Good morning everyone, yesterday I wrote New AMEX Offers: Home Depot, Whole Foods, Fairway Market, and Hilton Garden Inn. In that post, I recommended buying gift cards at various merchants to complete the AMEX Offers. I knew Home Depot sold third party gift cards, but I wasn’t sure about the others. Last night after work, I went hunting for gift cards at Home Depot. I needed to buy $75 worth of gift cards to trigger the $15 statement credit ($15 back represents a 20% discount on the face value of the gift card).
Here are all four sides of the Home Depot gift card rack at my local Home Depot. There are a few restaurant, online merchants, and other retailer gift cards available. It looks like Home Depot does sell $50 and $100 Visa and MasterCard Gift Cards. I didn’t see the stacks of $100 MasterCard Gift Cards on the rack until I got home and looked at the pics. Silly me. My local Home Depot opens at 6am, so I will be back there soon.
I decided to purchase 3 $25 Starbucks Gift Cards in one transaction and $75 in Panera Gift Cards in another transaction. I used my AMEX Platinum first and then my AMEX Old Blue Cash second. Shortly after both purchases, I received the AMEX Offer email.
After leaving Home Depot, I drove to my local Whole Foods and checked out the gift card rack. All I could see were Whole Foods Gift Cards and no third party gift cards. Oh well. If you actually shop at Whole Foods, you may be able to buy a $75 Whole Foods Gift Card and save $10 on your next shopping trip with the Whole Foods AMEX Offer.
My friend Kathy @ Will Run For Miles wrote that Fairway Market only sells their own gift card and I haven’t heard any success stories regarding Hilton Garden Inn gift cards. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone.
P.S. I just got my first $20 Sam’s Club Gift Card. I can’t believe all the packaging and tracking that is used to ship a $20 gift card. Oh well, only 3 more packages to go…
Doesn’t the Home Depot offer exclude third party gift cards?
Don’t believe everything that is written in the Amex Offer.
At some point, Amex will make gift cards void just like u c8ant use gift cards to complete minimum spend. Just a matter of time.
Yes, some point that will happen. I’m not sure what is taking them so long. You think it would be high on their priority list. Until that point, here I come gift cards!
good to know :) . thanks
In general, any purchase that meets the requirement will count. That is true 99% of the time.
Hey, my Home Depot sells variable load green dot cards. However, when I took them up to the register, they would not scan and the cashier said they could not sell them. This was before payment even came up. So as far as they know, I could have been paying cash… Anybody had these work???
Try a different cashier. I’ve never seen green dot GCs at Hone Depot.
Wonder if it’s possible to buy three $100 MasterCard visa gc’s and split tender into 4 cards?? Thus maximizing offers and minimizing card activation fees
I was thinking the same thing. It’s worth a shot, hopefully you can find a helpful cashier to help you out.
Bought 6 x $ 100 visa gift cards across 8 cards… received email saying congrats using Amex offer…
Nice work, that is what I am talking about. You spent $106.95 x 6 = $641.70. You got $600 in GCs and will receive $15 x 6 = $90 in statement credit. Nice score!
Arco cards are as good as cash in California because Arco charges prices a few cents higher than Costco, but without taking credit cards. Don’t forget Home Depot is also the category for Citi Dividend, although without $200 cards it’s only useful for gift cards to places you know you will go to. I think most people who still have Dividend are waiting for Best Buy in winter.
I converted my Dividend into a Double Cash. I didn’t want to wait until Q4.
I have one in Irvine that takes credit cards…! But I agree most Arcos don’t.
On a side note, Grant, I typed into google “Home Depot Amex offer” and the first link is to amex.com, followed by travelwithgrant.com for the 2nd and 3rd links. Congrats!! Hope more traffic comes your way…!!!!
Haha, I don’t know why my blog is so special but thank you Google :)
Just FYI, the Home Depot offer expired on the same day it was offered, May 18. Can no longer sync. As a sidenote, Sam’s Club offer also expired May 18.
Thanks for the update, Kent. Enrollment filled up fast for Home Depot.
No kidding. In less than one day. Thought the Smart and Final would be long gone by now but no, it’s still open.
Question Grant, if you are offered, say the Home Depot on your Amex account without doing a tweet, and you have NOT synced the offer yet on your account, will the offer be removed from your account if the offer expires? I think the HD offer was on my account a couple days ago but I failed to sync it. Wondering if it might still be there. Can’t check though till I get off of work later.
I think if you cannot use Amex Sync to get the Home Depot offer, then it will be removed from your Amex account.
I bet your right, bummer, but I’ll doublecheck later for added torture. If for some reason, it’s still alive on the Amex account and syncs, I’ll let you know.
Thanks Kent. Good luck!
I guess each merchant decides how many offers to make available, and whether it’s tweetable to any AMEX card. Like I’m sure many folks went crazy with the “20 off 20″ deal at Sam’s Club. I knew I went through my stack and linked all my AMEX cards. $15 off $75” at Home Depot is WAY less exciting. I think I did about 8 cards and stopped. Now if I had a home renovation project looming, I would have done them all. But, otherwise, how many gift cards do I want at 20% off?
I’m sure others felt the same way, and there were far fewer Home Depot sign ups than Sam’s sign-ups. But if the limit is set lower, the deal can still expire much faster.
That makes sense but no one knows the secret formula behind Amex Offers or how they are targeted to individual cards.
Expirations:
https://twitter.com/offersbot
Thanks for taking pictures of the racks. I was not aware that they sold TracFone cards. Do you think I would get the $15 credit if I buy these cards? I’m guessing yes…?
You should get credit for buying anything inside Home Depot, including gift cards. As long as Home Depot accepts credit cards for TracFone GCs, you should be fine.
Worked like a charm. Already got the AMEX congratulations email. BTW, the VGCs at Depot (at least at my Depot) are from Sunrise and they load quite easily to BB. Don’t even need a pin!
Good to know, thank you. What city/state are you in?
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Bad luck for the closest 2 HDs to me..no VGCs or MCGCs (25s don’t count.) I already max’d out the others at Smart & Final. It’s hard to get excited over 20% off after the Smart & Final and Sams Club offers.
Yes, the low hanging fruit ($50 and $100 VGCs) have been picked clean from most Home Depot stores. Any merchant gift cards that interest you? Hint: Panera Bread and Starbucks are good choices.
I was able to get some Starbucks gcs from Sams Club (2 sets of $45 for $2.88 each by using 2 AXs), but I guess I could get some casual dining cards or Shell gas cards. Hopefully they re-stock at some point.
They should. Just check back in a few days.
Just bought a Master Card GC and got the congrats email!
Good to hear, my Home Depot had plenty of MCGCs and I received the congratulations email as well.
I got a Home Depot GC for $75 and two Shell gas cards($25 and $50), but I haven’t received the Amex congrats emails. Regardless, if the credits don’t post, I plan to call Amex down the road to complain about it.
I bought similar items and I received the Amex statement credit. You should be fine.
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Can you purchase Visa or MasterCard gift cards with a Home Depot Credit Card?
I’m not sure, but I would guess yes.
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