Select American Express cardmembers are receiving email notification of a redemption offer that provides a rebate of 25% of the points redeemed for select redemption options. The targetted offer appears to be same for all those who receive and reports from Red Flag Deals show it is being offered across most American Express Membership Rewards cards. Personally, I have not received the email so it appears I have not been targeted, that is, unless my email has not come through yet. As I was not targetted for this offer some information in this post has been gleaned from this thread by booruce on Red Flag Deals.
The 25% points back offer:
The exact wording of the promotion is as follows:
Get 25% points back on your eligible redemptions (up to a maximum of 10,000 pts) when you redeem with Use Points for Purchases, Air Canada®* Pay with Points and Flexible Points Travel Program between August 30, 2023 ‑ September 27, 2023.
This means you can receive the 25% rebate on up to 40,000 points that you redeem via any of the three options. You don’t have to redeem all 40,000 in one shot either – you can make numerous redemptions totaling up to 40,000 points during the promotional period until September 27 to receive up to 10,000 points back.
The Eligible Redemption Options
These are the three redemption options eligible to receive 25% point back:
Use Points for Purchases
This is one of the most popular and most flexible redemption options in the American Express Membership Rewards program. With this option you can select any purchase you have made on your card and redeem points to receive a statement credit against that charge. A minimum redemption of 1,000 points is required for a $10 credit and you can redeem any amount of points above that up to a maximum of what would be required to credit the entire charge:
Air Canada Pay with Points
This redemption options is not found on the American Express website but rather is available during the check out process when purchasing flights on Air Canada’s website or mobile app. When you enter your American Express card number during check out you will presented with an option to redeem points towards the charge. The redemption rate is the same 1,000 points for $10 with a lower minimum redemption requirement of only 10 points – yes, you can redeem for 10 cents off your Air Canada purchase.
Flexible Points Travel Program
The Flexible Points Travel Program is for Membership Rewards cardmembers who are booking flights via American Express Travel. Here, again you can redeem 1,000 points for $10 off the purchase price of the travel you are booking. With this option the minimum redemption level is 1 point or 1 penny off your purchase. This option is ideal for those of you who utilize the International Airline Program offered on The Platinum Card® and Business Platinum Card® from American Express to utilize that program’s premium cabin discounts. Here’s a round trip business class flight on KLM between Calgary and Amsterdam that is only $2953.87 thanks to their Real Deal Days sale:
With this redemption you would receive 10,000 points back thanks to the promotion.
Wrapping it up
Select American Express cardmembers are being targeted with an excellent 25% points back offer when using points on eligible redemption options. All three options provide the same per point value of 1 cent per point which is boosted to 1.33 cents per point with this promotion. If your Cobalt Card account happens to be targetted for this offer and you do choose to redeem you would be achieving as high as a 6.65% return on card spending. Not bad in our books.
Of course there are other redemptions options, namely converting your points to the likes of Aeroplan, Flying Blue, Executive Club or Amex’s Fixed Points for Travel where you can get even better value, but those are not everyone’s cup of tea. Some of you have the Cobalt Card not for travel but as a cash back card seeing that it is one of the best cash back cards in Canada and with this promotion it is just that much better.
Title image via mackit on RFD
All other screenshots via American Express