Recently, Personal Finance Digest posted a summary of American Express’ no-fee business cards (see “Amex’s no-fee business cards have some good deals for consumers“).  He posted the following table that does indeed show good returns on spend from these cards:

The first thing I did after seeing this post was update my page showing “Best rewards for everyday spend.”  I previously had no idea that the Amex Blue for Business card earned a 30% bonus on points each year.  That makes the card a solid, middle of the pack, everyday spend card.  Then, I double checked my “Best Category Bonuses” page and found that I had missed a couple of entries for the SimplyCash card, so I added those.

Next, I wondered how these cards compared to those from other banks.  I searched each major bank’s website for no-fee business rewards cards that offered more than 1% returns.  Many cards offer no fee the first year, but this list is limited to those cards that never have an annual fee:

• Chase Ink Cash
• Chase Ink Classic
• Citibank CitiBusiness ThankYou
• US Bank Business Cash Rewards
• Capital One Spark Select
• Capital One Spark Miles Select

Comparing cards

There are three things I look at when comparing credit cards:

• Signup bonus
• Earnings on spend
• Perks

Let’s dive into each…

Signup bonus

Free cards often have no signup bonus at all.  Of the cards we’re looking at, though, here are the ones with public signup bonuses as of June 2013:

• Amex Blue for Business: 10K Membership Rewards points
• Chase Ink Cash: 20K Ultimate Rewards points
• Chase Ink Classic: 20K Ultimate Rewards points
• Citibank CitiBusiness ThankYou: 15K ThankYou points

Clearly the Chase Ink cards have the best signup bonuses of the lot.  Note that you may receive better signup bonuses through targeted mailings or by visiting a branch office.

Earnings on spend

Let’s look at the point earnings from each card:

Note that I didn’t list 2% earnings for travel with the Amex Blue for Business card because that requires booking through the Amex travel service.  You can get similar rewards from any card by going through cash back portals to book travel.

Ignoring variations in point values for a moment, we can see that different cards are best for different types of spend:

• Gas: Amex TrueEarnings 4%; Amex SimplyCash 3%
• Restaurant: Amex Lowe’s 3X; Amex TrueEarnings 2%; Chase Ink Cash 2X
• Office Supply: Amex SimplyCash 5%, Chase Ink Cash 5X, Chase Ink Classic 5X
• Cell Phone: Amex SimplyCash 5%, Chase Ink Cash 5X, Chase Ink Classic 5X
• Misc: Chase Ink Cash 5X landline & cable; Chase Ink Classic 5X landline & cable & 2X Hotels; CitiBusiness rotating categories 3%; Amex TrueEarnings 2% travel;
• All other spend: Capital One Spark Select 1.5%; Capital One Spark Miles 1.5X; Amex Blue for Business 1.3X

Best for category spend:

The Chase Ink cards have more bonus categories than any other card on the chart and earn 5X in several important categories.  Even when they do not have the top earnings within a category, between them they offer at least 2X in all represented categories. Additionally, the Ink cards include landline and cable charges within their 5X categories.  The Ink cards earn Ultimate Rewards points worth 1 cent per point.  However, it is possible to transfer those points to a premium Ultimate Rewards card (Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus, Ink Bold) and then transfer those points to airline and hotel programs for the chance to get much more value from those points.

If your business spends heavily on gas, though, you might do better with the Amex TrueEarnings Costco card that offers 4% cash back for gas.

Best for non-category spend:

The Capital One Spark cards offer 1.5% earnings on all spend.  If cash back is your objective, then these cards are best (of the no-fee business cards).  If you prefer points that can be transferred to airline programs, though, consider the Amex Blue for Business card that earns 1.3X Membership Rewards points.  By itself, you wouldn’t be able to transfer points to airlines, but if you add a premium Membership Rewards card to your account (personal or business), your points will be upgraded to those that can be transferred.

