How I am maximising the American Express Business Platinum £150 Dell cashback offer

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American Express recently launched a series of cashback offers for its Business Platinum and Business Gold cardholders. This is how I am trying to maximise one of them to generate as much money as possible.

I am going to look at the Dell cashback offer for American Express Business Platinum cardholders.

This is a generous deal. If you spend over £150 at Dell before 27th August, you will receive £150 cashback.

Unfortunately, we have no need for any IT equipment at the moment. I decided that the best way to maximise this deal was to buy something for close to £150 and then resell it on eBay.

This needed to be approached sensibly. Buying a monitor, for example, had many problems – they are easily damaged in transit, and they are bulky and expensive to ship. This wasn’t the way to go.

I also wanted to spend as close to £150 as possible to minimise my out of pocket expenditure.

I settled on this:

It is a Dell USB 3.0 Ultra HD Triple Video Docking Station D3100 UK. I had absolutely no idea what it did, although the description says “The Dell Docking Station – USB 3.0 connects your laptop to up to three additional monitors, various external devices and the Internet with a single cable.”

However, this is what I DID know:

it cost £128.94 plus VAT with free delivery, so the total cost was £154.72 (£4.72 over the magic £150 level to trigger the cashback)

it looked like a relatively small and sturdy item to post

brand new ones were listed on eBay for around £100 and many were at higher prices

A few seconds after placing my order, I received an email from Amex confirming that I had triggered by £150 cashback:

The cashback triggered within 24 hours of the transaction hitting my statement:

You might make a profit even if you don’t sell the docking station ….

Dell Small Business is on various shopping and reward portals. If you are a member of any of these, see what you can get. As long you’re getting more than £4.73 of value back on your £154.73 purchase, you will automatically be in profit even without selling the item.

You have also earned 154 Membership Rewards points from your purchase!

Next step …. sell the D3100

I haven’t sold the unit yet, so this is still a work in progress. However, I will show you what I have done so far.

eBay was always going to be the best place to sell this. eBay lets you clone listings run by others. This made it very easy to get my product listed. The parcel arrived as scheduled on Wednesday 8th and it took me under 10 minutes to get my eBay listing up.

You can see my (still running) eBay listing here which you can clone. Go to my listing and on the left hand side, click where it says “Have one to sell? Sell it yourself”. You will be taken to the listing form with all of the data pre-populated. There is virtually nothing for you to do except set a price.

eBay recommended I price it at £109. I went for £99 plus £5 postage. Amazon was charging £119.

This was for a ‘Buy It Now’ listing. I could have run an auction, but I was happy to sit it out and hope for £99. With other ‘Buy It Now’ sellers asking as much as the £150+ I had paid, albeit they had professional looking eBay ‘shops’, I am hopeful it will sell.

If it doesn’t, I’ve not lost anything. Second-hand units are selling for around £60, so I’m sure it would go quickly if I went down from £99 to £75.

In the end, I estimate that I will have spent no more than 90 minutes on the entire process, of which 60 minutes will be a casual stroll down to the Post Office and back which I am happy to write off as exercise.

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Category

American Express Platinum card

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

John Dodd says:

14 Jul14 July 07:39

Don’t forget you claim/offset the vat so you are already in pocket to the tune of £25
- Andrew says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 07:45
  
  Except you would then need to charge the eBay customer VAT/declare the VAT on the sale.
- Ken says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 07:59
  
  Genius.
  
  Just buy stuff though the company and sell it on eBay as an individual.
  
  What could possibly go wrong.
Optimus Prime says:

14 Jul14 July 07:50

LOL I have just bought the WD19TB since I have a computer with Thunderbolt 3 ports.

BTW have you included the PayPal fees in your calculation or there is a way to sell on eBay without taking payment via PayPal?
The Streets says:

14 Jul14 July 08:02

I got myself a second monitor for around the £150 mark which is perfect for wfh. Not sure I have the willpower or if it’s worth the risk for minimal profit to buy and resell

However I do like the Nando’s gift cards Curry’s are selling for £20
- rk says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 08:07
  
  The GC at Currys, is that online or instore?
  - The Streets says:
    
    14 Jul14 July 08:11
    
    Online. Some get posted others click and collect
    - rk says:
      
      14 Jul14 July 08:17
      
      Thanks 😊
      
      I did not get the offer, I await to see if it comes up.
    - Rob says:
      
      14 Jul14 July 09:22
      
      DON’T DO IT.
      
      I tried this. It’s a farce. If you ‘click and collect’ a gift card, you DO get the £20 credit – it works. Proved it. However, the store CANNOT provide you with a gift card which is activated. It is IMPOSSIBLE to activate a gift card without doing a purchase transaction on a till.
      
