American Express Gift Cards are my favorite way to hit a spending threshold on a new credit card because the time to reward ratio is very high. Between buying American Express gift cards and cashing them out, it will usually take me about less than half an hour.
This is only true when you can get cashback from a Shopping Portal like Top Cashback. If you can get at least 1.5% cashback, you will have very little out of pocket expenses in cashing them out. If the shopping portal is paying 2.25%, like Top Cashback did last week and the week before, you will actually have a slight profit on a 1% card and hit your spending threshold.
It used to be that American Express limited you to $5,000 of personal gift cards per 15 business days. That limit has now been increased to $10,000!
For example, I recently signed up for an American Express Business Gold credit card that gave me 75,000 Membership Rewards points for spending $10,000 in three months. One can then "buy" 85,000 points (75,000 sign up bonus + 10,000 after spending $10,000) for $65 out of pocket expenses when Top Cashback was at 2.25%. I would buy miles at that rate any time.
These points can now be worth 119,000 British Airways Avios points with the current 40% bonus transfer.
Keep in mind that anything over $5,000 requires a signature at the time of delivery.
This is only true when you can get cashback from a Shopping Portal like Top Cashback. If you can get at least 1.5% cashback, you will have very little out of pocket expenses in cashing them out. If the shopping portal is paying 2.25%, like Top Cashback did last week and the week before, you will actually have a slight profit on a 1% card and hit your spending threshold.
It used to be that American Express limited you to $5,000 of personal gift cards per 15 business days. That limit has now been increased to $10,000!
For example, I recently signed up for an American Express Business Gold credit card that gave me 75,000 Membership Rewards points for spending $10,000 in three months. One can then "buy" 85,000 points (75,000 sign up bonus + 10,000 after spending $10,000) for $65 out of pocket expenses when Top Cashback was at 2.25%. I would buy miles at that rate any time.
These points can now be worth 119,000 British Airways Avios points with the current 40% bonus transfer.
Keep in mind that anything over $5,000 requires a signature at the time of delivery.
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