrier (except tickets that cost under $150 or so and weren't worth the points cashout)...the only bummer here is that award flights don't count toward Medallion status, so I'm still a lowly frequent flier, rather than some fancy designation.

I'm not sure the OP's point was that s/he redeems MR points for gift cards. IMO, OP appears to be trying to say that one can buy gift cards using Bonus Points Mall - thus gaining 4% on your transaction, and for vendors that are unrepresented by other CC rewards programs - and then use the bonus cards in a brick/mortar store. I'll agree there are other cards that do have better returns - I've seen 5% for gas/groceries myself - but you won't generally get 4% back for the wide selection of vendors you see on Bonus Points Mall.

I also use that 4x BPM thing like it's going out of style during the holidays, mostly for Apple Store, REI and Old Navy, all of which I shop at A LOT (another favorite scheme: GiftCertificates.com is an AAdvantage Eshop member, so you can buy cards there for 2 points on the dollar, then get points again when you redeem them at AAdvantageEshopping.com....since you don't have to pay with a specific credit card there.)

That said, I may be following your advice on the 5% back issue on drugstore and grocery. I'm not quite as crazy about the Hilton Amex I have - which does grant 5 points to the dollar for drugstore, grocery, and post office - since *wood seems to gain rewards much faster (but then, OTOH there are many fewer *wood properties than Hilton, and it's nice to have the option to choose either)....

I'm really too disorganized to use gift cards to their best advantage, so I simply wait to buy large purchases at Target.com, REI.com or Apple.com on the Bonus Point Mall directly...for most of the year PLAT gets 3x points...which isn't too shabby. Granted, I don't get the discount on a $12 pair of socks I bought at the brick and mortar store near my house, but I have an REI Visa I use for that (to get the full 10% member rebate on sale items, for one thing.)

skofarrell

If you're totally into cash, you should look at Amex's Blue Cash product.

you get 5% at the grocery, and 1.5% on everything else.

https://www143.americanexpress.com/c...CARDS/77/1/0/1

NASA Credit Union has a 2% cash card. 1% on the first $1000, 1.25% on the second $2000, 2% on all everything above $2000.

http://www.nasafcu.org/l2.aspx?ci=1042


If you run $100K though either of these cards, you'll do a lot better than MR points for Home Depot cards.

just sayin...

christianj

I used to belong to the group that put EVERYTHING on my AMEX Platinum card (even the pack of gum mentioned by the OP) but I wised up a couple of years ago. I realize that AMEX MR has flexibility but I believe that the SPG AMEX offers even more flexibility (and definitely more airline transfer options) than AMEX MR. If you used the SPG card you could get 1:1.25 to DL because of the additional 5,000 miles you get when you transfer 20,000 to DL.

I continue to put some charges on my AMEX Plat and I keep the card for the other bennies and benefits however most of my spending goes to the SPG AMEX and the HH AMEX (that is until the end of the month when the restaurant bonus goes away) and some to Diners or ML+ if they do not accept AMEX products.

Everyone needs to decide what works for them but I think we are all trying to maximize the points we get per $1 spent.

divemistressofthedark

You know, I'm grinning to myself...I do have both the *wood and HH flavors of Amex myself...I usually put everything that doesn't qualify for the PLAT purchase protection (dining out, parking passes, consumables) on my *wood and anything I may lose/break/have stolen on the PLAT. Problem I have with *wood is this: I have a hard time maintaining discipline and using those points for anything but *wood stays, since I'm an Aloft junkie.

(Need to go pick my quarterly bonus this week, don't I?)

Anyone know of a way to get more *wood points other than regular spend or spending at a *wood property? If *wood had an online shopping mall, I'd be on it like Homer Simpson on a bacon, donut and Cheeto sandwich.

ETA:

Not intending to be a pedant, but that's not really what we're talking about here, is it? OP [male or female? I'll assume female] isn't discussing redeeming her points for gift cards. She's using her Amex to buy the gift cards through Bonus Points Mall, and making her returns that way. [Yes, I realize Target, which she originally mentioned, is not a good example, but not every vendor - or even most of them - has that gift-card exemption. REI, for example, has exactly zero exemptions; neither did several others of which I did an admittedly unscientific spot check.]

This has nothing to do with the cost - either using cash or MR points - of any gift cards. What's confusing folks, I think, is the 4% return mentioned. I've actually edited this to remove the 4% number in my own example, since the return you get kicks in when you redeem the MR points, not when you earn them - the real number would be 400%, since you'd earn 400 MR points for 100 dollars in spending. However, that's not an accurate percentage - since it's not representative of the rate OP would get when she redeems, and we can't calculate that until we know the retail cost of the item for which she's going to use the points.

I usually shoot for about 5% return on MR myself, since that's what I can get using DL many times...and it's why I rarely use MR points to pay for a plane ticket costing under around $300, since base level MR redemption is usually about 30,000 Skymiles (or 30,000 MR points, if I'm redeeming them 1:1 instead of taking Christian's excellent suggestion and redeeming *wood SPG points at .75:1.)

I should mention this, though - you'd spend $7500 anywhere you like, buying either actual merch or gift cards on BPM.com, as long as the store has an online portal - to get 30,000 MR points at the 4:1 ratio, which could then be redeemed for a free rtrip on DL or a few other airlines. (I got a one-way Premium Economy for a friend LHR-JFK on VS for 34K MR points last fall; if you're going to DEN you can go from BNA, where I live, on F9 rtrip for only 20K MR (I saved mightly on a trip to JAC planned for Feb. '09 by using this scheme, and then buying only an rtrip for self and spouse on UA from DEN-JAC. I probably could have redeemed points in some program for that as well, but the cost was under $300 for roundtrip air tickets for us both).

Using your 1% card, you'd get $75 in returns for your purchases, which you certainly couldn't use to buy a rtrip ticket on any airline going anywhere, barring extremely limited commuter runs. To get your 5% return and buy your $300 plane ticket in cash, you'd have to buy $6000 in gas and groceries. Given today's prices it wouldn't take that long, so it's still a decent deal, but personally I'd rack up $7500 in regular spending on BPM much more quickly than I'd bank $6000 in gas and food - hey, I drive a hybrid and am of average build. I think it's a wash as to which program is unequivocally better.

I'd be interested in any threads listing examples of folks using any rewards points and getting 10% values - $200 hotel rooms for only $20 worth of points? Really? - unless they're usages such as upgrades only available to elite members of airlines or hotel chains, which is often the case on these boards, I find.

After having typed all this, an admission: I realize MR's real value is absolutely savings on travel, and agree completely that the cameras/binoculars/golf clubs advertised on MembershipRewards.com are not a very good deal and that you'd be (much) better off getting nearly any cashback card if you're after consumer goods and not hotel or airline deals. I'm a big leisure traveler, myself, which is why I'm getting all evangelical about it.

Only complaint I have is that BonusPointsMall.com loads slower than crosstown traffic, most of the time. It's a real pain when you're in a hurry. Lately I've been getting a lot of 'this site is unavailable, try again in an hour' messages as well.

hs1

Same with MR, BonusPointMall.com is not almost never the best way to earn extra points/cash backs.

For Target mentioned by OP.

Discover offers 5%
ThankYou Network gives 3 points (was 6 during the Nov-Dec of 2008)
Live.com gives 20%