Should You Buy on Amazon “with Glasses”?

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads into the fall, you might take a closer look at your bonus credit cards , not to mention all your credit card bonus points balances. If you don’t plan on going anywhere for a while – and you have a large balance of points – you may be thinking of other ways to spend them.

You may be using your Amazon Prime account to keep your essentials safe and shop less in person. (If you don’t have a subscription but want one, here are the ways to get a free account .) If so, when you go to the checkout page during the Amazon checkout process, you may notice the ” Store with Points” option for the associated credit. postcards. While it might be tempting to get a quick discount on your order, you should consider other options first. Here’s why: depending on your credit card reward, using your points in this way may not be the best option for redemption.

As reported by NerdWallet , Amazon cards, Discover and Capital One cashback offer the highest redemption value at 1 cent per bonus point. For Amazon co-branded credit cards, using points for purchases probably makes sense, but while Discover and Capital One cashback also offer 1: 1 redemption, you can simply return the points in cash or apply them to another offer that might be richer than Amazon. …

Reward credit cards such as Capital One miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards®, Citi ThankYou Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, and Hilton Honors offer less than 1 cent per point. This makes them a less attractive option for purchasing with points, and you’d be better off taking those points for a refund.

Of course, you can get more than 1: 1 with your credit cards for travel rewards: many reward programs offer travel rewards of 1 to 2 cents or more per point. (There’s a very handy timetable for some of the more popular programs here .) So if you’re planning a big Post-Pandemic trip, you might want to skip the point store. But if you’re struggling to cover the basics, it might be worth using the Points Store or getting your bonus points as cashback, depending on your credit card.

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