The Bloomingdale’s American Express® Card* offers just one type of reward: points per dollar spent that go straight into your Bloomingdale’s Loyallist (frequent shopper/loyalty) account.
Earning Rewards
The base earn for this card is 3 points per dollar, both at Bloomingdale’s and anywhere else that American Express is accepted, with a few notable exclusions: You only earn those 3 points per dollar at U.S. Bloomingdale’s stores, and you don’t earn on store services, sales tax, Nespresso shops and restaurants or when redeeming Bloomingdale’s gift cards or rewards.
With Bloomingdale’s Loyallist Top of the List status, you earn 4 points per dollar spent anywhere. Top of the List status requires spending $5,000 per calendar year in net purchases from U.S. Bloomingdale’s stores, outlets, or bloomingdales.com using your Loyallist Number or Bloomingdale’s Credit Card.
If you level up to Top of the List Unlocked status, you earn 10 points per dollar spent at Bloomingdale’s and 4 points per dollar spent anywhere else. Reaching Top of the List Unlocked status requires spending at least $15,000 at Bloomingdale’s in the preceding calendar year.
Like Bloomingdale’s rewards, the welcome offer also comes with tight restrictions including a short timeline to redeem the offer: 20% off Bloomingdale’s purchases made on the day of opening an account and on the day after (up to total savings of $250 over the two days) .
Redeeming Rewards
Depending on how you look at it, you either don’t have to worry about redeeming your accumulated rewards points, or you don’t get to handle them yourself. It all happens automatically: Once your Bloomingdale’s Loyallist account reaches a 5,000-point balance, you receive a $25 reward that can only be spent on Bloomingdale’s merchandise.
That works out to a redemption value of one-half cent per point, which at first glance isn’t the best value in a world where many credit cards offer a redemption value of 1 cent, or more, per point. But the fact that you earn points so quickly helps balance that out, translating to 1.5% to 2% back on most purchases. That’s a good base rate.
There are, however, some catches, starting with the aforementioned 5,000-point minimum for redeeming your rewards. But there’s more: Every year on January 1, you lose 85% of the points remaining in your account. So, if you are almost to the next 5,000-point redemption threshold, but don’t quite make it by the end of the year, most of those points will be gone when you wake up. Also, once a reward has been issued to you, it must be spent within the next 180 days, or it expires.
Ultimately, the most important rule for getting value out of the 31.99% variable APR on purchases is that once you have points, you should use them. In fact, you literally don’t have a choice—use them fast, or lose them.
Rewards Potential
Forbes Advisor uses data from various government agencies to determine both baseline income and spending averages across various categories. The 70th percentile of wage earners bring in $116,000 annually and we base our sample household spending on that number.
The chart below gives you an idea of how many Loyallist points you could earn in three major spending categories (Clothing, Groceries/Dining and Transportation/Transit), assuming that you’re earning at the base rate of 3 points per dollar.
Keep in mind, however, that your earning power can vary according to your Loyallist tier. If you have Top of the List status (having spent at least $5,000 at Bloomingdale’s in the past calendar year), you’ll earn 4 points per dollar spent instead of 3. That gives you a 25% boost in Loyallist points earned, so if you were to do all your spending on the 31.99% variable APR on purchases, you’d pull in a whopping 144,708 Loyallist points.
If you have Top of the List Unlocked status (meaning you spent at least $15,000 at Bloomingdale’s in the past calendar year), you’d earn 10 points/dollar on Bloomingdale’s purchases and 4 points/dollar on everything else. That means that if you bought all of your clothes at Bloomingdale’s, you’d net 22,270 Loyallist points in that category alone.
However, the fixed redemption value of 5,000 points = $25 back, or 1 point = ½ cent back, does bring those numbers down to earth a little. Here’s how those impressive point totals work out in actual Bloomingdale’s rewards when you make all your credit card purchases on the Bloomingdale’s American Express® Card*:
