Update 11/1/22: There’s a new Airbnb Amex Offer giving $100 back when spending $500. As noted last year when there was a different Airbnb Amex Offer, buying an Airbnb gift card online won’t work to trigger the statement credit because payment is processed by a third party.
If you have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards, you’ll likely see an Airbnb Amex Offer on your account this morning giving 5,000 bonus Membership Rewards when spending $250.
Given the high resale value of Airbnb gift cards, I’m sure many people are wondering if you can buy a $250 gift card to earn the bonus points. I’m afraid to say it’s looking very unlikely that it’ll work.
Airbnb doesn’t process payments for gift cards themselves. Instead, that’s outsourced to LaunchGiftCards.com – similar to CashStar, Buyatab, etc. Having said that, LaunchGiftCards.com processes online gift card purchases for DoorDash and buying a gift card from them had worked to trigger DoorDash Cash App Boosts in the past, although it seems that might no longer work.
I know Cash App Boosts aren’t the same as Amex Offers, but I figured there was a slim chance that buying a $250 Airbnb gift card would trigger the bonus points from the Amex Offer and so I decided to be the data point we all wanted to see. I loaded the Amex Offer to a card currently earning +4 from a referral bonus which meant that even if the purchase didn’t trigger the Amex Offer, we’d earn a total of 5 Membership Rewards points on the purchase.
I bought that gift card a few hours ago and received it about a minute later. Unfortunately what I didn’t receive was an email from Amex confirming that I’d used the Amex Offer. That’s not surprising, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. They don’t always send confirmation emails even when statement credits/bonus points are subsequently earned, so there’s still a chance the 5,000 Membership Rewards will hit our account.
I put that at a 0.000937 chance though, so if you want to redeem the Airbnb Amex Offer, it’s looking like you’ll need to actually book a stay. I’ll update this post though if the 5,000 bonus points do show up in a week’s time.