Tag Archives: American Express Membership Rewards Points

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How to Purchase & Print USPS Shipping Labels Online (AMEX Business Platinum Card $20 Monthly Benefit)

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Updated 10:20am PT on 5/14: Purchasing shipping labels through PayPal does not trigger the $20 credit (according to Doctor of Credit)

Updated 12:00pm PT on 5/2: Unfortunately, it looks like USPS First Class Mail is not available for packages under 1 pound (16 ounces).  Only USPS Priority Mail and USPS Priority Mail Express are available on the USPS website.  If you need to print USPS First Class Mail or USPS Media Mail, you can do that through the PayPal shipping center (read this post).

Good afternoon everyone, what a busy May 1 is.  American Express announced today that several of their credit and charge cards will have limited time benefits to offset the travel benefits that are not being used due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Doctor of Credit has a great summary of all the new card benefits, but for this post, I’m going to focus on the $20 monthly statement credit for shipping purchases (USPS, UPS and FedEx) on the American Express Business Platinum Charge Card (valid from May 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020).

As luck would have it, I sold an item on Amazon earlier today and needed to print a shipping label for the package.  Normally, I would print the shipping label through the Amazon Seller Central platform, but I decided to purchase the shipping label from the USPS website to show you the steps (and so I could test out the $20 monthly statement credit for shipping).  The steps are exactly the same whether you are using the AMEX Business Platinum Card or any other payment method.  To get started, go to the USPS website.

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Work from Home Diary 4: Weekend Yard Work & Hallmark Movies

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a good weekend.  I started sharing my thoughts regarding working from home in a series of Work from Home Diary posts.  Feel free to share your work from home feelings in the comments section below.  For today’s update, I wanted to share my weekend activities.  Before I continue, what does yard work and Hallmark movies have to do with miles and points?  That’s a great question, read on to find out.

On Saturday morning, Laura and I went to Lowe’s to get some cleaning supplies, trash bags, and Amazon GCs.  When we arrived, we saw a deal on colored bark (4 bags for $10) and purchased 8 bags.  We had ambitious plans to clean up our front and back yard and to put out a new layer of bark.  After several hours of work, our front and back yard looked great.  Even though our muscles were sore, using the Lowe’s AMEX Offer on my American Express Blue Business Plus Credit Card to get 10% cash back on the Lowe’s purchases was a nice relief.  The Lowe’s AMEX Offer is cumulative and pays 10% cash back, up to $100 cash back (so spending $1,000 will max out this offer).  This AMEX Offer expires on June 30, 2020, but I expect another Lowe’s AMEX Offer will show up after July 1.

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Dell Technologies 10% Cash Back AMEX Offer Stacks with Business Platinum $100 Dell Statement Credit

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is off to a good start.  A few weeks ago, Doctor of Credit reported that there was a new AMEX Offer for Dell Technologies: 10% cash back up to $1,500 that expires on August 31, 2020.  I immediately looked for this AMEX Offer on my cards and found it on my American Express Business Platinum Card.  I didn’t have any immediate uses for any Dell products until last week.  Dell was participating in a St. Patrick’s Day promo and offering 10% cash back.  I decided to check out the site to see if there was anything on sale that I needed.

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My Travel Philosophy for Redeeming Miles vs. Paying Cash for Flights (w/ Account Balances as of March 2020)

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I just finished listening to the Miles to Memories podcast (latest episode) and enjoyed listening to them talk about Disney when they redeem miles vs. pay cash for flights.  I don’t have a hard and fast rule that I live by, so I thought it would be fun to share my travel philosophy of when I redeem miles vs. pay cash for flights.  I specifically mention flights because I plan to write a similar article about hotels and didn’t want to make this article too long.  Lastly, when I use the word cash, that could mean paying for the flight with a credit card, or paying with an airline gift card, or using credit card rewards to pay for the flight – basically anything other than booking an award ticket with airline miles.

I also think it is important to share how many credit card reward points I have, since my thinking would be much different if I had 1,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points vs. 1 million Chase Ultimate Reward Points.  With that said, here are my transferable points balances, as of March 2020, from smallest to largest:

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What’s in Grant’s (iPhone) Wallet?

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great Super Bowl weekend.  I was down in Orange County enjoying the warm weather, but now I am back up in the chilly Bay Area.  I’ve been wanting to write about this topic for a while, but my final motivation was reading 2 Frequent Miler articles: What’s in Nick’s wallet? and What’s in Greg’s wallet?  The first thing you should know about me (if you already didn’t know) is that I am a millennial and I live in the Bay Area, so I can go weeks without using cash.  For that reason, my wallet is built into my iPhone XS case.  I use the Urban Armor Gear (UAG) iPhone Case ($30 on Amazon) that has room for 4 cards: my drivers license and 3 credit cards.  Which 3 credit cards do I carry with me on a daily basis and which credit cards do I have in my ApplePay Wallet?

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