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The past few days I’ve highlighted several travel-related American Express Offers (aka Amex Offers). Often, these deals appear straight forward…buy a plane ticket, receive a statement credit. But if you’re strategic, you’ll notice that many of the offers/deals/credit statements/multiplication of points stack to give you even more savings.
In other words, you can take advantage of more than one deal to save yourself some serious cash. Let’s look at an example…
LAS VEGAS…SHOW ME THE MONEY!
Although there are some hurdles to traveling internationally, people are at least traveling domestically because THE NUMBERS don’t lie.
This morning I came across two Amex Offers for MGM Resorts. We’ve seen this exact offer a few times in the past, but currently, we are in peculiar times and hotels and airlines are running promotions and sales simultaneously, thus….THE STACK!
THE OFFERS
Let’s take a look at the MGM Resort offers…
Offer #1: Spend $250+ on room rate & room charges at the following MGM Resorts brands & get $50 back – Eligible Resorts include: New York-New York, Luxor, Excalibur, Beau Rivage, Gold Strike, Borgata, MGM National Harbor and MGM Springfield.
Offer #2: Spend $500+ on room rate & room charges at the following MGM Resorts brands & get $100 back – Eligible Resorts include: Bellagio, ARIA, Vdara, MGM Grand Las Vegas, The Signature at MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Delano Las Vegas, Park MGM, NoMad Las Vegas, and The Mirage.
Note: Amex offers can vary from person to person and can come in different forms. For example, one individual may be offered points for spending a certain amount of money (e.g. spend $100, get 1000 points), while another individual may be offered a credit for spending the same amount of money (e.g. spend $100, get $10 back). In other words, the offers above may be for 5,000 and 10,000 points, respectively.
PLOT TWIST
The interesting thing about Vegas is that many of the hotels on the strip can actually be booked through Hyatt. Therefore, if you’re staying in the penthouse at the Bellagio or the $30 room at the Luxor, you should be accruing Hyatt elite nights. Here is where it gets good…
Hyatt runs various promotions throughout the year. For example, I wrote about an upcoming Hyatt promotion called Bonus Journeys. If you missed that blog, don’t worry. I’ll be posting about it again. The promotion runs from 1 October 2020 – 4 January 2021, however, registration doesn’t open until 1 October.
During this promotion Hyatt is offering 3x (or 4x for Hyatt cardholders) if you stay at MGM Resorts properties.
Additionally, during this same promotion, Hyatt is also offering double elite nights in which the base elite nights are credited to the “check-out year” and bonus elite nights are credited towards the next year (2021).
With a bit of creativity, you’ll realize that you can book a mini-vacay at the end of the year and easily earn 10 elite nights towards your 2021 status by staying over the new year, say, 27 December – 2 January (HT: Frequent Miler).
Surprisingly, the double elite night portion also stacks with Hyatt’s other promotion offering a 15% (or 25%) points rebate on award stays that I recently wrote about. I hope you registered for that promotion when I wrote about it because registration closed on 1 September.
Furthermore, Hyatt and American Airlines have a unique partnership in which you can earn reciprocal benefits by staying in a Hyatt hotel or flying on American Airlines.
Given this information, many World of Hyatt members have been targeted for a promotion that offers 3x American Airlines AAdvantage miles per dollar spent on Hyatt stays (this includes MGM Resorts).
In other words, spend $100, receive 300 points. The amount of points is not mind blowing but if you’re staying in a hotel, accruing hotel points, AND AIRLINE MILES, that’s sounds like a win in my book!
BUT WAIT…ITS GETS BETTER!
Whenever I purchase anything online, I always consider a shopping portal.
For example, you may have seen THIS FUNNY COMMERCIAL where people attempt to pronounce the cash back shopping portal called Rakuten (pronounced RACK-un-ten). Although funny, this portal can save you serious money on purchases that you were going to make anyway.
Currently, you can earn 2.5% (or 2.5x if your Rakuten account is linked to Amex Membership Rewards), but I’ve seen the rate as high as 10%. It costs nothing extra to book through Rakuten, the price is exactly the same and you get cash back. Another win!!
HERE IS MY RAKUTEN REFERRAL LINK if you’ve never sign up for it.
BUT WAIT…IT GETS EVEEEENNN BETTER
Let’s revisit the different versions of the Amex offer.
Let’s say that I am budget conscious and want to stay in a “budget friendly hotel” on the strip, say, the Luxor. No shame in my game!
I was targeted specifically for a statement credit of $50, but some people are targeted for, both, the statement credit and the Membership Reward points version. In other words, you’ll see
- Spend $250+, Get $50 back and;
- Spend $250+, Get 5000 points back
Many people are not aware of this but it’s possible to take advantage of both offers (obviously dependent on how much you spend while you are there).
For example, MGM Resort properties allow you to charge food purchases, spa treatments, show tickets, etc. to your room even though you may not be staying at that specific hotel.
In other words, you could stay at the Luxor, go eat at the Bellagio and spend $250, and charge it back to your room at the Luxor.
However, at checkout, you’ll want to split the final payment…$250 on one card to trigger one offer, and the remaining balance of $250 (or more) to the other card to trigger the second offer, resulting in $50 saved AND 5000 points (which I value at $85).
FINAL STAMP
Whew, that was a lot! But that’s the art of the stack!
If this post went completely over your head, don’t worry. Bookmark it so when we return to this in a few months and you’re a points pro, you’ll remember when this appeared complicated.
If you’re already thinking this way, you’re ahead of the game! Keep rockin’ it!
Who is planning to take advantage of the MGM Resort Amex offers?
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