Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
A few days ago, I received the following email from a reader:
I’m shopping for a wedding ring, plan to spend around $10,000, perhaps in Blue Nile. After reading your blog, I can’t help to think how to get the most out of that purchase, perhaps by applying for a new credit card and getting signup bonus, using one of the online malls from various credit cards or airline companies, etc.
I have very good credit and can pay the full purchase price in cash. Any recommendations?
Wow, $10,000. That’s a nice problem to have! Don’t tell Mrs. Miler that I spent quite a bit less than that on her ring… Anyway, my first thought was that $10,000 happens to be the exact amount needed to get the sign-up bonus for the Ink Bold. So, I asked the reader what cards he has so far. Here was his answer:
I have Amex Blue and Capital One Venture. No Ink Bold yet.
Investigation
I’m not familiar with Blue Nile (the merchant he’s considering buying from), so my first step was to see what the reader could get from a shopping portal. A while ago I reviewed various portal finders (e.g. ev’reward, NerdWallet Shopping, etc.) and I concluded that CashBack Holics was the best (see “The best portal finder”). So, that was my first stop:
Chase’s Ultimate Rewards portal is on the list, but currently it only gives 2 points per dollar for Blue Nile. TopCashBack, on the other hand, gives 5.5% cash back. That would be a nice rebate on a $10,000 purchase!
Next, I checked BlueNile.com to see if they sold gift cards, and found that they do: up to $1000 worth. It’s not clear, though, whether you can use more than one for a purchase. I then checked GiftCardGranny to see if the gift cards were available at a discount. Nothing came up.
Finally, I faked a purchase of an expensive bracelet to see if it was possible to pay with multiple credit cards. The answer is, yes it’s possible, but to do so you have to complete the order over the phone. It’s unclear whether the 5.5% cash back would still work in that scenario.
Recommendations
I think that the groom-to-be has several good options:
- Ink Bold, straight up: This is the easiest and most straightforward option. Sign up for a new Ink Bold and use it to pay for the ring. Going through TopCashBack to BlueNile.com should result in a $550 rebate; plus the $10K purchase would fulfill the Ink Bold’s minimum spend requirement and would result in 60K Ultimate Rewards points (50K from the sign-up bonus and 10K from the spend).
- Ink Bold + Amex Prepaid cards: If you happen to live near an Office Depot that sells Vanilla Reload cards, then you can get Amex Prepaid cards as described in my post “One card to rule them all”. American Express will allow each person to get 3 cards, so you can get 3 and load them to $2500 each (this will take several days as you can only load $1000 per day). Then, use these cards to pay $7500 worth of the ring and use the Ink Bold directly for the final $2500. It’s unclear whether you would get a TopCashBack rebate from this approach, but you would get the Ink Bold’s 50K bonus, plus 10K points from spend on the Ink Bold, plus 7500 * 4 = 30,000 extra points for spend within the Office Supply category. This would lead to a grand total of 90,000 points!
- Multiple card sign-ups: Another option is to look at the best current credit card offers and pick several cards with minimum spend requirements that add to $10K. Ideally you would pick no more than one from each bank (or 2 if one is a personal card and another is a business card). With this approach you would easily earn well over 100,000 points. As with the second option above, you would need to call to split the purchase across multiple credit cards.
Reader Recommendations
I laid out some options above, but I’d really like to hear from readers. What ideas do you have? What is the best way for the groom-to-be to spend his money? Comment below.
Related Posts and Links
- The best portal finder
- One card to rule them all
- Best credit card offers
- Sign up for TopCashBack (referral link)
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Hi, I stumbled across this post through a Google search, and really appreciate your feedback. I am also in the process of shopping for a $10-12K engagement ring from Blue Nile, and was wondering if you’re able to provide an updated analysis of how I can get the best cash back/rewards for my large purchase?
Thanks for all the comments above. I am about to buy an engagement ring. The only concern that I have with Costco is the sole ring size, which is way much larger than my girlfriend’s. It may take extra time and money for the resizing. I hope there’s some cheap and easy way to work around it.
I would echo the comments about BlueNile being a reputable dealer. One piece of advise I would give is to buy the rock from BlueNile and then go to a local jeweler for the setting and the rest of the ring. The price for the stone is 80-90% of the ring, so you can save online, but still get the service of a local jeweler for cleaning and all that.
That’s the route I went 3 years ago and I couldn’t be happier.
Absolutely have to say without hesitation, skip the miles from Blue Nile, and buy from Costco.
I bought my fiancee’s ring there [surprisingly online] and don’t regret it at all. The ring was certified by both GIA and IGI and looks absolutely amazing.
I first tried a local jeweler that was well respected, and even with an employee discount for that jeweler since my future sister-in-law worked there, I was able to get a much larger diamond with better cut, and clarity at Costco then the deal I would have gotten with the local jeweler— even with a genuine employee discount.
