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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Do Lulu GCs trigger Amex Offers? And does using a GC still track for Capital One Shopping?
Buying a physical gift card in-store does trigger Amex Offers. I’m not sure if you earn portal rewards when redeeming them; hopefully someone else can confirm.
Works for both Rakuten and Cap1.
About two weeks ago, I walked up to the checkout at the Lululemon on 5th in New York, and, without prompting, the staffer said “$75 gift card?”
I just bought a $75 dollar gift card in store at Lululemon on March 31st, 2026
so far, there are dps for four lulu stores where they refuse to sell $75 gc, other stores seem fine.
also Columbus Circle NYC
They refused?
No problem 2 x $75 in store.
No problem 3 x $75 in store.
I went to the store in Lansing Michigan today and there was no problem buying a $75 gift card.
3 x 75 purchased in store today no issues
While I managed to buy a $75 physical gift card at a store on Saturday, 3/28 with no problem, this does make it look like Amex is hell-bent on losing me as a card member:
First, they nerfed the United Airlines travel Bank followed by the Saks bankruptcy (no more kitchen knives, which made great gifts) and removal of that credit then this Lululemon change.
My Amex Offers have been very poor for the last six months and they seem to to want to make you work for them. I quit using my Plat card for LL Bean purchases because those credits never seem to come through and I got tired of calling Amex about them; always some excuse along the lines of you’ll get it at some future date after the offer period ends, blah, blah, blah.
The Plat card has simply become way too much work for way too little benefit.
lol your paying 895 a year to have a credit card
The hotel credit, the Uber credits, and entertainment credits more than pay for the AF.
Agree completely.
Where do you get 88% back for gift card sale? I’ve been using cardcash for 79%. Might be interested in 88% if it’s not too much extra effort.
Aligned Incentives https://alignedincentiv.es/ and The Card Bay https://thecardbay.com/
Are these recommended?
always amusing to me when companies enter these business agreements, and are then shocked when *gasp** people take advantage of the benefit!
My wife had no trouble buying a $75 GC at our local store on Sunday. We’ll see what happens when we try again for Q2.
Wish we could just get an annual $300 lump credit but no, it’s Amex.
Which site is doing 85%+ on LLL GC’s?
Aligned Incentives https://alignedincentiv.es/ and The Card Bay https://thecardbay.com/
I have spent an hour googling and on their website and have verified my account and bank account. I have no idea how to sell a LLL gift card, it seems to be catered to buying? Does FM have a “how to sell” for Aligned Incentives?
Aligned Incentives have a guide that’s definitely worth reading https://alignedincentiv.es/guide/
Thank you, I have already read that twice and couldn’t decipher anything between buying and selling.
You buy the Lululemon gift card and you sell it to Aligned Incentives.
If you are aware of a quick 2-3 step process to sell a LLL card to AI, please let me know, I was unable to follow anything resembling a “sell” process on their site, it took half an hour to read through the page. Cardcash was very intuitive and I never needed to do anything to sell but look around for half a minute. I obviously want to check out the higher redemption from AI going forward. Thanks
Have you registered with them? If not, that’d be why you’re not able to sell to them yet. If you are registered to sell to them, you’d search for the Lululemon / Amex Credit Standing Deal, make a reservation for $75 (or however much your gift card is for) and then submit that.
Thanks, I have. The reservation process is certainly not intuitive but I believe I have done it properly.
If this doesn’t work any longer, I think I’ll just buy something online and return to store for a gift card. That’s should work right?
That’s what I’ve done they have a lot of last chance items that cost just under $75. I paid $73.83 after tax for an item I was planning to return, but the pants actually fit me! So I’m keeping them, their suprisingly comfortable.
When I returned a pair of pants from a similar sale after the 3Q last year the store employee said i could only get a gift card, which I said “Thats what I want.” (4th quarter was having $150 to spend on a Christmas Presnet for my Lululemon obsessed brother).