Credit card perks

As far as I can tell, all of the evaluated cards offer various degrees of the basics:

• Extended warranty
• Fraud protection
• Travel insurance
• Car rental insurance

Here are some areas where they differ:

• The Chase Ink cards offer primary rental collision insurance, and they offer additional savings and perks through the Ink Insider’s program.
• The Amex cards offer American Express OPEN Savings (see Business card benefits).  The OPEN Savings program offers automatic cash rebates when you use your Amex business card at various merchants (As long as you meet the criteria of each one. Check the fine print).
• The CitiBusiness ThankYou card offers a “personal business assistant” (concierge service).
• All MasterCards offer MasterCard Easy Savings (see Business card benefits).  The Chase Ink cards are MasterCards.  The CitiBusiness card gives you the choice of MasterCard or Visa.  The Easy Savings program provides automatic cash rebates at various merchants including 1% cash back at all Fuelman network gas stations.  These savings are in addition to points and cash back earned automatically with your credit card.

Overall, it appears that the Chase Ink cards offer the most in the way of extra perks.

Conclusion

Among the no-fee business cards, the Chase Ink cards (Ink Cash and Ink Classic) offer the best combination of sign-up bonus, category spend bonuses, and perks.  If you don’t spend much within the listed categories, consider either the Capital One Spark cards that offer 1.5% everywhere, or the Amex Blue for Business which earns 1.3X everywhere plus offers decent perks and a small signup bonus.

This report focused solely on no-fee business cards.  It’s important to note that there may be no-fee personal cards that offer more (such as the no-fee Fidelity Investment Rewards Amex which earns 2% cash back on all spend).  Also, don’t dismiss business cards that charge a fee.  Capital One, for example, offers a version of their Spark Business Card with 2% cash back for all purchases.  This card comes with a $59 annual fee.  If you were considering the no-fee 1.5% cash back Spark card, you would do better with the $59 card simply by spending $12,000 or more each year.

A few days ago, TopCashBack raised its payout for American Express gift cards from 1.5% to 2%.  In the past, this would have been big news.  When you can earn money by buying money, that’s a big deal.  There were several reasons, though, that I hesitated before publishing anything.  Here’s the scoop…

American Express gift card $500 limit

It used to be the case that American Express gift cards topped out at $3000 in value for each card.  By buying high denomination cards like this, one could minimize the card fee ($3.95) and shipping costs ($8.95) as a percentage of the total.  That way, cash back earned through a portal more than offset any and all fees.

As I reported in April, American Express changed its website so that if you begin your shopping from a cash back portal, they will only allow you to buy cards with up to $500 in value (see “Amex takes away $3K cash back gift cards“).

I also reported a simple workaround whereupon you can still buy customized gift cards up to $3000.  Since then, reports from readers have been mixed as to whether or not they’ve received cash back from buying personalized gift cards.  I haven’t tried this myself so I can’t say whether or not the trick really works.

So, I’m at a bit of a loss right now as to what to recommend.  Buying $500 gift cards should work.  You can reduce your expenses by signing up for a free trial of their unlimited next day shipping program.  Another option is to load up your cart with multiple $500 gift cards so that you only pay the shipping fee once (but you’ll still pay a $3.95 fee for each card).  You can also try various free shipping and/or fee free gift card codes that are readily found on the internet, but these rarely work when you go through a portal and they may even invalidate your cash back. 

At the end of the day, you can still make money buying $500 gift cards if you do it right, but is it worth it?  Let’s take a simple example.  Suppose you buy 4 $500 cards.  If you pay for shipping, your total charge will be $2,024.75.  Then, you should get back 2% of the card value: 2% of $2000 = $40.  So, you will have made a profit of $40 – $24.75 = $15.25.  That’s about 3/4 of a percent.  Yawn.

TopCashBack draws ire

Whenever I write about a deal that involves TopCashBack, people write angry comments saying that they tried TopCashBack but never got their money and/or that their customer service never responded to their missing cash back claims. 

In general, I have continued to report TopCashBack deals because I’ve had lots of success with them.  For example, during my Million Mile Madness challenge, I bought many thousands of dollars worth of gift cards and merchandise at Staples by first going through TopCashBack (which offered 5.5% back at the time).  Not only did every single transaction post accurately, but I received all of the cash back within a few weeks.  Some people will argue that my success was because of my blogger status.  They believe that TopCashBack watches what I do and proactively ensures that I get paid.  I don’t believe that for a second.  Here’s what I do believe:

