A couple of days ago, I told you guys about the Dyson DC65 sale on Bloomingdale’s. Well, yesterday as I was checking to see if it was back in stock and saw this deal. The first thing that popped in my head was how big the discount was. At 50% off, this may be an Ebay candidate, especially since there is no tax to Washington. I then looked on Ebay and they go for about $280. After fees and shipping, this would NOT work out. Even if you factor in a ~15% discount on the gift cards, you are now breaking even. So I gave up on the deal for a while.
Coupon Codes
Later in the day, I came back to the Dyson and this time, I didn’t ignore the popup on the site. Apparently, there is a coupon code FASHFUND going on now that gives you 15% off (or if you are a cardmember 20% off of $300). So I plugged in the coupon code and what do you know, the coupon worked on the Dyson. At 15% off, the vacuum was now $244. Coupled with the discounted gift cards, you are now at a $40 profit and a 14% margin. This excludes the 4 points per dollar on the Chase portal (or 4X on the AA portal). That’s when I knew it was GAME ON!
Gift Card prices
Now it was time to look at gift card prices. I went to my go to source, giftcardgranny.com. She was only showing a 13% discount on Bloomingdale’s gift cards. I wasn’t too happy about that since I could have bought them at 17% off 2 days ago on Raise. Raise only had them for 11% off. I bit the bullet and bought them from saveya.com, which had the highest discount last night at 14% off. The great thing about saveya.com was 1) they accepted my AGC and 2) they IMMEDIATELY sent the coupon codes. I think it’s because they make you verify email and phone (maybe international scammers won’t have a US number?). I went ahead and bought about $400 of gift cards because I was going to buy 2 Dysons.
Macy’s gift cards
Before I had bought the Bloomingdale’s gift cards, I remembered I had bought $200 of Macy’s gift cards the last time Raise had them for 30% off. The reason you want to use Macy’s GCs is for some reason, they are usually discounted to 25% vs a max of 17% for Bloomingdale’s. Since Macys owns Bloomingdales, I Google searched if I could use Macys gift cards on the Bloomingdale’s site. All of the search results dated back to 2010. There were a couple of hits that ended back on the Bloomingdale’s site saying you could. However, when I tried it, it would not add to my cart. I checked the balance on Macys and they showed a balance. I even checked their balance on Bloomingdale’s and it showed a balance too. STRANGE! I then went on the Bloomingdale’s chat and asked them if I could use Macy’s GC on Bloomingdale’s, and the Indian rep was soooo slow in responding and asked for my cart ID and phone number. I told him I didn’t have time for that and ended the chat. I don’t know if these were perhaps “old” gift cards on Raise that didn’t work, but here’s what I’m thinking:
- I called up my local Macy’s last week and asked them if I could combine eGCs into a physical GC and the person said YES. So in case the Raise GCs were “bad,” I could “clean” them by getting a new GC, which might then work on Bloomingdale’s.
- I could try a different Macy’s gift card from another site.
- I think I could have called Bloomingdale’s, give them my cart ID, and have them add it to my cart. I may try this tonight.
Macy’s store card
Since I have a Macy’s store card, I checked whether if it qualified me for 20% off. In the drop down option, there was only Bloomingdale’s, Bloomingdale’s AMEX, and Bloomingdale’s employee card. I chose the Bloomingdale’s option and entered in my Macy’s card number. Sure enough, it worked. My cart was now showing 20% off. This improved my profit to $51 and an 18% margin. So my order was for something like $460. I had put in $400 of gift cards, and so I wanted to charge $60 to my Macy’s card. This development here is that while my cart was over $300 to qualify for 20% off, I didn’t have to charge $300 to my card to still get 20% off. When I went to check out though, the site said I had an invalid credit card. Now I figured…well if this is like Kohl’s, if I pay for my ENTIRE cart with a gift card, then it’ll never have to charge my Macy’s card, and maybe it’ll work. I then went and bought another $100 of gift cards. Now my cart showed me paying with ALL gift cards and $0 on my Macy’s card. When I tried to submit, same error. That’s when I gave up and decided to just charge my credit card and settle for 15% off.
AMEX offers
Currently, AMEX is giving $50 off $250 as an AMEX deal. This was on 2 cards out of my wife’s and my 3 personal cards. It was on her SPG but not mine. It was on my old school Blue card. It was not on any AU cards. I went ahead and bought a $250 eGC and that worked to get the $50. This gives me a 20% discount on gift cards instead of 13%-17%.
Conclusion
- Buy this Dyson
- Buy gift cards on Raise.com for max discount (currently 16% off)
- Shop through a portal
- Use coupon code
- Profit $40 or 15% margin on this deal
By the way, I think this will make me apply for the Bloomingdale’s AMEX card next. If I can get another 5% off by having the card, I’ll take the credit hit. The card has no annual fee and should qualify for AMEX offers (for AU’s too if Twitter has the offer) too.