Dan’s Deals has written a few times about how it is possible to indirectly get Amazon Gift Cards with the temporary streaming credits available on the Amex Platinum card. Given that you only have a few days left to trigger those temporary credits, this is a last chance to turn them into Amazon gift cards.
As many readers surely know, the consumer Platinum card has had a temporary streaming services benefit added this year only. We have previously covered that and many other short-term changes in our COVID credit card enhancements complete guide.
Last month, I had forgotten to change the billing information for our streaming services to take advantage of the Platinum streaming credit, so I personally followed Dan’s method and I was able to successfully turn the credit into an Amazon gift card. We simply ordered a gifted Kindle ebook from P2’s account (who had no Amazon GC balance) and sent it to P1. Since I indicated that I didn’t actually want the eBook, Amazon gave me the chance to turn the purchase price into an Amazon gift card for use on whatever I wanted.
The Dan’s Deal’s post has full steps and details you need to know, so I recommend reading it and following the information there if you’re looking to use up the streaming credit on your Amex Platinum card. Keep in mind that Amazon could change the process at any time and stop allowing this conversion, so YMMV. Still, with plenty of recent positive data points, I think this is a reasonably safe way to redeem the credit by turning it into a gift card. This is a decent nugget of knowledge to file away for a rainy day in case we see future enhancements of a similar nature on other cards.
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So the basic idea is to send a different account an Ebook, and they will have the option of accepting the book or “returning” it for credit?
Do you use the “buy for others” button?
Yes, that is correct — although I’ve seen a report that you can use the Buy for Others option to send it to your own email address. In our case, I bought the book on my (largely dormant) Amazon account, sent it to my wife, and exchanged it on our primary household account (my wife’s).
Thanks for the response. I actually just did this last night. Bought for other sent to an alternate email. When I clicked the redeem now button it automatically opened in my normal logged in amazon app, clicked the link at the bottom to redeem for credit. Gc balance is showing this morning.
Thanks for the heads up guys
I just tried to purchase an Amazon Prime video, but it charged by existing gift card balance right away, with no second final checkout screen. Seems like for the videos, it does not let you add to a cart and then pick payment source option at the end 🙁
Anyone have any idea on how to pay for Amazon digital purchases without it automatically using your Amazon account gift card balance first? I set the default payment source to my Amex, but it still uses the gift card balance first.
As an FYI-DP, I did this on my new-in-November both at the end of November and again in December successfully. Dec 07 purchase of a $21 book, $20 credit from Amex on Dec 09, and no problem getting credit from Amazon rather than the ebook. The biggest “challenge” was clearing out my Amazon GC balance to get it to charge to my card, but adding a couple bags of dog food to my Subscribe & Save temporarily wiped that out, then make the ebook order, then cancel the dog food to get the GC balance back to where it was.
Could this be used going forward with the Blue Cash Preferred for 6% cash back at Amazon? If so, it’s a way to do better than the Chase Amazon Visa.
Is this correct? “both the consumer Platinum and Green cards have had temporary streaming services benefits added this year only”
Have I been missing out on streaming credits on my Amex Personal Green cards?
If so, you are not the only Larry missing out!
My bad. No, the Green card does not have that credit. The green card has a cell phone services credit. I confused it. Our complete guide had the right information. I’ve updated the post accordingly, thanks for commenting!