• TopCashBack (which originated in the UK and is very popular there) has suffered from start up pains in the US.  Each time they add a new merchant there is a potential for things to go wrong.  With American Express gift cards, things went so wildly wrong early on that TopCashBack pulled them off the site for a while until the technical issues could be ironed out.
• Each merchant is different.  Under normal circumstances, TopCashBack doesn’t pay out until they receive an affiliate commission for a sale from the merchant.  Every merchant is different with respect to how well they track sales and how quickly they pay out.
• TopCashBack has a confusing approach to customer service.  The way I understand it is like this:  If you file a missing cash back claim, the ensuing process is automated.  Claims are passed along to the merchant for investigation in batches, so your claim may not be passed along for a couple of weeks.  Then, resolution of the claim is dependent upon the merchant and may take several months.  All the while, the TopCashBack customer will most likely never hear from TopCashBack one way or another.  Conversely, if you file a support ticket you will interact with a live customer support person.  I haven’t done the latter, so I can’t say whether or not it is helpful, but its really the only way to ensure that a real person looks at whatever issue you’ve encountered.

Despite all of these difficulties, as I said above, I’ve had mostly very good luck with TopCashBack.  Certainly my own results have been at least as good as with other portals.  So, in general, I’ll continue to report TopCashBack deals.  In this case, though, I hesitated.  I’ve received quite a few reports from readers who have not received cash back for Amex gift card purchases.  So, I’m concerned that there may continue to be technical issues in the connection between TopCashBack and Amex.  To be clear, I don’t know this to be true, I just think that it is a possibility.

TopCashBack increases Amex gift card payout to 2%

There you go.  There’s the headline.  Please read above to see whether this deal is of any interest to you.  And, if you want to sign up for TopCashBack, or other cash back portals, please see my Sign-Up Links page.

If you are a business owner, its worth looking at the many perks offered by small-business credit cards.  If you are not a business owner, some of these perks might just be tempting enough to get you started!

Sign up bonuses

Some of the best credit card signup bonuses are offered only for business cards.  For example, the Chase Ink Plus, Chase Ink Bold, and Amex Business Gold Rewards cards currently offer 50,000 points after $5K spend.  Further, American Express often offers businesses even better offers through direct mailings. 

In some cases, banks offer business cards that are virtually identical to their non-business counterparts.  A good example is the American Express Starwood card which comes in both a personal and business flavors.  Even though the signup bonuses don’t tend to be higher for business cards in this situation, you can apply for both the business and personal cards in order to get both signup bonuses.

Automatic rebates

All American Express small business cards are part of the OPEN Savings program in which you can automatically earn cash back (as statement credits) at various specific merchants.  Be sure to read the fine print about what qualifies.  Details can be found here: OPEN Savings.

Similar to the American Express OPEN Savings program, MasterCard has a program for MasterCard small business cards.  Unlike American Express’ program, you do need to register your MasterCard to qualify.  Details can be found here: MasterCard Easy Savings. 

Terrific point earnings

The Chase Ink cards, in particular, have terrific earning rates for your business expenditures.  In particular, they offer:

• 5X for purchases made at office supply stores
• 5X for phone (landline & cellular), internet, and cable charges
• 2X for gas
• 2X for hotels (Ink Bold, Ink Plus, and Ink Classic)
• 2X for restaurants (Ink Cash only)

American Express also has some goodies.  The Business Gold Rewards card, for example, offers:

• 3X for airfare
• 2X for gas
• 2X for advertising in select media
• 2X for shipping

Another good choice is the Capital One Spark business card that offers 2% cash back for all purchases.

Other perks

Business cards often (but not always) come with the same perks often found in consumer cards such as extended warranties, return protection, etc.  I’ve heard especially good things about American Express’ extended warranties.  It’s worth reading the fine print to get to know what your cards offer.  Here are a few perks of the Chase Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards that you may not be aware of:

• Primary auto rental collision damage waivers: This includes reimbursement for damage due to collision or theft, loss-of-use charges, and towing charges.  (note: no benefit is provided for vehicles rented in Israel, Jamaica, or Ireland)
• Lounge Club: Airport lounge access (2 free visits per year).
• Travel Insurance: Including travel accident insurance, trip cancellation / interruption insurance, trip delay reimbursement, lost luggage reimbursement, and baggage delay reimbursement.
• Ink Insiders Program: Chase has a special program for Ink cardholders in which you can qualify for all of the following benefits: $150 in Adwords Express credit; Avis faster rewards & up to 30% off; Expedia business rewards; and more.  Details here.

