An Easy Way to Save a Cool $1k
Remember that post I wrote about our American Express Plum Card a few months back? We’ve only had the card since February, but we were just informed that we reached the maximum limit of savings that we can receive from FedEx in one year. Apparently the 5% discount only works up to $1,000/year of savings.
That means in ~9 months we saved $1,000 just by having our FedEx charges automatically charged to our Plum Card! This doesn’t even include the 2% cash back we’re getting too.
It also means that we spent $20k with FedEx in that short amount of time. I never really thought about it, but when you’re shipping out 50-60 orders on a good Monday and each order spends around $8 on shipping, it adds up.
These are the types of things that I don’t think big companies do much of or even really care about, but a bootstrapped company like us thrives on finding creative ways to save money and finance our growth.
As I’m writing this, I just remembered that we have an AMEX Gold Card that offers the same discount. It would probably make sense for us to switch over to that card for a while so we can continue to rack up the 5% savings. In 2009 we’ll be able to use both cards and hopefully save $2k (I suppose in theory we could get more cards, but I don’t know how many AMEX will let you have). And as I’m typing, George just confirmed all of this for me so we’ll definitely be making the switch. Man, you never know when you’ll have a bright idea 
On October 24th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Wow. E-commerce must be doing a lot for FedEx.
On October 24th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Adam,
Just a quick warning: Don’t rely too heavily on Amex. I’m sure you’ve probably heard a few horror stories of unannounced account closures, f/r’s, and credit line decreases. I thought these were embellished tales, but same happened to me a few months ago. (unannounced large CL decreases on a perfect credit/ perfect history account) As of late, several other business I know have experienced this in the last couple weeks. Rumor is, that Amex is really starting to cut large amounts of accounts and lines- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122452454593050775.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Not trying to scare you off of Amex, but just make sure you have a good backup cards to move to in case anything happens.
Brandon
On October 24th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Brandon -
Sorry to hear about your situation and thanks for the heads up. We’ve definitely had our fair share of issues with cards closing our accounts for no reason (http://www.adam-mcfarland.net/2008/01/18/we-got-our-money-back/).
I haven’t heard of AMEX problems specifically, but we’ll definitely be cautious. We just got another backup card a few weeks ago just to cover ourselves. We also have a bank line of credit with a local bank that we barely use (mostly got it for emergencies).
I think we’re OK if it were to get canned, but it would still piss me off if it happens
A
On October 28th, 2008 at 1:26 am
I have a Starwood AMEX card which gives me 1.25 points per dollar spent, and since I pay all suppliers via CC, every month I blow through roughly $25k on the AMEX. That equals hella free flights!
By the way, have you ever called the AMEX 1-800 number? I think AMEX hires only the MOST FRIENDLY PEOPLE ON EARTH. I think they slip something in their coffee.
Congrats on the growing biz!
-Nev
On October 29th, 2008 at 8:09 am
[…] Nev left a comment on my last post regarding AMEX’s customer service: By the way, have you ever called the AMEX 1-800 number? I […]