May 2008: American Express Saved Me $0.13

It was a big month for using my American Express Card. I saved a whopping $0.13. You read that right, thirteen cents. It doesn’t cover the postage for paying off the bill, but it does pay for the one cent postage increase this month. Since I pay off my bill scheduling ACH debits, I don’t worry about postage increases.

I pretty much use my American Express Card when I shop at Costco since Costco only takes cash, checks or American Express. Costco used to take all credit cards but they changed the policy a few years ago to only use one credit company.

The good thing about the card is that your annual card fee is waved when your Costco membership is charged on it. The net result is that the express card is free of annual fees. So if you like to save money by shopping wholesale at Costco, the card is worth it.

The other thing is that you get a rebate. Initially, you get ¼ percent back on what you buy. Then it increases (to what I don’t recall at this time).

So if you break down my 0.25% savings by shopping at Costco last month, I spent $52.10 buying groceries, and got refunded thirteen cents.

So, how much money did I save? Adding it up, I saved 0.13 in refund and 0.42 in postage by paying off my bill online for a total of 0.55. I’m so cheap. Or, would you call it thrifty?

According to TheStar.com, in the article Credit credit card rebate offers easy to miss, if you’re not careful, you may actually shred your rebate check.

“Instead of sending rebates separately, American Express prints them and embeds them in cardholders' statements.”

I found that the rebate check is not too obvious, but AMEX (NYSE:AXP) keeps on sending reminders that that you haven’t cashed your check yet.

In my case, I shredded my first rebate check from American Express. Now that I know this is how they issue the rebate, I look for it once a year around my anniversary.

Until next month, remember to pay off your balances. Schedule your payments online to save you both time money and postage!