Qualifying for business cards

To qualify for a business credit card, you do need to own a business.  Examples of valid businesses include (but are not limited to): lawn/gardening services, housekeeping, sales (online or in-person), blogging, etc.  If you are just starting out with your business you might not have a business tax ID, and that’s OK.  You can describe your business as a sole proprietorship and use your social security number as the tax ID.  Also, you might not yet have much (or any) business revenue.  That’s OK too.  Be honest on your application.  If your business has earned nothing, then report $0 in revenue/sales.  You can report income from all sources (not just your new business) in the field for “Gross annual income”.

Summary

Whether you have a long established business or are just starting out, business credit cards offer many ways to earn points and save money.  For example, suppose you need to travel for business, here is an example of how you can use your business cards for maximal savings and point earnings:

• Airfare 3X: Pay with the Amex Business Gold Rewards card.
• Car rental 5% back: At Avis or Budget, you’ll get 5% cash back if you pay with your business MasterCard (such as a Chase Ink card) once it is registered with the Easy Savings program.  Further, with Chase’s Ink Insiders program you’ll earn Avis rewards twice as fast and save up to 30% off rentals!  At Hertz, if you pay with your Amex business card you’ll earn 5% cash back for each dollar spent above $500 per calendar year, and 10% cash back for each dollar spent above $2500.  Clearly the latter is only good if you spend a lot at Hertz!
• Gas 2X: Both the Amex Business Gold Rewards card and the Chase Ink cards offer 2 points per dollar at gas stations.  At certain gas stations in the Fuelman network you’ll also get 1% cash back when using your MasterCard registered with the Easy Savings program.
• Hotels 5% back and/or 2X: At Hyatt (in the US) and select Marriott hotels, pay with your Amex business card for 5% cash back.  At Wyndham hotels, pay with your MasterCard registered to the Easy Savings program for 5% back.  At any hotel, if you pay with your Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Ink Classic you’ll earn 2 points per dollar.
• Dining 2X and/or 5%: Use the Chase Ink Cash MasterCard to get 2 points per dollar at any restaurant.  If your card is registered to the MasterCard Easy Savings program you can also get 5% cash back at Maggiano’s restaurants.

Note that there are some cases where you can do better with personal cards.  Please see “Best Category Bonuses” for details.  Also, with either business or personal cards, you can increase point earning or cash back by booking your travel through online point earning or cash back portals.  And, signup your credit cards with your favorite Rewards Network program in order to automatically get more points at certain restaurants.

Related Resources

• Best credit card offers
• Best category bonuses
• How to sign up for the Ink Bold (or Ink Plus)

In my recent post “Better than free manufactured spend” I showed that it is possible to make a slight profit when buying Visa gift cards at GiftCardMall.com by first going through the cash back portal, TopCashBack.  I suggested, too, that you could earn even more money by first buying American Express gift cards to get cash back and then using those American Express gift cards to buy Visa gift cards.  Here’s how…

1. Go through a cash back portal to buy American Express gift cards.

TopCashBack and BigCrumbs currently offer the best cash back rates (1.5% and 1.4%, respectively).  Via either portal, search for “American Express Gift Cards” and click through to the Amex gift card store.  When going through a cash back portal, American Express has recently added a top limit of $500 per card that can be purchased, but you can get around this limit by buying a personalized card (for details, see “Amex takes away $3K cash back gift cards“).

2. Register your American Express cards

Once you receive your American Express card(s), call 1-877-297-4438 to register each card with your full name and address.  You will need to talk to a person to do so (press 0, I believe).

3. Go through TopCashBack to GiftCardMall to buy Visa gift cards

You can buy Visa gift cards with values of up to $1000.  You will be charged $3.95 for each card, plus shipping charges.  Since you can’t easily split the payment across multiple credit cards, I’d recommend picking a value less than $1000 to cover fees and shipping.

For example, let’s say you have a $1000 American Express gift card.  You can’t easily use it to buy a $1000 Visa card because the total charge will be $1003.95 plus shipping.  If you choose the cheapest shipping option, the total will come to $1006.94. You won’t be able to use your $1000 Amex gift card for that purchase.  To make things work, you can instead buy a $993 Visa gift card so that the total will come to $999.94.  Trackable shipping is $2 more, so you could order a $991 Visa gift card to stay on the safe side.

