When American Express revamped the consumer Platinum Card® last year, one of the new benefits they added was an up to $75 Lululemon credit each quarter.
One of the easiest ways of locking in value and/or having a way of cashing out the benefit was to buy $75 worth of physical Lululemon gift cards online or in-store. Unfortunately, that easy avenue appears to have come to an end for the most part.
The first hit came about a week ago when Doctor of Credit highlighted that physical Lululemon gift cards were no longer available for purchase online. For people who don’t have a Lululemon store near them, that was an easy way to buy their gift cards to trigger the benefit’s statement credit. eGift card purchases don’t work because payment for those is processed by CashStar rather than Lululemon, whereas previously when you bought physical gift cards online those orders were processed by Lululemon, hence it showing as a direct purchase.
Unfortunately, there’s been a second hit in the last couple of days. It sounds like a memo went out to Lululemon stores, advising them to only sell gift cards in $50 denominations. If the removal of physical gift cards online wasn’t evidence enough, this latest step makes it explicitly clear that this action is being targeted at Amex Platinum cardholders. When inking a deal with Amex, it appears Lululemon hadn’t taken into account how cardholders might aim to maximize the benefit rather than just buying athleisure wear.
This is frustrating if buying gift cards was how you wanted to maximize the benefit, but there might be a couple of workarounds. For starters, it doesn’t sound like the in-store change is hardcoded at checkout, right now so it’s likely still possible at some locations and with some cashiers that you’ll be able to buy $75 cards. Alternatively, some might be willing to sell a $50 card and a $25 card at the same time. If they’re not, you could buy a $50 card, then return another time and see if they’re willing to sell a $25 card. That’s a pain for sure, but if you have a store near you then it might not take too much extra effort.
If the cashier is adamant that only $50 cards are allowed to be sold and you have two consumer Platinum cards, it’s worth asking if you can buy three of them and split the payment on two cards. Your average cashier might be aware of the $50 restriction, but perhaps not the reasoning behind it. They might therefore happily accept split payment for $150 worth of cards.
The reason that this change is such a shame is that Lululemon gift card resale rates are pretty high. With them being in the ~88% range, it means reselling a $75 card would get you $66 back. Over the course of a year, if you bought one each quarter that’s $264 which goes a long way to helping offset the Platinum card’s annual fee. Now it seems it’ll take a bit more effort, if you even have a Lululemon store near you in the first place.
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My closest store is basically on a college campus and staffed mostly by students. They give zero Fs about the rules. Not worried.
This doesn’t pass the smell test. Either someone misread something or Lululemon is being run by clowns.
I bought $450 in gift cards 2 days ago 06/29 and already have it credited on all 6 of my plats. This must be store specific…
I bought 2 $75 gift cards in store a few days ago with 2 platinums, the employee rang it up as a single $150 charge, and just split it up with 2 forms of payment. We don’t sell the gift cards, we use them, but didn’t see anything in store we wanted right now.
My DP of one, but I just bought a $75 GC in store about 2 hours ago
I wonder how many platinum card holders actually but gift cards to resell it ? Come on people, don’t think about beating the system, there are lots of things you can buy online or in stores for $75. Remember you are a PLATINUM card holders not a TJ max customer.
Platinum cardholders get four of these $75 credits per year and some people (or households) have multiple Platinum cards. That’s a lot of credits to use up.
If you’re someone who shops at Lululemon anyway or is happy to treat yourself to their merchandise, that’s a great way to use the credits. For many of us though, there’s no point in ordering stuff that we don’t want nor need when we can effectively just cash out the benefit, previously with minimal effort.
So, it literally says in the terms Not valid on purchases shipped outside the U.S. or gift card purchases.
Maximizing offers and strategies is a wonderful hobby and one that I enjoy. Cheating and violating the explicit rules that existed when you applied for the card is something else. You fancy yourself as an advice giver but I don’t really want advice from someone who overtly chooses to violate the rules and then feigns disappointment when the system enhances security to prevent you from cheating.
The terms say the credit is “not valid” on GC purchases, meaning they (Amex or LL) shouldn’t be offering a credit for GC purchases. And if they still do, it is their (again AMEX or LL) incompetence. The consumer can and should buy whatever they want. And if AMEX can’t code GC purchases property so that they can’t distinguish, that’s on AMEX.
Stop the unnecessary moral policing.
It clearly is valid on gift card purchases though, evidenced by the fact that many of us have been buying Lululemon gift cards since the benefit was added. It doesn’t say that gift card purchases are banned, nor does it say that gift card purchases will be clawed back, nor does it say that you’re breaking the cardholder agreement if you buy a gift card.
I suspect that wording is more due to the fact that if people bought Lululemon eGift Cards, they wouldn’t get the credit due to those orders being processed by CashStar. Similarly, orders shipped outside of the US presumably code differently which is why they say it’s not valid. That section of the terms is therefore to help guide customers into knowing what will and won’t trigger the statement credit, not a law that must not be broken. After all, why would Amex care if you bought Lululemon merchandise that happened to get shipped to you while you’re on vacation in Canada or Mexico? That’s hardly breaking some kind of unspoken code; they’re simply warning that their tracking system for awarding the statement credit isn’t set up to work that way.
Besides, many of us have had our Platinum cards for years and the Lululemon credit has only been around for a matter of months. There were no “rules” for Lululemon when we applied for the card.
The only reason Lululemon doesn’t want Platinum cardholders to buy their gift cards is because they want there to be breakage on the benefit. i.e. They don’t want cardholders to fully get the benefits of the card that they’ve paid a very high annual fee for, or they want to cardholders to overspend on merchandise at their stores. That doesn’t strike me as very ethical either.
This seems HIGHLY unlikely to me. Is LLL really going to deny 99% of their in-store customers the flexibility of buying a GC in any denomination for the very small number of Platinum holders that want to buy only at $75? I can’t imagine they’d pee in the Cheerios of the vast majority of their customers just to stick it to Platinum cardholders. There aren’t THAT many who work the system in this manner.
In any event, retail employee training and turnover rates vary wildly from location to location, even within brands, so I’d imagine if it were true it’s going to be very spotty enforcement.
Once again, Stephen hits a home run. Thank you for the tip. I love how you think outside the box.
This is definitely an unfriendly tactic by Lululemon, the Platinum benefit ultimately helps them, so it’s baffling why they’re doing this. As a DP, just purchased a $75 GC in store 45 mins ago, no questions asked.
Probably because (based on older comments that the advertisers pay for these benefits) lululemon is basically loosing out a larger amount when you just get $75 exactly vs using it as part of a ~$100 purchase.
I bought a $75 gift card in store yesterday, no issues.
Jeeeeez, why do companies hate their consumers.
DP: I went to a Lululemon store yesterday (3/30) and successfully reloaded an existing gift card with $75 x 5. I did not get any questions or issues from the cashier.
i think this depends on the area, ie how with the sacks benefits it seems those in the LA area get a lot of snark from the employees vs others areas.
Sure if you can get $250 of cash from a $300 credit that’s in many ways preferable, but I’ve been surprised by the quality of the clothes (they are decently comfortable and also make good gifts), and LLL is frequently at 10x on Rakuten (and a few times at 15x) and can stack. Easy ~3k points a year that can be transferred to MR or Bilt that are worth ~$45-60.
I give it 6 months. No way every cashier is trained for that constantly
I wonder if you could reload a current gift card for $75?
I was told that you are able to do so.