Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Chase Rewards Points and using Shop with Points on Amazon.com

If you are a Chase Rewards Points member through owning a Chase Credit Card or Chase Debit Card, you may have used the "Shop with Points" feature on Amazon.com quite frequently since Amazon.com allows you to link up your Chase Rewards Points with your Amazon.com account.

However, as of September 1st, you lose dollar value when shopping with Chase Rewards Points!

Starting September 1st, 2016, 125 Chase Rewards points = $1!!

So do you just live with the downgrade or is there a workaround to this Amazon-imposed limitation?

Well, fortunately, $1 = $1 when it comes to shopping for Amazon Gift Cards on the Chase Rewards site.  Therefore, for 2500 points, you can buy a $25 Amazon Gift card and likewise 5000 points can buy you a $50 Amazon Gift card.  You can then redeem these gift cards on Amazon.com just as you would with the Chase Rewards points .  On the downside, you have to wait 5-10 days for these Gift cards to be shipped to you, whereas the "Shop with Points" feature was available instantaneously when you checked out, but at least you will not lose any dollar value when you shop on Amazon.com!

The other alternative, of course is to get a Chase Amazon.com Visa card which also does not lose point value on Amazon.com.  Unfortunately, it is much more difficult to rack up points on the Chase Amazon.com Visa card even after spending hundreds of dollars vs. using either the Chase Freedom or Chase Unlimited Freedom credit cards, but it is yet another solution to this significant reduction in point value on the Amazon.com site!

Happy Shopping! :-)