$100 in Gift Cards or $78 Cash in 10 steps

You might have heard about this deal, but I wanted to give you a step by step on how to complete it. The American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card offers 10,000 points for signing up and making your first purchase. The annual fee is waived for the first year ($125). So it is a free charge card for one year.

After making your first purchase 10,000 points will be deposited in your account. The nice thing about AMEX is that you can get an advance on your 10,000 points as soon as you activate your card. So here’s what you do.

1. Sign up for the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card. You can do that by going here. AmericanExpress.com
2. They claim you will either be declined or accepted in 60 seconds. Mine took 2.32 since I’m a baller.
3. If you were accepted wait 7-10 days for your card to come in the mail. It comes from Omaha, Nebraska. So don’t throw it out thinking it is junk mail.
4. Activate your card.
5. Sign into your account online and look for the points advance option in the rewards section.
6. Advance 10,000 points towards some gift cards (GC’s). Wait for the gift card(s) to arrive. Mine took three days. I suggest Sak’s Fifth Avenue if you want to turn it into cash (you will see why in a second).
7. If you don’t want to use the GC’s you can sell them for cash back to giftcardbuyback.com.
8. Mail your GC’s to GCBB.
9. Within 10 days you will receive a check ($78).
10. Make a purchase with the card and pay it off (actually earn your 10,000 points).

The reason I chose Sak’s is because it has the best resale value (78%) of the cards that AMEX offers. If you can find another site or GC that has a better resale (that is one of the GC’s that Amex offers make sure to let us know. So within two weeks you can $100 in GC’s or within three weeks you can have $78. I chose the cash.