Shipping charges go down slightly as you add more cards to your order so it may be necessary to test different combinations to find the optimal Visa card value for your needs.

When you check-out to pay, make sure to use the exact same name and address that you registered to your American Express gift card in step 2.

Also, do not try to place this order from a foreign country or when browsing via a VPN service.  I recently had my order stopped when going through a VPN.  I called GiftCardMall and found out (after they investigated) that the order was blocked due to a foreign IP address (even though I had chosen a Washington DC gateway).

Alternate Plan

Instead of buying sub $1000 Visa gift cards, another option is to buy GiftCardMall Choice Cards to cover fees and shipping.  For example, buy a $10 Choice card and then use it along with a $1000 Amex card to pay for a $1000 Visa card.  This approach takes planning, though.  I tested it successfully, but it took two days for my Choice e-gift card to arrive.

Cash Back Portal Tips

Things can go wrong when going through online shopping portals. The main risk is that your click-through may not be tracked properly.  To increase your chances of success, please see “How to ensure your portal points“.  Also note that if you place more than one order (e.g. you check out and pay more than once), then you should go through the portal each time first. 

Related Posts and Links

• Sign up for TopCashBack and/or BigCrumbs: Sign-Up Links
• Read more:
• Learning Amex gift card rules the hard way
• Better than free manufactured spend
• Amex takes away $3K cash back gift cards
• Gift card PINs
• Bluebird swipe reloads via ATM

But there is an easy workaround.  Read on… 

I’ve written a lot recently about the ability to buy American Express gift cards and get cash back through sites like BigCrumbs and TopCashBack.  The best deals are usually the highest denomination gift cards since the card fees and shipping charges are then a very small percent of the overall cost.  Well, sometime this week, American Express changed their site.  It used to be that you could buy their gift cards with denominations up to $3,000.  Now, if you start from a cash back portal, the highest denomination you’ll see is $500.

Browse directly to American Express:

If you browse directly to American Express gift cards and click on the generic card on the top left, you can select values ranging all the way to $3,000:

Browse via cash back site:

If you start from a cash back site like BigCrumbs, the picture is different.  Now the largest denomination available is $500:

Simple Workaround

Currently, there appears to be a very simple workaround to this limit.  The trick is to buy a Personalized gift card which can still have a value of up to $3000:

To find the personalized gift card option, scroll all the way to the bottom of the Amex gift card screen and look for the little text saying “Gift Cards”:

This technique has the added benefit of allowing you to put your name on the gift card.  I haven’t tried this technique myself yet, but I’ve heard from several readers that cash back is awarded for personalized gift cards.

Hat tip: Delta Points

Today only (Monday, April 22 2013), the cash back portal, TopCashBack, is offering 2.5% cash back when buy gift cards after clicking through to “American Express Prepaid and Gift Cards”.  TopCashBack usually offers 1.5% cash back for American Express.  A competing cash back site, BigCrumbs, currently offers 1.4% cash back.

Note that TopCashBack will run a one day special for GiftCardMall a week from now (Monday, April 29).  On that day they will increase the GiftCardMall payout from 1.5% to 2%.  See “Better than free manufactured spend” for thoughts about how to leverage these promotions.

This post was written yesterday, so I didn’t have a way to capture a screenshot showing the temporary 2.5% cash back rate.  Instead, you will see below an expert artist rendering of what the screen may look like today:

