AMEX Offers: How We Bought $190 Ray-Bans for Only $92!
AMEX Offers: How We Bought $190 Ray-Bans for only $92!
Rose and Gold Ray-Ban Aviators purchased with the American Express Platinum Card credits!
Since South Florida’s sunny summer has been in full effect and Nat and I were tired of getting blinded by the sun, we began our hunt for some new sunglasses. Unfortunately, we were taken aback by how expensive they’ve become! Our upcoming travel plans are taking us to several sunny destinations so we needed to lock down some discounted shades! First, we found ourselves in Sunglass Hut scoping out a pair of Ray-Bans which were a roundish aviator style with pretty rose colored lenses and a matte gold frame. The shades looked ridiculously cute on Nat, so naturally I was ready to throw down for them immediately. Without hesitation, Nat stopped me due to the $178 price tag ($190 with tax). We generally don’t make impulse purchases without researching the best price on our favorite brands and the high price tag stopped us in our tracks. I quickly checked my American Express and Chase Offers via the mobile apps and found a “Spend $150 save $30 at Sunglass Hut” on my American Express Platinum Card. That’s when we realized we could definitely save much more money on these brand new Ray-Bans.
Since it was July, I remembered that my American Express Platinum Card’s Saks Fifth Avenue $50 credit was now available for the second half of the year. For those who don’t know, the American Express Platinum Card provides an annual $100 statement credit for Saks Fifth Avenue, in store and online. This statement credit is available in two $50 increments. First $50, between January 1 and June 30, and the second $50 between July 1 and December 31. Remember, like most of these card benefits, before attempting to use the credit you must enroll your American Express Platinum Card in the benefit to be eligible. I also remembered seeing a $10 Amex Offer on my Platinum Card for Saks Fifth Avenue. The $50 annual Platinum credit and the $10 Amex Offer credit were already a better deal than the $30 offer at Sunglass Hut. I checked the Saks Fifth Avenue website and the same pretty pink Ray-Bans were in stock! On the Saks website I noticed a flashing banner at the top advertising a summer sale promotion for $35 off any $175 purchase. With these three offers, Nat and I were looking at $95 off these perfect polarizers.
To recap on our current savings, the original price for the Ray-Bans was $178 on the Saks Fifth Avenue website. Utilizing the summer promotion code “JULYSF”, I received “$35 of a $175 purchase”. For whatever reason, when the promo code was applied, it subtracted $35.60 from our initial price of $178. Thanks for the extra 60 cents Saks! This brought our total to $142.40 pre-tax.
Next we came to the dreaded shipping. We’re the type of people who will buy in bulk just to hit the free shipping cost threshold, especially if we are buying a product we were going to use anyway. We found another Saks promo code “FREESHIP” but it only included basic seven business day shipping. After seeing Nat wear the shades at Sunglass Hut, I wanted them on her face fast! Luckily, with my American Express Platinum Card, I am enrolled in ShopRunner as a complimentary benefit. ShopRunner members receive a free two-day shipping service that works with 100+ online stores including Saks Fifth Avenue. So not only is the shipping cost free, it works just like Amazon Prime and has my orders at my doorstep in only two days. Getting free shipping saved us another $7.50, with the added bonus that the sunglasses will be here super fast! Tax came to $9.96, bringing our total to $152.36 before the American Express Platinum Card statement credits came rolling in.
The day after submitting the purchase I received the first $10 credit on my Amex mobile app statement. Two days later, I received Nat’s rose and matte gold Ray-Bans, as well as my additional $50 Saks Fifth Avenue statement credit on my Amex mobile app statement. These $60 in credits brought our total cost for these stylish new shades to only $92.36. This equates to about 52% off of the retail price! This scenario is the perfect reminder to always take a moment to check your card benefits and offers prior to a purchase. If I didn’t take a few extra seconds to check other offers I would have walked away spending 50% more. Thanks to the American Express Platinum Card we earned 92 American Express Membership Rewards points and saved nearly $100 on this sunglass purchase. These points and savings will certainly offset the cost of our future travel and the shades will keep Nat from squinting in the sun!
