Requisite Bluebird Post
The entire (points) world is abuzz this week with the arrival of Bluebird, the newest Airbus model powered solely by the collective sadness of the French. (Zing!) No, Bluebird is allegedly the best thing since buying dollar coins from the U.S. Mint: a new scheme to manufacture “millions” of points. While the prospect of mere millions doesn’t usually entice us, we at Points Envy decided to spend a few minutes browsing other blog posts about Bluebird to find out what all the hubbub was about. Below we have compiled that information into a completely superfluous post repeating useful bits of what other bloggers that you follow have already told you. We are a points and miles blog, after all.
Bluebird seems to be a new offering from American Express, the folks who periodically give you money to not use a superior points-earning card. We can’t understand the real reasons behind their launching this product, but the key for the points world is that you can use Bluebird to pay for things you cannot normally use a credit card for, like your mortgage, credit card bills, and drugs (assuming your dealer will accept a check).
For the best value, all you really need to do is: (1) have a Chase Ink card that earns 5x Ultimate Rewards points on office supply store spend; (2) find an Office Depot that stocks Vanilla Reload cards; (3) purchase all of the Vanilla Reload cards in stock with said Ink card; (4) load Bluebird with said Vanilla Reload cards; (5) immediately withdraw all of the money from your Bluebird account at an ATM; and (6) head to the nearest club and have the time of your life, knowing you are earning five points for every dollar bill you use to make it rain!
So, there you have it. As Amex continues to roll back many of the most beneficial features of its cards, they appear to have thrown the points world a bone with this one. If history has taught us anything, Amex will soon cancel Bluebird and then also revoke the lounge privileges associated with its Platinum card, just for good measure. Get while the gettin’ is good points fiends! That is, until American Express gets sued by Twitter.
How well do you know your avian silhouettes?
Amex and Twitter Partner Up To Offer Incredible Savings
Not to be outdone by Chase’s recent Ultimate Rewards promotions, American Express has partnered up with Twitter to offer savings with numerous merchants, including Whole Foods, FedEx and Best Buy. For a complete rundown of these offers, we refer you to The Points Guy’s recent post on the subject.
While most of the deals have received a fair amount of press, we’d like to point out a special offer that seems to have been less broadly publicized: Amex has yet again teamed up with Mercedes-Benz to offer an incredible discount for its members. Cardholders who tweet “#AmexMercedes5” will save $5 on any single purchase made with Mercedes-Benz of $125,000 or more. Like the Mercedes-Benz Platinum card, this deal provides a fantastic bonus for anyone already planning to purchase a new Benz, which we assume is a large proportion of our readers.
Attainable with Amex!
We can only hope that the Mercedes promotion is an indication that Amex will expand the Twitter partnership to include more luxury brands in the future. As good as it feels now to buy those new Dolce & Gabana stone-washed calf leather Mocassins, it will be just that much sweeter when you know you’re also saving money thanks to Amex.
Points Envy 