Tips

• American Express gift cards (and prepaid cards) cannot be used as debit cards.
• Do not use Citibank cards to buy these gift cards as Citi is known to treat these purchases as cash advances (and will charge high fees).  If you are unsure whether your bank will treat these purchases as cash advances, you can protect yourself by calling and asking for your cash advance limit to be reduced to zero (some banks won’t allow it to go all the way to zero, but at least you should be able to lower it to less than you plan to pay online).
• Don’t go overboard.  If you buy tens of thousands of dollars of gift cards per month with one credit card, you are very likely to be targeted for a financial review.
• American Express has strict, but not clearly defined limits regarding how much you can buy per transaction.  See “Learning Amex gift card rules the hard way.”
• To pay less in fees for Amex gift cards, buy the cards shown in the top-left corner of the Amex Gift card page.  These cards can hold values up to $3000 each.  By going with larger value cards, the shipping and fees become a smaller percentage of the total.
• You may be able to find Amex discount codes online to save on shipping or to waive gift card fees.  TopCashBack, though, says “coupons that are not displayed on the TopCashback site, will nullify eligibility for cashback.”  So, it is safer to go without discount codes.
• You can order a customized gift card with your name on it, and a custom $ amount, by scrolling to the bottom of the Amex page and looking for the tiny link to “Gift Cards” (under the YouTube Icon).  See screenshots here: “Amex Gift Cards, this and that.”
• Don’t be surprised if it takes several months for cash back to become payable.  I bought a $3000 gift card through TopCashBack in January.  Within hours TopCashBack reported the transaction as pending (which was comforting), but 3 months went by before the cash back became payable.
• I can verify, from personal experience, that American Express does award miles / points when you use their credit cards to buy these gift cards.  That may change at any time, though.  So, go slow and check your statements regularly.

There are various techniques for “Manufacturing spend.”  The idea is to spend money on credit cards and get most or all of your money back.  These techniques are useful regardless of whether your goal is to meet minimum spend requirements on new credit cards, or to get large-spend bonuses, or simply to earn more points from your credit card.  In the past, most manufactured spend techniques have cost money.  For example, buying and liquidating reload cards (such as Vanilla Reload cards) is incredibly easy (if you have a store nearby that will sell them to you with a credit card), but they do cost $3.95 or more per card.  At a top value of $500 per card, the $3.95 fee amounts to a very reasonable .79% fee.

Recently, new opportunities have surfaced to manufacture spend thanks to the ability to assign PINs to debit gift cards (see “Gift card PINs“).  Since then, I’ve mentioned a few times that it is possible to make a profit while manufacturing spend by first buying American Express gift cards.  For example:

1. Go through BigCrumbs or TopCashBack to buy American Express gift cards for yourself and get 1.4% or 1.5% cash back.
2. Use the American Express gift cards to buy Visa gift cards either in-store or online at GiftCardMall.com.  Pay about 1% (or less) in fees.
3. Use the Visa gift cards at Walmart to load a Bluebird card (for an easy way to do this, see “Bluebird swipe reloads via ATM“).

You won’t get rich with the above process, but if you do it right you should come out slightly ahead financially while still manufacturing spend.  That’s a big improvement over paying to manufacture spend!

A better solution

A couple of days ago, blogger Tavel-Summary showed that TopCashBack is now paying 1.5% cash back for purchases of Visa gift cards through GiftCardMall!  After reading this, I immediately jumped online to try it.  I ordered two $1000 cards for a total cost of $2013.38 (which included card fees and track-able shipping).  Within a few hours, TopCashBack alerted me that $30 cash back was pending from GiftCardMall!  This new solution cuts out a step.  You can now earn money while manufacturing spend as follows:

1. Go through TopCashBack to buy Visa gift cards at GiftCardMall.com and get 1.5% cash back.
2. Use the Visa gift cards at Walmart to load a Bluebird card.

I still need to test how easy it is to use the PIN feature on the cards mailed from GiftCardMall, but I don’t expect to have any issues.

Caution: Many readers have had many problems with TopCashBack in the past, so there is some risk here.  My experiences, though, have been very good.  For example, I bought an American Express gift card through TopCashBack and it tracked appropriately, and I was paid 3 months later (which is a typical payback period for cash back portals).  Also, via my Million Mile Madness month, I spent thousands of dollars at Staples to get 5.5% cash back from TopCashBack, and not only did all purchases track appropriately, but I’ve already received all of the money.

Earn more money

If you prefer getting more money over simplicity, you can stack these techniques:

1. Go through BigCrumbs or TopCashBack to buy American Express gift cards and get 1.4% or 1.5% cash back.
2. Go through TopCashBack to buy Visa gift cards at GiftCardMall.com and get 1.5% cash back.  Pay with your American Express gift cards.
3. Use the Visa gift card at Walmart to load a Bluebird card (for an easy way to do this, see “Bluebird swipe reloads via ATM“).

In total, you can earn up to 3% cash back, minus a small amount to cover shipping and gift card fees.

