Right so this post looks into how ‘nice’ Amazon points are compared to cashback on PayPal’s business card. At the end is an interesting twist. Somebody is now scrolling to the end – I just know it! Human nature – it is so easy to tell what the humans will do next.
Amazon says
- each £2 spent on eligible purchases at Amazon.co.uk earns 3 Amazon Reward Points. For example, if you spend £25.00 at Amazon.co.uk, you will earn 37.5 points
- each £2 spent outside of Amazon.co.uk (“everywhere else”) on eligible purchases will earn 0.5 Amazon Reward Points. For example, if you spend £25.00 at a participating retail store, you will earn 6.25 points.
- 100opts lead to an award of a £10 gift card.
So what does that really mean. Well it means – to most people – that when you get that £10 gift card for spending on Amazon on one of the cards they agree can award points, you’re happy to get that £10.
But.. but.. how much does one have to spend to get £10 in gift card? To make this easy, I’m going to work it as £ per point.
From (1) above: £2 spent on eligible purchases at Amazon = 3 points. That means £2/3 per point or £0.66 per point. So to get 1000 points you have to spend £0.66 x 1000 = £660 at Amazon.
That’s great if you spend tons of money on Amazon. But what if you don’t spend regularly any large sums of money at Amazon. Then I move to (2) above. So you use an approved credit card to purchase stuff elsewhere.
From (2) above: £2 = 0.5 points. That means £4 per point. So, to get 1000 points you have to spend £4000.
How great is that? It isn’t! They’re telling me I have to spend £4000 to get back £10. That’s £10/4000 = 0.25%. They’ve been having a laugh – at loads of people; me included!
But note that £660 spent on Amazon gets the same (1000 points) £10 gift card as £4000 spent off Amazon.
Paypal
Now I compare with PayPal business card. They’ll pay 0.5% on purchases. That’s twice as good. So for the same £4000 spent on PayPal business card, I’d get back £4000 x 0.5% = £20.
Do I need an extra tenner in my pocket? I do not. But that’s not the issue. The issue is that I want to spend my money with ‘someone’ who gives more. My choice – and this is not advice for anyone reading this. I couldn’t give a flying flamingo if anybody can’t get a PayPal business card.
Action plan
- My eligible card for Amazon points will be reserved for spending on Amazon.
- My spending off Amazon will be via PayPal business card.
But wait!
Right – So based on the above I attempted to find how much I spend on Amazon per year. That made sense because I wanted to work out how much points I could expect to accrue. Guess what? There is no way to find out from the UK Amazon how much is your yearly spending on Amazon. How do I know that?
I checked very carefully. Then I contacted Amazon directly in a chat session. No – it wasn’t a bot. I confirmed it was a real person. The ‘assistant’ goes, “Sorry we don’t have that feature.“. So I said that’s unacceptable! Jeez.. in the heat of the moment I forgot to take screenshots! So the chap offers me a £10 promotional credit for my disappointment. So – I’m like fine but the public needs to know about this. And I said how wrong it is for a trillion dollar company not to spend a little bit to help customers to be better aware of their spending. In other words they’re happy to grab your money and keep you spending, as long as you don’t know how much you’re spending on their site! Makes sense really – they want you spending more with less control. It is good for their business – innit!
Come on – they very well know how much I spend every year – they just don’t want to give me the efficient means to find out. Hello – I’m well aware that I can take a calculator or pen and paper and add it all up. Like sorry – I’m not doing that. I have better things to do with my time, like writing a blog for example! Anyways moments after the chat ended I got an email saying, “I understand the inconvenience this situation has caused and on this occasion, I’d like to give you £10.00 promotional credit as a goodwill gesture, for use towards your next Amazon.co.uk order.”
So yes – I will spend the credit but that doesn’t solve the issue. In the mean time I’ll put my action plan in motion.
What’s next? You bugger off and spend like no tomorrow on Amazon, if you wish. I do as I wish. Tough!
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The reading of posts on this blog is subject to the Terms & Conditions. Unpalatable truths and personal experiences may be told. Nothing posted on this blog is directed at any identified person. On occasions individuals are quoted anonymously. That does not mean that they have been identified to the world. Should any person or organisation reading this blog find something that makes them feel or know that they are being referred to – any such perceived identification does not mean ‘identified to the world’. ‘Stupid‘ is an impish figment of my imagination who occasionally is allowed to pop up – and does not represent any known individual, individuals or groups. The treatment of ‘Stupid‘ is not representative of the way people are treated in real life. Adverse inferences made are dismissed in advance.
