When people think of credit cards and their miles and points, they think of travel. But what most people don’t know is that these points are a currency of their own. You can use credit card points for gift cards, to offset purchases, to link to your Amazon account, and even to buy Apple products! I want to show you how I was able to use my American Express points to buy an iPad Air and how you can easily do it too!
Before we begin, I want to make a disclaimer: I am not advocating going into credit card debt. The only true way to get value through points is to ALWAYS pay off your credit card in full each month. If not, none of this is worth it. So treat your credit card like a debit card and pay it off in full each month. Now let me show you how to maximize points on Apple products!
I love American Express products for many reasons, but one of the best cards to have in your wallet is the American Express Gold Card. The current welcome offer includes 60,000 bonus points and 20% off at restaurants when you spend $6,000 in the first six months of card ownership.
The 20% dining credit is great, but we’re focusing on the coveted 60,000 American Express points because that’s a solid number of points to earn. To earn those points, you’ll need to spend $6,000 within six months, so if you can easily spend $1,000 a month, or if you’re known to make big purchases, you can easily earn 60,000 points.
I mentioned in a previous post that you can also use Chase points to purchase Apple products since Chase has a partnership with Apple. Chase has integrated a fantastic online Apple store into its portal. I recommend reading that article after this one.
American Express is a little different. There is no direct way to buy Apple products with points, but there is a very simple workaround: gift cards
American Express cardholders get access to the Membership Rewards portal. This portal offers many ways to redeem your points in different denominations. You can transfer the points to airlines, buy hotel stays directly, or even exchange the points for cash (albeit at a terrible exchange rate). One of the ways is to exchange the points for gift cards. The amazing thing is that Apple is currently offering a 25 percent increase in the exchange value, making it even cheaper to get these gift cards.
Gift cards come in denominations of $10, $25, $50, $100 and $500. You’ll typically get 0.85 cents worth of value per point, so if you choose a $500 gift card, you’ll need 58,824 points to “buy” it.
With this new increase in value, that same $500 gift card now costs just 47,059 American Express points! So if you get those 60,000 bonus points for signing up and use them solely to purchase gift cards, you can get $630 worth of Apple gift cards! You can use them to buy any Apple product you want, from an iPad Air to Airpods to an Apple Watch. You can even use the gift card to offset a larger purchase of a MacBook!
Once you have your points, you can redeem them as follows:
1. Log in to your American Express online account
Select there Rewards and Benefits from the navigation menu, then Redeem for gift vouchers.
2. Search for Apple among the available retailers
You will then be asked to select whether you want a digital or physical gift card, the number of cards and the amount.
And boom, you have a chunk of money to spend on anything your Apple heart desires! So you can use credit cards to get essentially free products from Apple!
Considerations
I wanted to mention a few things specifically about this card. The American Express Gold card has a $325 annual fee. There are plenty of ways to offset that fee with some of their perks, like $10 for Uber every month or their $7 monthly Dunkin’ credit. If you want to see a more detailed analysis to see if it’s worth it for you, I recommend doing some research. However, in the first year of card ownership, that sign-up bonus more than covers the annual fee.
Final thoughts
As I mentioned, I usually use these points to redeem for travel. But some people prefer this type of redemption over travel. That’s the great thing about miles and points. They can be used in so many different ways, and you don’t have to choose just one. Be sure to check out our latest video explaining some other ways to do this with other credit cards!
What do you think? Are you in the credit card miles and points game? Have you ever redeemed points for an Apple product? I’m obsessed with this topic, so feel free to ask your questions below. Remember to always pay the card off in full! If not, then it’s NOT worth it!
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