There are droves of people that shop at this well respected local jeweler, and I shake my head at how much other people pay for jewelry from the local jeweler above and beyond what I would have paid there without an employee discount.
Then again, the nearest Costco is a 5 hour drive from the metro area where this jeweler is located…
@Mark– Yes, I was told that the Executive Level 2% bonus applies for jewelry purchases, I’ll find out for sure in September or October.
We got my ring from an online site for a fraction of what it would have cost locally… in fact, we couldn’t even have bought what we wanted locally without doing some kind of special order. We were looking for as close to flawless as possible and ended up with a D VVS1, whereas all the local places mostly had SIs with some VSs. That being said, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t care nearly as much about the near-flawless aspect. I’d recommend more like a F-G color and VS2 would suit me just fine!
I’ve never had a problem getting my ring serviced or cleaned by local jewelers, who are happy to help regardless of whether they sold me the ring or not.
Blue Nile is certainly reputable and you should ignore any flack you’re getting for buying such an expensive ring. We spent about that much on mine, and we had a tiny, cheap wedding. But it’s something I’ll have forever… I have no inclination to ever “upgrade” because we did it right the first time.
That said, here’s another vote for Costco. I’ve spent a LOT of time studying jewelry/stones and I am consistently impressed with what they have to offer. Plus you can preview a ring you order online and just take it back in-store if it doesn’t make the cut. I much prefer GIA and AGS certs to IGIs, which are often inflated. I’ve actually read that the markup at Costco generally can’t exceed 10%. I don’t know if that applies to everything though.
Also another vote for using Pricescope.com forums to educated yourself about diamonds, esp cut which is the most underrated and most important, really, of the 4Cs.
It’s great to get points for your money whenever possible, but this might be a situation where you need to go through a merchant that does not show up on a shopping portal. A wedding ring is something that could very well be passed down to your children and grandchildren. With that in mind I highly recommend going with a custom ring designer. For my wife’s ring I used Green Lake Jewelry Works in Seattle. (www.greenlakejewelry.com) They have a staff of artists and metal smiths that do amazing work. It is an online process of collaboration where you get drawings and proofs and can make changes until you are satisfied. I was able to get an amazing custom ring made for much less than the reader’s $10k budget. If you tell them your budget up front they will work with you to meet it, and you will end up with something heirloom quality and unique. So I say knock out the 10k spend requirement on an Ink Bold and walk away with a piece of jewelry that will make you very proud.
Ring up another person voting for Costco. Their markup on everything they sell is 14-15%, including high-end jewelry, which is a level of value few places can, or will, match.
purchased mine from a long-standing local retailer. put it on my Amex Plat in several installments. I figured they would have the best customer service and support if there ended up being an issue with any part of the purchase or ring. $7.2k for a 0.99 tiffany. ignore the idiot that said you must be spending $70k on the wedding if spending $10k on ring.
having looked at a good few dozen diamonds before finding the one i gave my fiance, i’m glad i was able to see what i bought before i made the purchase.
Ditto on Costco. Actually Sam’s in my case. Costco is a bit more high end, but either would do given the cost of the membership being relatively trivial. The only downside is lack of selection, but after hitting 6 ‘real’ jewelery stores (plus a few in Mexico) I found the perfect ring at Sam’s.
In our case, we also had to get a custom made wedding band because Sam’s didn’t sell a matching piece, and it required a notch due to the size of the mount. The local jeweler was happy to make it and for $400 we got a beautiful and perfect match to the already-sized engagement ring.
And Costco has 2% cashcack for executive members. Wondering if that applies to Jewlwery.
This is seriously a good problem to have.
I second Steelsnow’s advice on checking Costco. Their prices can be quite a bit better than Blue Nile. The savings would trump any extra miles earned thru a shopping portal.
I would push the envelope and go for multiple sign ups. Having a diversify portfolio of points would be good.
Start a apply orama. Hit all the minimum spend. Even get some for only status. Since I can foresee a wedding or honeymoon in the near future, those can be on Ink Bold via Amex Prepaid.
He can really get a huge pot for the honeymoon.
Better use it for BA card $10k spent for 25k miles.
Also, I agree with econjon’s recommendation of pricescope.com
First, Congratulations!
I agree with Lawrence from personal experience. I too wanted to put the big expense of a ring on a card, but when I used cash as a negotiation tool I received a discount which far exceeded the potential points gained. For example even with the multiple card sign ups you stand to gain 100,000 points reasonably valued at $0.02 then you need to only save 20% by using cash (which I did). Plus my local jeweler inspects and guarantees the ring for free. I suggest at least trying to negotiate a cash deal to see what kind of deal you can get.
You could even take the cash discount savings, and use it for wedding expenses which will meet (or nearly meet) the spending requirements for the new card bonuses.