Let me preface this post with a PSA:  DON’T BUY THINGS YOU DON’T NEED. American Express offers are a great way to earn some cash back or points on purchases, but don’t buy things for the sake of “free money”–you still had to spend money to get that.

*deep breath* OK, with that out of the way, let’s look back at my year of savings using American Express Offers. If you’re not sure what these are, here’s a brief description from American Express:

To recap:  AMEX partners with companies to provide coupons/discounts, you add those discounts to your card(s), and once you buy enough to trigger the coupon, you get your discount!

Easy! In my opinion, AMEX Offers are a great way to offset the annual fee on some of their cards. In 2016, I had three American Express cards with annual fees:  Premier Rewards Gold ($195), Delta SkyMiles Gold ($95), and Hilton HHonors Surpass ($75), for a total of $365 in annual fees.

Here are some of the current AMEX Offers I have, which just goes to show you the diversity in them–you’re bound to find something you were already planning on buying!

To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll be using any of these, but they do provide a visual to how wide-ranging the discounts are.

So, how’d I do? Between 1/1/2016 and 12/5/2016, I saved $501.00 and earned 6,000 Membership Rewards points. Below is a list of where I saved money, I’ve included the number of AMEX Offers I used at that particular store as well:

• boxed.com – $190 saved, 10 offers used
• chewy.com – $50 saved, 2 offers used
• Dunkin’ Donuts – 1,500 Membership Rewards points
• Google Express – $60 saved, 4 offers used
• jet.com – $60 saved, 6 offers used
• minted.com – $30 saved, 1 offer used
• petco.com – $25 saved, 5 offers used
• Staples – $75 saved, 3 offers used
• Verizon – 4,500 Membership Rewards points
• Miscellaneous places – $11 saved, 2 offers used

I also have a few more offers I’m planning on using, so that number is only going to go up. Score!

In the end, I earned more than the annual fees cost on my cards and earned 6,000 Membership Rewards points by just paying my cell phone bill and buying coffee. Wahoo!

Again, these were all things we needed, DON’T BUY THINGS YOU DON’T NEED.

Here’s the thing about annual fees:  yeah they suck, like come on who want to PAY for the privilege of using branded plastic??  My response: make it work for you! Maximizing AMEX Offers is just one way of doing that. Make sure you’re alway utilizing ALL the benefits of your cards!