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Finally, a decent promotion on our Dillard’s Amex! Plus Gander Mountain increases its credit card rewards

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My wife got the Dillard’s Amex over three years ago… not because we shop at Dillard’s a lot but because I was curious to see if they would send out cool offers and promotions like the Banana Republic card does. They didn’t send me anything when they were part of Synchrony, and after Wells Fargo took over the portfolio they continued Synchrony’s marketing practices. Three years and counting with this card and I have a big bowl of nothing to show for it….

…UNTIL NOW! Check this out:

$60 for $500 in spending? I’m in! All aboard the Dillard’s Amex gravy train! And what’s more, after the $500 spend I’ll only be $1,500 away from Emerald Executive status with National car rental. Or at least I would be if I didn’t already have that via Amex.

In other news, Gander Mountain recently declared bankruptcy–and that’s good news for Gander Mountain credit cardholders, sort of. It’s good in the sense that Gander Mountain is increasing rewards on the card–they now essentially give you 2% back (in the form of Gander Mountain credit) on all purchases through Labor Day:

Note that since Gander Mountain stores are discombobulated right now, they’re now giving you 5X on all sporting goods stores, which is an interesting bonus. The bad news is that they’ve closed down a lot of locations so using your rewards is more difficult. It’s a moot point for me since 2% back in store credit is unappealing and I don’t know of any way to capitalize on 5X on sporting goods. 

This credit card, incidentally, was another experiment of mine, with similar results to the Dillard’s Amex. No promotions for me! I did pick up a big ol’ cast iron frying pan with the sign-up bonus though. But yeah… you can safely avoid this card.

The Brooks Brothers credit card promotion train keeps chugging!

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The Brooks Brothers credit card has been full of surprises lately. There was an uncapped 10X promo, a random $20 credit opportunity, an increased sign-up bonus, and now they’re offering me $30 to make a few utility payments:

I get offers like this on my Comenity Marathon credit card every once in a blue moon. They tell you that you get a credit for setting up automatic payments, but the payment doesn’t have to be recurring since they have no way of knowing whether or not it is. You just have to make one payment to somebody with the proper merchant category code. This particular deal is $10 for each new utility you pay. It’s only $30, but it’s only a few minutes of work, so I’ll take it. Who needs a stupid 100,0000-point bonus for the Chase Sapphire Reserve anyway?

Brooks Brothers also sent my annual birthday gift. If anbody’s curious, this is what they send:

There’s no minimum purchase, it’s a flat $20 off. The problem is that it’s only good for one month. Hopefully I’ll have some more gift cards in from that restaurant promo by the end of the month that I can stack with this one.

Brooks Brothers credit card offering a $100 sign-up bonus, I think

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The Brooks Brothers credit card, which as of late has had sent some nice marketing promotions my way, is now offering a $100 sign-up bonus (at least, I think they’re offering a $100 bonus), which is the best I can recall seeing. Here’s the ad you see when you go to their credit card page:

Why do I seem unsure? Two things. First of all the wording on the ad is “up to $100 in rewards cards”. Why the “up to”? Are there conditions in which you would only earn, say, $60 instead of $100? I’ve scoured the T&Cs on the product page and on the application page and I can’t find any clues. The marketing material below still says you get a $20 bonus with your first purchase. If you click on that “View Details” link in the ad, you get this:

*Subject to credit approval. New accounts only. Please allow four to six weeks after the promotional period ends for Rewards Cards to arrive. See the Brooks Brothers Rewards Terms for additional details regarding the Rewards Program. The Brooks Brothers Platinum Mastercard® is issued by Citibank, N.A. pursuant to a license by Mastercard® International Incorporated. Mastercard® and Platinum Mastercard® are registered trademarks of Mastercard® International Incorporated.

So… I think there’s some sort of $100 sign-up offer, but I’m not really sure what it is. Is it $100 after first purchase? Possibly. Are there other hoops to jump through? Possibly. Hopefully the Citibank store card marketing team will clear things up. For most of you out there a $100 bonus isn’t going to make you jump on this card anyway but if you’ve been thinking about adding this one to your collection to play retail card marketing roulette, this may be a good time as any to go for it.

Retail card offer roundup

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I’ve had a flurry of offers from my various retail credit cards in both my inbox and my mailbox the last few weeks so I thought I’d share. Let’s start with the more interesting ones first: Banana Republic is back with a 5X! It’s for gas, groceries, and dining:

Oh, and Costco too. Everybody’s going after the warehouse club spend these days and Synchrony wants to get on that bandwagon. Speaking of which, Discover is already offering 5% back on gas station and warehouse clubs for the first quarter, and of course Chase Freedom has gas stations covered this quarter as well, but I don’t think anybody’s doing groceries or dining, so this offer will be useful, especially after that 10% Brooks Brothers credit card dining deal ends in a few days.

And speaking of the Brooks Brothers card, they just sent me another one of those $20 promos:

That will stack nicely with the dining offer! It’s especially nice since the $20 gift cards Brooks Brothers sends out are only good for a few months, so I’d rather get all the promos done at once, do one shopping trip, and be done with it.

Remember how last time I wrote about retail cards I said I never get anything for my Dillard’s card? Literally five minutes after I published that I received this offer:Sure, double points on dining is a lame offer, but at least Dillard’s is finally trying!

Best Buy had an unusual but ho-hum offer:

Does anybody spend enough on fitness and sporting goods to make 3% rewards enticing? Especially given that 2% on everything is the standard and 5% on quarterly rewards is the other standard? 

Here’s a better Best Buy offer I received in November and then completely forgot about:

That’s not too shabby. One point is worth two cents, so this is one dollar for every day that you use your card, capped at $45.

Meanwhile I got this for my Upromise card:

The 2% is above and beyond the usual 1%, so that’s 3% back on gas stations, utilities, and grocery stores, with a spending cap of $1,250. An emphatic meh! More interesting was this other promo from Upromise:

Keep in mind that you’d also get 5% if you used your Upromise card on this, so that’s 8% back for some decent Amazon categories. That’s not too shabby, though of course you can always buy Amazon gift cards at bonused retailers.

Finally, on a sort of related note: if you live near a Simon Mall you might want to check to see if they have a rewards program. They told me (this was a month or two ago) that the programs are being done on a mall-by-mall basis, but I don’t know if that’s still the case. Anyway, I’ve started receiving $20 promos from the rewards program:

I’ve also received $20 cash back offers for Kate Spade and Movado. So nothing I’d actually use just yet, but I suppose it could happen. You also get some sort of reward on mall spending, though I almost never buy stuff at the mall so I can’t really speak to that. (No, gift cards don’t count and yes, I’ve tried.)

That’s all I’ve got. Anybody else getting any interesting offers like these lately? I’m looking at you, Banana Republic cardholders.

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