With a little over a week left to the big day for gift giving, the push is on to start your Christmas shopping for friends, family and maybe even yourself! Whether it is shopping for gifts or for food and drink to entertain, there are many ways to maximize the points you earn while holiday shopping when using your American Express Gold Rewards Card. Ultimately you can plan out and pay for your vacations in 2017 by following one or more of our tips during the holiday season.
Put all your purchases on your card
This is by far the easiest way to rack up points outside of actually travelling. Put everything that you buy on your American Express Gold Rewards Card right down to the chocolate bar from the corner store. Every point counts no matter where or how you earn it. The beauty of American Express and Membership Rewards is that if you have a purchase that ends in 0.50 – 0.99 they will round up your purchase so you’ll actually get a Membership Rewards point. Other Card issuers have terms in place now that they will not award points or miles on those portions that are less an a dollar, so the Gold Rewards Card gives you more than many other Cards on the market in terms of point collection.
Maximizing the Membership Rewards Points you earn with Gift Card purchases
Are you a gift card giver at Christmas or you don’t know what presents to give this year so you’ve settled on a gift card? Gift cards have the added benefit of letting your loved ones choose exactly what they want, at one of their favourite retailers. While you can head to each retailer to purchase, in a pinch, most grocery and drug stores will offer a wide variety of gift cards, and you earn your points just the same along the way!
Use your points for purchases
Now that American Express Membership Rewards has expanded their Use Points for Purchases program, you can literally use your points for almost any purchase. This can be a way to keep some money in your pocket as when a charge shows up on your account you can online or login via the American Express app and redeem points against any eligible charge.
You can also choose to use your points to order merchandise via Membership Rewards. There are tons of items in the online catalog and many are on special with discounted Reward requirements.
Whenever you can, use your American Express Gold Rewards Card to pay for your purchases so that you can rack up as many points as possible for those future redemptions. As long as you are financially responsible there is no reason you should be using cash or debit for your purchases. It should always be on your Card so that you earn your coveted points. There is a reason why Rewards Canada ranks American Express Membership Rewards points as the number one travel currency in Canada.
Related: Top 5 Travel Rewards Currencies for Canadians