My favorite credit card-themed holiday approaches! It’s Small Business Saturday and registration is right here if you haven’t signed up yet. This year’s SBS deal is up to $30 back per card, but you’ll have to do at least three transactions of $10 each to get the full $30. Also, in a groundbreaking move, Bluebirds are eligible this year!
Since the PFD household is looking at a couple dozen separate transactions to maximize this deal, our thoughts naturally turn to the question of what is the best way to do this. What constitutes “best” is subjective, since everybody values things differently. Do you want $0 out-of-pocket expenses (or at least very close to $0), or are you content to settle for a good deal? Do you want merchandise, food, or gift cards? What type of merchandise, food, or gift cards do you want? How much time are you willing to spend doing all of this?
Our SBS workhorse the past few years has been toys. There’s a good independent toy store near our house with betters toys than the big box stores, and this store is part of Small Business Saturday. Between that and Amazon gift cards obtained at a discount via the Best Buy credit card, we haven’t had to spend much on Christmas gifts the past few years, and this year should be the same.
If you want to do all your spending at one place, you may want to ask the manager the best way to go about doing so, preferably during an off-peak hour. We plan to head over first thing in the morning to take care of business, and in past years they’ve been happy to charge each card at $X per transaction depending on what the SBS rebate is.
Another good option is restaurants, since all that bank-financed shopping can really make you hungry. Depending on how much the entrees are, you can order separately or just have them split the transaction across multiple cards.
Other good options I’ve seen discussed are independent groceries and drugstores, and wine & liquor. It’s hard to go wrong with booze.
So who’s in for SBS? What sorts of small businesses do you plan to valiantly (and repeatedly) support this Saturday?
I have a list of small businesses from the Amex website that could spend at happily. I stopped at a restaurant on the list today to ask if they would allow me to buy a $100 gift card and use 10 Amex cards to pay $10 at a time. They said no. They didn’t know anything about SBS and thought what I was suggesting must be fraud. I said wouldn’t I just use one card if it was fraud? Anyway another restaurant on the list is one we’ve used this way in previous years and I guess will again this Saturday. Also plan to use it at a local movie theater or two. $330 worth if all goes well.
I think the answer is as it has always been.
Wine.
The trick this time is to find a real small business wine shop, chat with their owner/manager and walk them through the SBS site if they aren’t really familiar with it, then get them to swipe 3 x $10 per card x 143 times to a grand total of a lot, and slip you a bottle of Krug.
Wouldn’t it be easier to fly Emirates and drink 8 bottles of Krug on your way to UAE?
There’s really nothing to see in Abu Dhabi and you’ll sober up on your flight to Male.
Cheers!
I’m open to doing both.
Great post! I was just thinking about a similar post. Not as much talking about what is the BEST (since as you point out, it’s all subjective to your own goals), but using it as more of a vehicle to write down / share my own plans, since I think that can be constructive.
I am valiently planning to support:
independant bookstore
stationer
skating rink
clothing stores
hiking store
gardern center
florist
taco place
sotre that sells infused olive oils
I love SBS and what it does for the community!
I think the bigger question here is how Matt got 143 AE cards. Nice work.
Thinking of going to a few places instead of just one. We have 18 cards, wife and I. Going to one place and maxing out gift cards would probably freak out the merchant. Except for our circles here, the average cardmember I would guess does not have 9 active AE cards. 27 transactions would at minimum irritate them. To be most efficient, timewise, we’ll probably get gift cards, whether small supermarket, restaurants, etc. Liquor sounds good too. One of our favorite restaurants here in San Diego does not take AE yet they are on the map. I let them know this, but they were adamant, “NO American Express!”. Guess I won’t be going there. Maybe best to check the map again and call the merchant before you go. In-n-out was also on the map earlier, they just began taking AE but AE realized they made a mistake (that is no small merchant) and has removed them from the map in the last week.
Are we convinced that multiple $10 swipes from the same merchant on the same card will all (well, up to three of them) attract $10 credits? This is the first time you had to charge on the same card multiple times to get the full credit.
The t&c does not preclude multiple purchases at the same merchant, but it clearly can’t be AX’s intent.
Thoughts?
No issues, I have done 3 card x3 tran of $5 for the last small business promo earlier this year.
I did OK. Got $250 dollars worth of kitchen stuff for $85 total (1 item was $155 with tax and I only had 8 cards enrolled) in 3 separate purchases: sieves in coarse, medium and fine, a little whirligig spice grinder, a kitchen scale and a nice coffee grinder. I need more cards for next year, lol.