American Express is offering a chance to get a $25 statement credit on a purchase of $75 or more from Amazon.com. The trick is that you can take advantage of this offer with every American Express card you have, including additional cards issued to authorized cardholders. You do have to register first, but you have until December 31 to make your qualifying purchase and receive the credit (HT to Dan’s Deals).
This is similar in many respects to Amex’s Small Business Saturday event. I’m excited because I was in Amarillo for the weekend, and there was not much opportunity to take advantage. (I usually get gift cards at local Seattle restaurants on Small Business Saturday, but even if I had been shopping in Amarillo, we were out doing family stuff that didn’t provide the opportunity to really maximize that promotion.)
What I probably don’t need to explain is how this Amazon.com promotion is even better. I generally hate shopping at stores during the holiday season. Megan and I got new iPhones at Target on Friday, and we spent about 6 hours due to activation issues, lines, and the fact Megan was originally sold a Sprint phone for her Verizon plan. Ugh. We later reflected that it was not worth saving $50 each given how many other, more productive things we could have done with our time. That’s the last time we go out on Black Friday.
Nope, shopping online is better. We have to fly to visit family anyway, so we buy everything online, ship it to their homes, and then wrap it when we arrive. Here in Seattle we can often get next-day or even same-day shipping on some items. As Dan notes, you can actually just buy a $75 gift card right now and make your individual purchases in smaller amounts as necessary.