Amazon's targeted 20% off promotion

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The blogs have been abuzz about a targeted 20% promo from Amazon and American Express. I set my Amex as my default credit card in Amazon and then checked my Amazon account with this link to see if I was targeted, and I was!

I'm not a huge fan of Amazon because I find the whole experience so baffling unless you're a hardcore Amazon user. You can't even buy some things unless you're Prime, and still others you can't because they're Prime Pantry, or "this is only available as an add-on product". Furthermore, I hate how confusing it is to tell who's actually shipping your order to you and I've had terrible luck getting Amazon to fix purchases that go wrong from outside vendors on their site. End rant. 

Because this promo ONLY applies if you spend some number of Amex points on your purchase AND if the product is "Sold By Amazon", I was dreading scouring their site trying to find something I needed that met the criteria. I decided instead to check the Reddit /r/churning forum to see what things people were buying. Gift cards seems to be the most popular item, so I snagged my free $100 by buying some Uber and AirBnB gift cards. We're planning to spend a month+ in Mexico City next February, so I'll be able to put these to use fairly quickly. 

To put it in different terms: I value Amex points at 2¢ each so this was like getting 10 points per dollar on $500 worth of travel spending…

NOTE: make sure you manually choose to only pay ONE CENT with your Amex points to activate the discount. The 'Pay With Amex Points' option on Amazon is otherwise a terrible redemption rate for your points!

NOTE 2: Only after I bought the AirBnB cards did I notice the language about them only applying to reservations 28 days or fewer.  I guess I'll just ask the host to give me the monthly discountrate but allow me to book it with two back-to-back reservations...

The checkout screen for my Uber gift cards

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