Earn even more money

Due to technical issues last month, TopCashBack had to abort a planned one day American Express gift card promotion, but the deal is now back.  Even better, at my request, they’re now planning a 1 day promotion for GiftCardMall as well!  Here are the deals to look for:

• Monday April 22: TopCashBack will increase their American Express Gift Card payout to 2.5%.  One day only.
• Monday April 29: TopCashBack will increase their GiftCardMall payout for Visa gift cards to 2%.  One day only.

These offers are a week apart.  American Express usually sends out their gift cards very quickly so it should be possible to stack these offers:

1. April 22: Go through TopCashBack to buy American Express gift cards and get 2.5% cash back.
2. April 29: Go through TopCashBack to buy Visa gift cards at GiftCardMall.com and get 2% cash back. Pay with your American Express gift cards.

If all goes well, is should be possible to earn 4.5% cash back!

Tips

• Do not use Citibank cards to buy gift cards online as Citi is known to treat these purchases as cash advances (and will charge high fees).  If you are unsure whether your bank will treat these purchases as cash advances, you can protect yourself by calling and asking for your cash advance limit to be reduced to zero (some banks won’t allow it to go all the way to zero, but at least you should be able to lower it to less than you plan to pay online).
• Don’t go overboard.  If you buy tens of thousands of dollars of gift cards per month with one credit card, you are very likely to be targeted for a financial review.
• American Express has strict, but not clearly defined limits regarding how much you can buy per transaction.  See “Learning Amex gift card rules the hard way“
• To pay less in fees for Amex gift cards, buy the cards shown in the top-left corner of the Amex Gift card page.  These cards can hold values up to $3000 each.  By going with larger value cards, the shipping and fees become a smaller percentage of the total.
• You may be able to find Amex discount codes online to save on shipping or to waive gift card fees.  Readers have reported, though, that codes I’ve published in the past no longer work.
• Readers have said that GiftCardMall is very picky about ensuring that the billing name and address that you list on their site is exactly the same as the one registered to the credit card (or gift card) you pay with.  I haven’t had any issue, though, in using an Amex gift card that I sent to myself.  Presumably it was automatically registered with my mailing address.
• Don’t be surprised if it takes several months for cash back to become payable.

Links

TopCashBack referral links:

• Since Travel-Summary found the deal for getting cash back at GiftCardMall, please consider using his sign up link: http://goo.gl/RFo4b. 
• If you’d rather send me some love, I’ll receive a very small one-time commission if you signup with this link: http://www.topcashback.com/ref/frequentmiler

Also, here is my BigCrumbs sign-up referral link (I’ll receive a very small commission each time you receive cash back if you signup with this link)

Buying Amex gift cards through cash back portals such as BigCrumbs is a great way to time-shift your spending (usually to meet minimum spend requirements) or to offset costs involved with manufacturing spend.  Unfortunately, the process of buying gift cards online is not always as easy as it should be.  Reader Charlie S shared his experience with me and agreed to let me publish his story.  If you’re new to buying Amex gift cards, you might find this helpful:

I went to BigCrumbs to purchase Amex gift cards, ordered a $3,000 using my Fidelity Investment Rewards Amex. No issues.

One week later, I went back to order another $3,000 Amex card with the same credit card. The order was accepted, but about an hour later I got an email saying that my purchase was declined. I called the 800 number in the email to ask why, and the rep told me that the limit is $5,000 per credit card in a 14-day period.

After hanging up with them, I immediately went back to BigCrumbs to purchase an Amex gift card with my Chase Sapphire Preferred. This order went the same way — the order was accepted, but then an hour later I got an email saying the purchase was declined.

I called customer service again, and a different rep told me that the $5,000 limit applies to the individual, not the credit card.

I waited 15 days before going back to BigCrumbs to purchase Amex gift cards with my Fidelity Amex. This time, I tried to order one $3,000 gc and one $2,000 gc. The total order came to $5,000 + shipping and fees.

Again, this order went through, and then I got an email saying it was declined. I called customer service, and they told me that the limit is $5,000 TOTAL per order. Ordering $5,000 worth of gift cards is not allowed because the shipping and fees will put you over the $5,000 limit.

