Credit Card Promotions for Holiday Shopping
November 19, 2010
Credit card promotions are popping up all over the place for the holiday shopping season. There are a variety of credit card offers to choose from; some are cash back promotions, others offer you Christmas deals & discounts, and some earn you travel rewards.
Cashback Promotions
Discover has the only cash back holiday promotion that I’m aware of so far. You earn double cash back on any online shopping through December 31st when you use the Discover cards listed below. You’re able to earn the cash back bonus on up to $1000 in holiday purchases, these sales don’t count towards your total annual purchases for your rewards tier level.
The three Discover cards that earn the double cash back for online purchases are:
Some cards are offering $100 cash back if you spend a certain amount in the first few months. If you’re going to be putting a lot of holiday purchases on your card then one of the bonuses might be easier to get. The cards offering the $100 cashback are:
- Discover More – $100 Cashback ($500 in the first 3 months)
- Chase Freedom Visa – $100 Cashback ($799 in the first 3 months)
- Chase Freedom Mastercard – $100 Cashback ($799 in the first 3 months)
Credit Card Discounts
The best credit card discounts I’ve found lately are coming from American Express. This summer I discovered a program they have called the Daily Wish where several days a week they offer big discounts on gift cards, electronics, and travel. They feature one sale item each day, with limited quantities but huge discounts when you buy it with your American Express card.
My favorite are the gift cards, for some reason these seem to be featured on Wednesdays and occassionally Tuesdays. Typically you can buy a $200 gift card for $100 or a $100 gift card for $50. Some recent examples are:
- $100 American Express Gift Card for $50
- $100 Foot Locket gift card for $50
- $100 L.L. Bean Gift Card for $50
They’ve also offered cash back when you spend a certain amount, for example:
- Columbia Sportsware – $50 Back When You Spend $100
- Wal-Mart – $100 Back When You Spend $200
- BackCountry.com – $100 Off any order of $200
The Daily Wish also feature some big ticket electronics discounts, usually at a 30 – 50% off. For example:
- Wii Game Console – $100
- Nikon Coolpix S640 Digital Camera – $174.99
- Sony Cyber-shot Digital Camera – $174.99
- 10.1′ Netbook – $189.00
- Samsung Blu-Ray Home Theater – $269.00
- Nikon D90 SLR – $519.00
- Canon EOS Rebel T2i EF-S 18-55mm -$499.00
Of course these aren’t holiday promotions but it seems like they’ve started to ramp up their deals with bigger discounts and larger quantities for the holiday shopping season. For example, on Black Friday they’re selling 500 flat screen TV’s for $700 each – 42” LG LED-LCD HDTV.
You can also find travel deals on the Daily Wish, they sold a $1000 Travelocity Promo Code for $500.00 and a $1000 Delta Travel Voucher for 60% off.
Of course you have to pay with an American Express card to get the discounts and once the limited quantities are gone the deal is over but if you can time it right you can get some pretty big discounts.
Travel Promotions
I’ve written recently about airline credit card rewards for the holidays so I won’t go into all the details but one card that I left out was the PenFed Travel Rewards card. The PenFed Travel card earns you 5% on airfare and 3% on hotels and dining purchases. Usually it pays 1% on other purchases but through the end of the year it’s offering 2% on all other purchases. Plus this card from the Pentagon Federal Credit Union is also giving out 20,000 bonus points for new cardholders that spend a certain amount in the first 3 months.
The Discover Miles card is also one of the cards in the holiday double rewards promotion but you earn double miles instead of double cash back. The same criteria apply, all internet purchases on the Miles card through the end of the year earn double points.
Also, keep your eye on the American Express Gold Premier card. It wasn’t included in the airline rewards card list because it’s promotion had ended but twice already this fall it’s offered 25,000 bonus points for new cardholders. It has a hefty annual fee but waives it for the first year.
Hopefully I’ve given you at least one idea on how you can take advantage of some of these holiday promotions to save a few bucks or earn some cash back. Just don’t spend too much money!
All posts by Ben
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