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Eligibility is limited for the Amex Offers discussed in this post. Enrollment is required in the Amex Offers section of your account before redeeming.
Editors Note: This post was originally published in May 2020. Many of the specific offers referenced below are no longer available. However, the high-level strategy of “stacking” or combining multiple card benefits and offers to maximize your savings remains as relevant as ever.
With so many new credit card enhancements, it's hard to make sense of it all. I wanted to take a moment to show you how I stacked a temporary card benefit with other current offers to buy a pair of Bose headphones for up to 75% off the retail price—while earning thousands of Membership Rewards points from doing so.
Amex Offers
Amex Offers are a great way of getting cash back or bonus points for making purchases with certain retailers. Back in mid-2020, many cardholders of The Business Platinum Card® from American Express found a slew of new Amex Offers in their accounts — including two Dell Amex Offers:
- Get 10% back, up to $1,500
- 4X additional Membership Rewards points
Dell Credit
While these Amex Offers may be found on several American Express credit cards, there's a reason to activate them using a Business Platinum Card. To help offset some of the pain of COVID-19, American Express added an additional $100 statement credit for both May-June and July-December 2020:
This temporary benefit has since been made permanent. Business Platinum Card now offers up to a $200 statement credit for Dell purchases between January and June and up to another $200 statement credit between July and December.
- Welcome Offer: Earn 120,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $15,000 on eligible purchases with your Card within the first 3 months of Card Membership.
- 5X Membership Rewards® points on flights and prepaid hotels on AmexTravel.com, and 1X points for each dollar you spend on eligible purchases.
- Earn 1.5X points (that's an extra half point per dollar) on each eligible purchase at US construction material, hardware suppliers, electronic goods retailers, and software & cloud system providers, and shipping providers, as well as on purchases of $5,000 or more everywhere else, on up to $2 million of these purchases per calendar year.
- Unlock over $1,000 in annual statement credits on a curation of business purchases, including select purchases made with Dell Technologies, Indeed, Adobe, and U.S. wireless service providers.
- $200 Airline Fee Credit: Get up to $200 in statement credits per calendar year for incidental fees charged by your one selected, qualifying airline to your Card.
- $189 CLEAR® Plus Credit: Use your card and get up to $189 in statement credits per calendar year on your CLEAR® Plus Membership (subject to auto-renewal) when you use your Business Platinum Card®.
- The American Express Global Lounge Collection® can provide an escape at the airport. With complimentary access to more than 1,400 airport lounges across 140 countries and counting, you have more airport lounge options than any other credit card issuer on the market as of 03/2023.
- $695 Annual Fee.
- Terms Apply.
- Rates & Fees
- Earn 5X Membership Rewards® points on flights and prepaid hotels on amextravel.com.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase of $5,000 or more.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. construction material and hardware suppliers.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers.
- Earn 1.5X Membership Rewards® points on each eligible purchase with U.S. shipping providers.
- 1.5X earning rates are subject to a cap of $2 million in purchases per calendar year.
Shopping Portals
Also, you can take advantage of shopping portal offers to get even better value. These offers can really add up and was an integral part of how I earned 9,700 points from one day of online shopping.
By using Cashback Monitor, we can see that Rakuten has had many increased payout offers for Dell of between 8-15% Cash Back. As recently as February 2020, Rakuten (formerly Ebates) offered 14% Cash Back
Rakuten cashback can now be earned as American Express Membership Rewards Points. If you elect to earn points, each percent of cashback equates to 1X Membership Rewards. Therefore, 15% = 15X Membership Rewards (MR) points.
Currently, Rakuten is offering a birthday celebration offering 10% Cash Back (or 10X Membership Rewards):
If you haven't signed up for Rakuten yet, you can sign up through a referral link to get $30 Cash Back (3,000 Membership Rewards points) after making just $30 in purchases in the first 90 days. But hurry, this offer ends May 11.
Putting the Offers Together
Now let's walk you through how I stacked these offers to get a great pair of Bose headphones for way less.
The Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones II are a great pair of headphones. At the time I purchased them, they had a $349 price tag to reflect that. You could buy these headphones through Dell at $299 before tax.
By clicking through Rakuten before making your purchase, you can earn 10X Membership Rewards points on this sales price. That's 2,990 Membership Rewards points earned through Rakuten.
Tax (for me) is $21.68 bringing the total to $320.68. The Business Platinum Card earns 1X points on Dell purchases, but the Dell Amex Offer added another 4X points for a total of 5X. That means I earned 1,603 points from the purchase.
However, don't forget about the other Amex Offer for 10% savings. The Amex Offer is based on the amount charged to your card. In my case, I got a 10% statement credit on the $320.68 charge for $32.07 cashback.
After the $200 in Dell credits, this purchase would only set me back $88.61. That's not bad for these great Bose noise-canceling headphones! But, it gets even better. After adding up the points I earned through Rakuten and through the Amex Offer, I earned 4,593 Membership Rewards points.
Based on my average redemption value, these 4,593 Membership Rewards points are worth nearly $140 in value toward future travel. But even if you value Membership Rewards points at 2 cents each, that's equivalent to getting $91.86 in points for spending $88.61 out-of-pocket and getting a great pair of headphones to boot.
Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700
You can also do this same stacking with Bose's latest and greatest noise-canceling headphones. These started at a $399 price tag, but you could buy them through Dell at $349 before tax, or $374.30 after tax in my case.
Clicking through Rakuten at 10X would earn 3,490 Membership Rewards points, and I'd earn another 1,871 points on my Business Platinum Card after the Amex Offer for 4X bonus points from Dell.
The 10% cashback Amex Offer would yield a $37.43 statement credit and the Dell credits would be maxed out at $200. That means the final out-of-pocket would be just $136.87 while earning 5,361 Membership Rewards points.
Final Thoughts
If you happen to find yourself in the market for a new pair of headphones, you can stack offers to pay just a fraction of the retail price, plus earn thousands of Membership Rewards points in the process! After stacking these offers, the net out-of-pocket cost for the headphones is nearly equivalent to the points you'll earn, making this an absolute steal.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (Rates & Fees)
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
It is a well-known brand, and everything that is very good does not usually come cheap. this information is excellent to keep in mind and to be able to buy beautiful Bose headphones
The annual fee for the AMEX isn’t worth it to me for the benefits. If you already have the card, this would be a decent deal.
A large membership fee. I was very interested until I noticed that 🙁
This article offers some great ways to stack offers; another is to use one of Amazon’s current pay with points deals (e.g., 30%-40% off by paying with at least 1 AMEX MR).
How is the sound quality of the headphones? Any other headphones you can compare to?
Pretty good deal but there are way better NC cans that are less expensive and have more features. Plus, we have had a couple pairs of Bose crap out on us. Great thing about Bose is their customer service though.
Solid tips, thanks to the author for this post. Given this, I am probably going to go ahead and buy the bose 700 model now. Thanks again.
The QC35s are the beat boise cancelling headphones I’ve ever owned. I’ve had them three years and use them every day, they still work as great as out of the box. This is an amazing deal.
Yes; I agree. And one can buy a BlueTooth adapter to make wired QC35s wireless.
I am going to do a modified version of this post. My one question is: the extra Amex points offer seems to be through a particular link — Amexbis. So will you be eligible for those extra points if you go through Rakuten?
I can speak from recent personal experience that you don’t need to click through Amex’s Dell link to get the Dell credit or Amex Offers!
Any stackable offers to purchase Apple products? I need to upgrade my phone and tablet and would love to knock a few dollars off the price. Thanks!
That:s fantastic. In the UK we have…..absolutely nothing for our $730+ fee.
The regulations in the UK and the continent restrict the breath of credit card benefits users can receive.
meh, $299 is not a good price for these. I’d rather use the Dell credit on gift cards
What is the best use of the Dell credits in your opinion?
I was all in for the deal until I saw the $595 membership fee. Ouch!
Where is the $595 membership fee mentioned in the article?