Petco Amex Offer & Update on Carrabba’s
Today quite a few new Amex Offers were released. You can check your accounts to see which ones are available, but I am going to focus on one that has me really exciting. There was also a Big Lots offer that was good, but it seems to have disappeared.
Petco Amex Offer
This morning American Express released a new Petco Amex Offer. It can be loaded on their website or by tweeting #AmexPetco from a linked account. Let’s dive in a little deeper.
The Offer
Get a one-time $25 statement credit by using your enrolled Card to spend a minimum of $75+ in one or more transactions online at petco.com by 6/6/2016.
Why This Excites Me
On the surface, we have a 33% discount on pet stuff. Not bad, but not the best percentage discount from Petco with an Amex Offer. Recently I wrote about how tedious it was for me to buy gift cards with the $5 off $10 offer from last year. While that offer gave 50%, this one has A LOT more potential. Why? It is simply bigger.
So let’s say you have 20 cards with this offer. Under the previous $5 off $10+ deal you could buy $200 in gift cards for $100. With this deal, you can buy $1,500 in gift cards for $1,000. Yes, I wish it was 50% off the top, but perhaps we can get it above 50% in the end with portals.
Currently all portals exclude gift cards, but some people have claimed success with some mileage portals. (Find the latest and report your results at Frequent Miler laboratory.) This could be an ideal strategy:
- Go through a mileage portal to purchase gift cards. Hope it tracks.
- Go through Discover Deals to earn 10% on merchandise purchased with a gift card.
- If you have Double Cashback, then you would earn an additional 10% at the end of the year.
The Math
The cost of the $75 gift card is $50 and you would earn an additional $15 (20%) on the $75 purchase. That leaves the final cost at $35 or 46.67% of face value. Don’t forget that Petco often has 20% off and other coupons which could deepen your savings and if the mileage portal tracks when you buy the gift card, then you come out even more ahead.
Gift Card Tip: You can also condense your gift cards into one in-store. For example, if you buy 10 X $75 cards, you could merge them all into one single $750 card in a Petco location.
Bottom Line
If you have pets and or shop for supplies and/or food, in many cases you can save 60%+ if you find the right combination of portal, coupon and gift card discount. Keep in mind Petco gift cards are often 20% off from resellers, so you can still do quite well even without the Amex Offer, but I always prefer getting not only a larger discount, but first hand cards as well.
Carrabba’s Amex Offer Update
The Carrabba’s Amex Offer that gives a $10 credit with a $25+ purchase expires at the end of the month. A great use of the offer is to purchase gift cards that can then be used at Outback, Carrabba’s, Bonefish Grill or Fleming’s. With this offer you are basically getting 40% off. Of course you can also make a few bucks by reselling them if you want.
Thankfully the offer is now even better than before. Through June 19, 2016 you will get a $10 bonus card with the purchase of $50 in gift cards. (Split payment between 2 Amex cards.) This bonus card isn’t quite a gift card itself. It comes with some restrictions. Among them are:
- Valid for redemption: between May 9 and July 15, 2016
- Gratuity, taxes and alcoholic beverages not included
- Limit one card per visit, per table
- Will not carry an unused balance
- Not valid with any other discount offers, including “5 for 6 ’til 7”, “8 for 9 ’til 10” or Prime Rib Sunday
- Valid at any Bloomin’ Brands location in the United States, excluding Carrabba’s franchise locations, Carrabba’s Kirby and Carrabba’s Woodway locations in Houston, TX, Carrabba’s and Outback airport locations
Ok so it isn’t the best thing ever, but it does make the math even better. For example, if you were to go out to dinner and spend $35 total then your “cost” would be $25. Of course you would pay that with the gift card that only cost you $15. That is about a 57% discount before you pay tax and gratuity which could be paid for with a gift card at 40% off.
Keep in mind that the bonus card doesn’t work with other discounts or promotions such as the 20% off for AARP so you might want to calculate what your best option is depending on your check size. For larger checks then the AARP discount may make more sense, but with two people, the bonus card will probably be better.
