Peculiar Purchase Behavior - Amex Platinum

[knobenheimer]

I was at my local Target today and the woman at checkout in front of me did something very odd. She made two transactions to purchase items from the store. During her first transaction she purchased $100 in gift cards and used her Amex Platinum Card. Her second transaction she used the gift cards she had JUST purchased to buy the items from the store. There was a $10 remainder after the gift card values were deducted, and she used what looked like a debit card to pay for the remaining balance.

Why would someone do this?

Is she trying to take advantage of some reward offerings surrounding gift cards, can someone please elucidate?