      If you look on the Currys website, you’ll see that £25 Netflix gift cards are now ‘not available’. This is down to me, because I bought one as a ‘click and collect’ test and when Currys realised the problem they were pulled from sale. Unfortunately the idiots didn’t pull any other gift cards from sale.
      - Chris Heyes says:
        
        14 Jul14 July 10:01
        
        Rob@ They might not be “idiots” they pulled yours because you complained so they should
        But other gift cards still selling but not working could be months before the precipitant finds out
        unless they read your post just now easy temp money
        if you think about it
      - Rob says:
        
        14 Jul14 July 10:53
        
        I promise you, it’s not easy money at all. Margins on gift cards are very low and it took a HUGE amount of staff time to sort out the refund.
      - The Streets says:
        
        14 Jul14 July 11:27
        
        Ahh that’s annoying. I was popping along to Curry’s today to collect. It worked fine for the £25 iTunes gift cards received through the post. That will pay for my Athletic magazine subscription and Apple TV..
        
        You can also buy many of the games console gift cards that can be sent through the post. I am not this type of gamer (only points!) but in an indirect way they are advertising six months of Spotify for free when you buy the £25 MICROSOFT Xbox Live Gift Card https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-and-home-entertainment/gaming/gaming-accessories/microsoft-xbox-live-gift-card-25-10140556-pdt.html
        
        Last week I picked up an Echo dot with clock which was reduced from £59.99 to £29.99 for £9.99 which also came with free six months of Spotify. Unfortunately the price has gone back up to £54.99.. but there are bargains to be had!
Dave says:

14 Jul14 July 09:03

Amusing story, thanks Rob.

The lazier approach would be to short sell the item on eBay first, then have Dell drop-ship it to the directly to the buyer. 🙂
- Rob says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 09:18
  
  Fair point!
- John says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 09:42
  
  Dropshipping from Dell does carry some risk. I’ve ordered several laptops from Dell over the past few months and some have taken 2-6 weeks to arrive and the majority have been cancelled (usually 4-6 weeks after ordering) then though it said in stock or delivery within 2 days etc. That said, with accessories I’d say the risk is somewhat less.
- Pat the Postie says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 18:47
  
  Never heard it called short sell before, drop shipping from companies is not worth the hassle unless you have an agreement setup
Daniel Evans says:

14 Jul14 July 09:24

I don’t see this offer. I have just ordered 5 x 1m USB-C cables @ £20 each from Google to trigger 5 x £20 credits and will be selling on eBay as described above.
- Andrew says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 10:38
  
  £20 for a USB-C cable!! Good luck reselling those given that a perfectly serviceable cable from ebay or Amazon shouldn’t cost more than £1.
  - Daniel Evans says:
    
    14 Jul14 July 10:55
    
    Serviceable USB-C for £1? Please tell me where. I’ve had soooo many USB C cables fail on me over the past year it’s ridiculous. There seems to be something inherently unreliable about them, especially the cheap ones.
    - cinereus says:
      
      14 Jul14 July 11:09
      
      Just buy from decent quality listings/sources. I batter my USB-C cables and they’ve lasted almost 4 years without breaking a sweat. Nobody will buy a USB-C cable for £5 let alone £20.
      - Frank says:
        
        16 Jul16 July 08:39
        
        Confusing as it might be USB-C cables do not all have the same functionality, so depending on what your bed to use it for £20 might be what it costs. If it’s just for charging your phone then £20 would be expensive though
    - Andrew says:
      
      14 Jul14 July 11:19
      
      They’re not perfect but you certainly won’t go through 20 of them in the lifetime of the google cable. I tend to get braided cables for £4/5 each. They look better than plain plastic and are more flexible.
Pompeyyorkblues says:

14 Jul14 July 09:34

Random question time please. Apologies if it’s the wrong thread as I’m not good with technology, but can someone please help?
My return flight to Prague has been cancelled and after 15 attempts to get through I Finally got refunded in full. Great news! However my outgoing one x 4 on July 25 has not been cancelled yet. They are refusing to refund as I booked it separately to the return one (a lesson learnt there). I believe we can’t visit Prague atm anyhow so where do I stand?
Am I correct t in saying I can cancel up to 24 hours before n get a voucher plus Avios back. So I may as well wait and see if they cancel?
Thank you in anticipation
- Genghis says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 12:27
  
  Wait to see if BA cancel in the meanwhile for a full report. You have the option to cancel until t-24.
  - Pompeyyorkblues says:
    
    14 Jul14 July 13:31
    
    Thought so thank you..
David S says:

14 Jul14 July 09:35

And it’s a tax deductible expense ?
- Rob says:
  
  14 Jul14 July 09:59
  
  Not if you sell it!
  
  Technically, as the credit is directly linked to the purchase, if you put the purchase through your accounts you should put the £150 credit through too.
  - Alex W says:
    
    14 Jul14 July 11:22
    
    If you only sold it for £100 though presumably you could tax deduct the £50 loss?
    - Genghis says:
      
      14 Jul14 July 12:32
      
      Buy item for £150: Dr asset £150, Cr cash £150
      Receive statement credit for £150: Dr cash £150, Cr P&L £150
      Sell item for £100: Dr cash £100, Dr P&L £50, Cr asset £150.
      I make that a Dr cash £100, Cr P&L £100 end position, meaning tax due on the £100.
      - TGLoyalty says:
        
        14 Jul14 July 23:27
        
        🙂
Simon Cross says:

14 Jul14 July 10:00

I am sure it will sell especially with all this “advertising” to the HFP customer base (joke).