“Never pay full price” is a piece of advice all of us could benefit from. While that’s not always possible when shopping in-store, there are several ways that you can avoid paying full price when shopping online. Better still, you can usually stack multiple offers to save even more.
Let’s walk through several credit card-related money-saving tips together. And then, as an example of how powerful stacking offers can be, I’ll show you how I stacked several offers to save more than $478 on a $570 laptop purchase.
Capitalize on Card Issuer Promotions
Several credit card issuers offer a discount program for cardholders—Amex Offers, Chase Offers, Capital One Offers, Citi Merchant Offers and BankAmeriDeals. By enrolling in an offer and making an eligible purchase, you can earn cash back or bonus points on that purchase.
Amex Offers
The Amex Offers program is perhaps the most well-known program. While the number of offers will fluctuate, many Amex cards will be targeted for up to 100 Amex Offers at a given time. Amex Offers can range from earning a small amount of cash back to earning thousands of bonus Membership Rewards points.
Pro Tip: If you don’t see Amex Offers applicable to you, add offers to your card and Amex will add offers from new merchants.
Chase Offers
After seeing the success of Amex Offers, Chase launched Chase Offers in late 2018. As with Amex Offers, Chase Offers will vary between Chase cards. Chase states that offers are targeted based on your recent purchases. So, cardholders should see more offers on cards that they use often.
Chase Offers have typically been capped at a relatively low amount, but we are starting to see them get more competitive with Amex. For example, at the time of writing, you can get 10% back at Fairfield by Marriott purchases through Chase Offers. This offer is capped at $75 cash back.
Capital One Offers
Not to be left behind, Capital One launched Capital One Offers starting in 2020. These offers work a bit differently from Amex Offers and Chase Offers. Rather than being triggered by card purchases, cardholders need to click through a special Capital One Offers link before making their purchase to earn rewards. That limits the potential stacking of these offers.
Citi Merchant Offers
Another new entrant into the bank saving program field, Citi Merchant Offers expanded to most Citi credit cards in 2022. This program is similar to Amex Offers and Chase Offers. All you need to do is enroll in an offer and then make a purchase to trigger an offer.
BankAmeriDeals
Bank of America cardholders can use BankAmeriDeals to get cash back on purchases. In the past, we’ve found this program to be the smallest of the card issuer offer programs. However, it seems the BankAmeriDeals program has expanded to offer a solid selection of offers. If the offers seem familiar, that’s because many BankAmeriDeals match what’s offered through Chase Offers.
Check for Card Processor Offers
In addition to the cashback you can get directly from the bank savings programs, Visa and Mastercard each offer a cashback savings program. Both of these programs are only available to business cards at this time.
Visa SavingsEdge
Visa’s business savings program is called Visa SavingsEdge. The program offers cash back on a few dozen merchants with offers such as 2% cash back on Chevron purchases, 5% cash back at Microsoft and up to 5% cash back on various hotel merchants.
To get started with the Visa SavingsEdge program, you’ll need to enroll your business card by providing your name, email and full credit card number. With that, you’ll automatically be enrolled in all “Everyday Offers” and start earning cash back whenever you spend at eligible merchants. Other “Activate Offers” require that you click through a link before making a purchase.
Mastercard Easy Savings
Mastercard’s business savings program is called Easy Savings. By enrolling in the program, you’ll automatically earn cash back when making purchases through Mastercard Easy Savings merchants. However, Easy Savings has a very limited number of direct partner merchants. Instead, Easy Savings partners with fuel, hotel and dining programs to provide reach.
Earn AAdvantage Miles Through SimplyMiles
SimplyMiles doesn’t fit into any other category. It’s not quite a shopping portal and it’s not a bank-issued program. And that makes it a perfect pairing for stacking offers.
To get started with SimplyMiles, enroll your Mastercard credit cards and activate offers. Then, you’ll earn American Airlines AAdvantage miles on those purchases through SimplyMiles.
Offers are typically short-lived but many are often renewed after their original expiration. So, it’s worth checking back every month or two to see which offers you’re targeted for.
Take Advantage of Card Benefits
Certain premium credit cards offer statement credits when cardholders shop with particular merchants. American Express leads the way in this category.
After enrolling in the benefit, The Platinum Card® from American Express cardholders can get:
- Saks Fifth Avenue: Get up to a $50 statement credit semi-annually, up to $100 per year.
- Uber: Get up to $15 in Uber Cash each month ($35 in December) for rides or Uber Eats purchases in the U.S.
- CLEAR® Plus: Get up to a $189 statement credit each year on a CLEAR Plus membership.
- Equinox: Get up to a $25 statement credit each month on the Equinox+ digital fitness app, or eligible Equinox club memberships.
- Digital Entertainment Credit: Get up to a $20 statement credit each month at eligible merchants such as Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu and more.
- Amex Travel Hotel Credit: Get up to a $200 statement credit each year on prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts® or The Hotel Collection bookings with American Express Travel when you pay with your Platinum Card®. The Hotel Collection requires a minimum two-night stay.
- Airline Fee Credit: Get up to $200 in statement credits after selecting a qualifying airline for incidental fees.
- Walmart+: Get up to $155 in statement credits ($12.95 each month) to get free shipping, delivery and Paramount+.
The card has an annual fee of $695 (see rates & fees, terms apply).
The Business Platinum Card® from American Express is also stacked with merchant-specific statement credits. Cardmembers can enroll in the following offers:
- Dell: Get up to a $200 semi-annual statement credit for U.S. Dell purchases. That’s up to $400 in statement credits each year. Expires 12/31/24.
- Indeed: Get up to a $90 quarterly statement credit for Indeed purchases up to $360. Expires 12/31/24.
- Adobe: Get up to a $150 statement credit each year on select Adobe subscriptions. Expires 12/31/24.
- CLEAR® Plus: Get up to a $189 statement credit each year on a CLEAR Plus membership.
- Wireless services: Get up to a $10 statement credit each month towards wireless telephone services in the U.S. ($120 per year).
- Airline Fee Credit: Get up to $200 in statement credits after selecting a qualifying airline for incidental fees.
The card has an annual fee of $695 (see rates & fees, terms apply).
Earn Bonus Points or Cash Back Through Shopping Portals
Even if you strike out on finding offers from your credit card, there’s one last step that you should take before making all online purchases: clicking through an online shopping portal.
Generally, you should never go directly to a merchant’s website when making a purchase. Instead, just by taking an extra step to click through a shopping portal link, you can earn cash back or extra points in addition to what you earn through your credit card.
There are dozens of online shopping portals, and each can offer a different rate at a given time. Plus, rates can change from day-to-day. That’s why we recommend checking CashbackMonitor for the latest payout rates.
If you are collecting a particular type of airline miles—such as points toward the Southwest Companion Pass or Loyalty Points toward AAdvantage elite status—you can still click through that airline’s portal. However, it’s worth checking to see the other offers to make sure you’re not leaving too much on the table.
Also, don’t forget about the power of bank and other rewards points. If you have an Amex Membership Rewards-earning credit card, Rakuten lets you earn Membership Rewards points instead of cash back.
Membership Rewards points transfer to 17 different airlines and three hotel programs. So by Earning Membership Rewards points you’ll have access to additional flexibility.
Say for instance that Delta’s shopping portal is offering 2 SkyMiles per dollar spent and Rakuten is offering 6 points per dollar spent. In this case, you’ll want to click through Rakuten’s portal as Membership Rewards can be transferred to Delta SkyMiles at a 1:1 ratio. You’re tripling your effective earning rate by shopping through Rakuten instead of Delta’s shopping portal.
Before making a purchase, check to see if the shopping portal offers a bonus for making purchases. For example, at the time of writing, Southwest’s Rapid Rewards Shopping portal will often double or triple offers for some merchants for different seasons or holidays. That extra bonus might make it worth shopping through a different portal.
Stacking Offers for a Laptop Purchase
With these tricks and tips in mind, let’s go through how I purchased a $570 Dell laptop for $93 out-of-pocket.
Amex Offers
Before making the purchase, I enrolled in two Amex Offers available at the time. One Amex Offer offered 10% cash back on Dell purchases and the other offered 1 extra Membership Rewards point per dollar spent on Dell purchases.
Both Amex Offers were applied to the combined purchase price of $571.49, netting a combined $57.15 in cash back and 571 bonus Membership Rewards points from these offers.
Shopping Portal
The best shopping portal payout at the time was 4% cash back through TopCashback. The 4% cash-back rate is applied to the pre-tax purchase amount of $534. So, I earned $21.36 in cash back from this purchase.
Card Benefits
The primary way that I saved on this purchase is by utilizing the Dell statement credit on both my wife and my Business Platinum from American Express cards. Thankfully, we could trigger both of our statement credits in one purchase as Dell allows purchases to be split between up to three forms of payment. In total, we charged $571.49 to our credit cards:
Keep in mind that Dell purchases generally aren’t charged to your credit card until the item is shipped. In my example, I purchased the Dell laptop on May 1, but the purchase didn’t post to the American Express cards until May 12. If you’re planning to use an American Express Business Platinum Dell statement credit, make sure to purchase far enough in advance of June 30 or December 31 to account for this potential delay. Remember, you get $200 to use from January to June and another $200 from July to December.
Total savings and earnings
In total, I charged $571.49 across two Business Platinum credit cards. After $400 in statement credits from Dell purchases, $57.15 in statement credits from Amex Offers and $21.36 in TopCashback earnings, I only had to pay $92.98 out-of-pocket for this purchase.
Plus, the purchases earned a combined 1,142 Membership Rewards points. At a conservative valuation of 1.5 cents per point, that’s more than $17 worth of points.
Most aren’t going to have access to the Dell statement credits for two Business Platinum cards. But hopefully this example can show the power of being able to stack several types of offers to save on a purchase.
Bottom Line
Before you make a purchase online, check to see if you can use any offers to earn some additional rewards or statement credits. By utilizing bank savings programs, card processor offers, shopping portals and card statement credits you may be surprised at how little you ultimately pay for a product or service.
To view rates and fees for the The Platinum Card® from American Express please visit this page.
To view rates and fees for the The Business Platinum Card® from American Express please visit this page.
