American Express Business Platinum Card, annual fee $550, typically comes with $200 annual dell credit of which $100 can be used from January to June and the other $100 can be used from July to December. However, because of COVID situation American Express offered additional $100 credit from January to June as well as July to December. In this post, I will talk about how you can maximize the credit.
Getting Cash Equivalent
If you can have someone eventually pay for your purchase on Dell then this credit is as good as cash. Maybe you can even ship it to them directly 😉
Alternatively, it might be worth getting “cash equivalent” item (say gift card) from Dell that you can easily resell.
Purchasing Product For Yourself
Obviously you can also use the dell credit to purchase item that you would otherwise have paid cash for anyway.
Your may not have as many option as if you were buying on some other sites, say Amazon, but remember you can split payments among three cards. This is fantastic for those of us who hold multiple business platinum cards. Additionally, Dell allows price match from the following stores:
- Amazon
- Apple
- BestBuy
- BHphotovideo
- HP
- Frys
- Lenovo
- Microcenter
- Newegg
- OfficeDepot
- OfficeMax
- Sears
- Staples
- Target
- TigerDirect
- Walmart
You may read more about Dell Price Match in their official site.
Getting A Little Extra Out of Your Money
You can get a little extra money by making use of following options:
1. American Express Offers
American Express often has 10% cashback offer as well as +1 Membership Rewards points offer and they do stack. If you are able to spend $200 using this offer then that would translate to $20 in cashback as well as extra 200 points. Not bad.
2. Dell Promotion Discount and Code
Dell occasionally has 10% discount code which can also be used on gift cards. This essentially means you purchase a little over $110 worth of gift card while only spending $100.
3. Cash Back Portal
Typically you will find cashback portals (remember to use cashbackmonitor to check best portal option) give somewhere around 4% on Dell purchase but in the past the cashback number has been as high as 20%
If you still have not signed up for Ebates and TopCashBack then consider supporting the blog by using the links below. You may get a small signup bonus as well.
In 2020 thus far, Ebates had 14% cashback offer while TopCashBack had 15%
4. Dell Rewards
You earn 3% of your purchase as Dell Rewards. This reward can be applied to give you discount in your future purchase.
Dell Rewards expire 90 days from the issue date and that is more then enough time to stack it with a coupon which will inevitably come.
Dell reward can also be applied to gift card purchase.
See dell rewards FAQ for further detail.
Miscellaneous
Dell used to offer 10% discount code through Unidays (student discount) but it has not worked for quite a while now. However, military folks can still get 10% discount directly through dell.
A quick Warning
If you can, don’t wait till last minute to burn your dell credit. First, when you do this you’re likely losing out on best combo of portal cashback and other shenanigans. It also so happens that certain products, like gift cards, has gone out of stock for temporary period of time.
And even more importantly, Dell can be a little annoying with cancelling orders. For example, even if there is a small difference between your shipping and billing address, like difference in phone number, they might cancel your order. Or they might cancel your order for something else. Give enough time so you can go through the process of ordering once, twice, or maybe even thrice, particularly if your Dell account is new.
Closing Thoughts
I mostly wrote this for folks who purchase gift cards on dell but I hope other folks also find some usage out of it.
