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A note up front

This post was written by a straight guy. If it’s not very good, female readers, please don’t roast it.

Promotion details

Nordstrom has a pretty popular promotion every year: buy an Advanced Night Repair serum and get a full-size Eye Concentrate Matrix Serum plus deluxe samples. Specifically: spend $100 to buy the 1.7 oz Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Recovery Complex II Serum, and you’ll get the $69 full-size Advanced Night Repair Eye Concentrate Matrix Serum, plus a so-called $155 deluxe sample set (two options, choose one; honestly not very useful, since neither one is a hot item) and three packet samples (even less useful).

For readers who genuinely need both the "Advanced Night Repair serum" and the "Advanced Night Repair eye serum," this is a very good deal. Next, let’s talk about how to buy it most cost-effectively from the perspective of a card-rewards straight guy. I’m also mostly buying this for LD, by choice and by pressure.

How to buy

  • On the checkout page, click “Promotions” on the “Payment” screen and add “LIFT” (as of publication, this gift set was sold out) or “HYDRATE” to get the gift set.
  • That’s it — the cart setup is complete. You can also go straight to the promotion page at the beginning and choose the deluxe sample set. I won’t go into that here; next, let’s talk about how to save the most money.

How to maximize savings

Shopping Portals

Unfortunately, Nordstrom does not partner with any cashback portals. Of course, all those money-saving newsletters are not going to give you the cashback either (including all kinds of "drops").

Using gift cards

Before using gift cards, you should know that purchases made with gift cards have weaker protection than direct credit card purchases. But at a store like Nordstrom, even if your order gets canceled or something similar happens, they’ll usually restock or make it right, so don’t worry too much. In short, think it through before you use this method. This is written for people who do not normally stockpile Nordstrom gift cards; deals tend to sell out very quickly, so speed plus discount is king.

Quarterly 5% credit cards

Buy Nordstrom eGC on Amazon

  • Click here to go to the purchase link
  • Use a card that earns extra rewards on Amazon, such as one of the Amazon 5X co-branded cards, like Chase Amazon (Prime required) and AMEX Amazon Business
  • With the old version of Drop app, Amazon earns 2X, and by using a supplementary card with an account for a double dip, you can get an extra 4X (note: AMEX business cards seem unable to be linked to Drop)
  • Pros: multiple layers can be combined, so the cashback is quite good, and you can enter your after-tax price when making the purchase. At best, this can work out to your card’s base earnings plus an extra 9X.

Buy eGC with PayPal

Buy physical gift cards

  • For example, if you buy them at a supermarket, use AMEX Gold for 4X MR
  • Drawbacks: troublesome, and you can only buy in whole-dollar amounts.

Other notes

If you’re in mainland China and don’t use a VPN, you won’t be able to access the site. As long as you switch your IP to an overseas location, you can usually buy it. USA is recommended. You’ll need a tool like Express VPN (free cancellation within 30 days).

You’ll need a U.S.-issued card and a U.S. address to avoid having the order canceled.

The deal is ending soon, so hurry and buy it for LD. Wishing you an uncanceled order!