End Of Year Card Credits — How To Cash Out Chase, Amex, And Citi Perks Without Changing Your Plans

Here’s how to cash out your premium rewards card coupons before the clock strikes midnight.

The end of the year is near, and with it many benefit opportunities are expiring. If you have a premium rewards credit card, it’s probably become something of a coupon book. It can be hard to keep up with and track of all the benefits. Some of those have probably gone unused. But there’s still time – and you can still get something for many of them, even if you don’t have plans to shop where they tell you to or eat where they tell you to.

Here’s a few examples of how fellow customers have been leveraging remaining credits from some of the popular premium rewards cards.

Sapphire Reserve

If you still have the Stubhub credit, gift cards don’t work. Those are purchased as a distinct merchant. There may not be any shows you want to see. Who cares? Buy something with the credit anyway. Note that you need to activate the credit in your account first! Also note that the credit also works at viagogo, and tickets for the same events are often cheaper there.

• Go through a shopping portal, perhaps earn 1,000 miles, even if you don’t use the tickets.
  
• Sell the tickets. You might get something for them. My advice is to focus on popular things that are no more than $75 apiece (pairs of tickets easier to sell than singles). But there are people more expert on this than I am. Price at the low end of the market. Perhaps you’ll get back $100 after fees. That’s $100!

If you still have the restaurant dining credit, the program terms say you won’t get a statement credit for buying a gift card but often folks report that they do. If it weren’t the end of the year, I’d say buy the minimum gift card amount to test it, wait for the credit, and then use the rest once you validate. But there’s no time left for this. Consider following confirmed data points that others have posted, though there are never guarantees.

If you still have your $250 The Edit credit, on a minimum two-night stay, you need to pay for the stay now, before end of year, but it can be for a 2026 stay.

One note about the DoorDash credits. You might use food delivery, but might not be using the grocery credits. When you order restaurant delivery, consider a ‘Double Dash’ and add groceries so there’s no delivery fee on the groceries and you can just burn your free grocery credits.

Platinum Amex

If you still have the Lululemon credit, buy something with it. Go through a shopping portal. Perhaps earn 1,000 miles. If you still have the Saks credit, the same advice applies. Maybe you can even sell the items successfully on a place like Poshmark or eBay to get some non-zero amount of cash.

It’s too late to make the most of monthly credits for the whole year, but you can still sign up for Uber One and you’ve got this month’s Uber and Digital Entertainment credits still.

The $600 annual hotel credits is $300 in statement credits semi-annually on prepaid Fine Hotels + Resorts or The Hotel Collection bookings (the latter requires a minimum two-night stay). The key with hotel credits is you need to pay for the stay now, before end of year, but it can be for a 2026 stay.

The $400 Resy Credit is up to $100 in statement credits each quarter. You’re not supposed to be able to use it for gift cards, and there’s never a guarantee, but here’s where gift cards have been reported to work. Consider a $100 gift card now, and then a really nice meal next quarter to use the $100 credit plus gift card.

For the $200 airline fee credit, you are supposed to stick to the one airline you’ve chosen for the year. If you haven’t used any of the credit yet, it can’t hurt to ask Amex whether they’ll let you change your designated airline.

The past several years I’ve had luck buying under-$100 Southwest Airlines tickets with my credit (I register Southwest as my airline of choice) but I assume at some point this will no longer work, since it isn’t supposed to. There are good threads in FlyerTalk’s American Express forum with member experiences on what works with each airlines, e.g. American, United, Delta, and Alaska.

Strata Elite

For the $200 Splurge credit you can buy an American Airlines non-refundable ticket before end of year, wait until after midnight the following day, and then cancel the ticket for a trip credit. You’ll have a year to actually travel and can decide later where and when you’ll go. Or just buy something at Best Buy.

For the $300 hotel benefit for 2+ night stays booked through Citi Travel, you need to pay for the stay now, before end of year, but it can be for a 2026 stay.