(EXPIRED) [Extended] Amex Offer for Hotels.com gift cards returns

Update 7/30/20: It looks like this offer got extended. When I was updating our Current Amex Offers database this morning, I noticed that the expiration date on the Hotels.com gift card offer available in my accounts now has an expiration date of 9/13/20. That’s exactly a 5-week extension over the previous expiration date. Stephen confirms that he had previously synced the offer and it now shows the September expiration for him even though he had synced it with the August expiration. We’re re-posting this just as a heads up to those who may be able to make use of the extended validity.

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An Amex Offer for Hotels.com gift cards is back, with two versions: Spend $50 on a hotels.com gift card, get 1,000 Membership Rewards points or $10 back as a statement credit depending on your offer. That’s not incredibly exciting on its own, but every bit of savings can help. Stacked with the deal announced yesterday for double night credit, it could pad your savings a bit further.

The Deal

• Buy $50 Hotels.com gift card and get $10 back, or
• Buy $50 Hotels.com gift card and get 1,000 Membership Rewards.

Key Terms

• Expires August 9, 2020 Update: Now showing September 13, 2020
• Offer valid only on gift cards purchased through hotels.com/giftcards.
• Offer valid on one or more transactions.
• Not valid on international site.
• Purchase must be in USD.
• Excludes Gift Registry, Corporate/Bulk gift cards and all other purchases on hotels.com.

Quick Thoughts

For a while, buying small Hotels.com gift cards like this became a pain because you can only use one gift card during check out and the online tool to combine gift cards stopped working for a year or two. However, Hotels.com restored that functionality again at some point (I’m not sure when it started, but we wrote about it in February of this year), so you should once again be able to combine a discounted gift card bought with this offer with other Hotels.com gift cards (or with a spouse / family member).

The timing on this offer is good because of the fact that Hotels.com is currently offering double reward night credit for bookings made between 5/14/20 and 5/24/20 with a promo code (see this post: Double Hotels.com rewards on future bookings (including refundable)). That could make the deal a bit sweeter yet. Keep in mind that the double rewards nights are also earned on refundable bookings and it works for check in dates from 6/1/20 through 8/31/21, so you could theoretically book something far out in advance that’s refundable if plans change. By stacking double night credit and discounted gift cards, you could score a pretty good deal.

Obviously the win here is relatively small, but if you have a couple of people in your household with Amex cards perhaps you can stack it up. Personally, I’d prefer the Membership Rewards version of the offer since I value Membership Rewards points more highly than $0.01 each, but cash that stays in the pocket right now could certainly be more valuable to some.

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