Conclusion
Both of these deals are good in my opinion, although neither is a homerun. The reason to look at deals like these and all Amex Offers in general, is to not only benefit, but to be ready to completely understand and maximize a killer deal when it comes along. While I wait for the next Smart & Final Amex Offer, I’ll enjoy my cheap pet supplies and steak dinners. Heck, I might even make a dollar or two as well.
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So a few days ago I used the tab trick to put the PetCo offer on all AMEX cards. Today I noticed they are gone. Did that happen to anyone else?
I purchased a $75 MAILED gift card from petco.com, not an e-giftcard and the pending transaction is:
UNLEASHPETCOCO069880
10850 VIA FRONTERA
SAN DIEGO
CA
921271705
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (THE)
Category: Merchandise & Supplies – Internet Purchase
Have yours posted yet and have they switched to petco.com transactions to trigger the offer?
Same here. Days later it still is listed at UNLEASHED and hasn’t triggered the offer. Thankfully, I only bought one gift card.
My bonus posted today (4 days after the charge posted), even though it is still listed as UNLEASHED. YAY!
[…] Miles to Memories, you’ll get a one-time $25 statement credit for spending $75+ online at Petco by June, 6, […]
I was able to put a Big Lots offer on one of my cards. Are there any ideas on making the most of this? Or is it really only good for merchandise purchases in the store?
I think it is pretty much only good for merchandise, but look out for 20% off coupons that they put out so you can save even more.
My records show I received 4 AA miles per $ spent on Petco GCS. It tracked and no clawback
🙂
Does Discover give cashback if you don’t use their card for the purchase? Last year, they started clamping down on that practice quite a bit.
Same question. Has anyone had success with this recently?
They have and it is of course YMMV, but on smaller orders when paid with gift cards I have had some success. Of course nothing is guaranteed and you could always use the next best portal at 7% and do alright, although definitely not as well.
I’ve virtually given up on DD unless its the best deal by far. Over the holidays I used their card, no gift cards and no codes and had at least 5 purchases not track properly. Only after spending time I wish I hadn’t did they finally credit the cash back. It of course required transaction dates, totals, order# etc…. they’ve really gone downhill in the last year or so. Sucks, but is what it is. Moral of the story is DD is 100% YMMV no matter what you do.
All sounds good but why has Amex and Costco severed their relationship. Starting in June Costco will no longer accept Amex cards. It’s hard for me to understand that someone(s) in their Corporate tower made such a “wise”decision.
When I am logging in, the offer explicitly states that :
1/Pay with your Discover card at checkout and
2/EXCEPTIONS: [..] Gift/eGift card.
Did you get the same notifications ? Are you sure that the process you describe will work ?
Renaud
[…] Free $10 bonus card from Carrabba’s for every $50 gift card purchases, valid through June 19, stack with Amex Offer of $10 off $25 (milestomemories) […]
DD says you need to pay with your Discover card to be eligible for cashback on a purchase from Petco. Have you had success getting DD cashback when you pay with Petco gift cards?
I was able to get the $10 bonus gift cards without buying the gift cards in $50 increments. We purchased $25 gift cards on the 10 cards in total between the hubby and I and they gave us five $10 bonus gift cards. I promptly saw the $10 Amex credit emails as the waitress swipes each card. Frankly it made it easy on everyone.
And when I visit any one of the four restaurants later I only have to use the gift card for the purchase. And I believe I can use another discount at that time, at least with the regular gift cards. But if not I cannot complain; I have scored half off already.
Yes they give bonus cards based on the total denomination purchased. We like to purchase $50 cards since it seems easy enough for them to do two swipes and it leaves us with less cards. You are correct that you can use other discounts/offers with the regular gift cards.
Last year I had DD clawback cashback from buying petco gift cards. Just FYI.
EDIT: Just realized you’re not telling us to use DD for the gift card purchase.
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