So I go to try one more time, this time ordering one $3,000 and one $1,000. The total for the order is $4,000 + shipping and fees. Same thing happens — order goes through, but then I get an email saying it was declined.

One more call to customer service, and this time the explanation baffles me. They tell me that even rejected orders get applied to your $5,000 per 14-day limit. My $3,000+$1,000 order got declined because the system already had me in for the $3,000+$2,000 order from earlier that day. Even though that order got declined, it was still in their system, applied to my name, and precluding me from purchasing any more gift cards for 14 days.

By now, I think I’ve learned the hard way what the rules are. Hopefully sharing this story can help the next guy avoid some of the pitfalls (and phone calls from my credit cards’ fraud department!).

-Charlie S

It’s worth noting here that American Express Gift Cards for Business have higher limits.  American Express’ FAQ says “There is maximum order size of $5,000 for personal Gift Cards and $75,000 for business orders.”  Note that the $5K and $75K limits are per-order limits.  The FAQ is silent about monthly limits.

What’s your story?

Have you tried to order $5K or more of Amex gift cards at a time?  Have you tried to order more per month?  What happened?  What did you learn?

Related posts and links

• Amex gift cards update
• Using the Target Amex card to run up spend
• TopCashBack sign-up referral link (I’ll receive a very small one-time commission if you signup with this link)
• BigCrumbs sign-up referral link (I’ll receive a very small commission each time you receive cash back if you signup with this link)

Buying American Express gift cards online is the first step in one of the most lucrative ways to manufacture spend.  The goal of manufacturing spend is to run up credit card charges (in order to meet min spend requirements, get points, achieve big spend bonuses, etc.) and to get your money back (or most of it, anyway).

When buying Amex gift cards online, it is possible to get cash back by going through a cash back portal.  Once you have the Amex gift cards, you can get your money back by using them to buy and cash out debit gift cards (see “Gift card PINs“), or to load and unload Target Amex cards (see “Using the Target Amex card to run up spend“), or to buy free after rebate items.

Choose a portal

BigCrumbs has offered cash back for Amex gift cards for years and has been very reliable.  Currently, they offer 1.4% cash back.  TopCashBack offers a slightly higher rate of 1.5% cash back, but many readers have reported having problems with their customer service.  Personally, TopCashBack has worked well for me, but since the difference in payout is so small, it makes sense to go with the portal you feel more comfortable with.

Regarding TopCashBack, I reported in February that my January Amex gift card purchases had reached “Confirmed” status.  I now have a quick update: my January purchases are now “Payable”, which means that I can request payment through an ACH transfer to my bank or via PayPal.  My cash back became payable almost exactly 3 months from the original purchase date.  This is a typical delay for cash back portals in general.

Use coupon codes

Many readers have reported success in getting cash back even if they used coupon codes to reduce gift card fees.  The HustlerMoneyBlog reports that the following codes are available:

No Fee Gift Card Waiver Codes:

• ADMINDAYVM- valid through 5/31/13
• ADMINGIFT6- valid through 5/31/13
• EMTHANK1- valid through 4/30/13
• EMTHANK2- valid through 4/30/13

Each of the above codes should eliminate the $3.95 purchase fee that is usually charged with each card ordered.

Free Shipping Waiver Codes:

• ADMIN2013 – valid through 5/1/2013

This code should reduce your shipping charges by $5.95.

Usually Amex will let you use either a fee waiver code or a free shipping code, but not both.  Also, sometimes Amex does not allow certain codes to be used with cash back portals.  Please report your experience in the comments below.

Update: Cash Advance Fees

If your credit card company treats gift card purchases as cash advances, then don’t do this!  The only bank I’m sure of that does this is Citibank.  With Chase and Amex you should be fine.  I don’t have personal experience with other banks, though.  If you’re unsure, you can protect yourself by calling your bank and asking them to reduce or eliminate your cash advance limit.

Related Posts and Links

• FatWallet sets a high bar for cash back portals
• Amex Gift Cards, this and that
• Using the Target Amex card to run up spend
• TopCashBack sign-up referral link (I’ll receive a very small one-time commission if you signup with this link)
• BigCrumbs sign-up referral link (I’ll receive a very small commission each time you receive cash back if you signup with this link)

While Bluebird continues to be one of the best tools available for collecting points and miles (see “Bluebird takes flight and changes the game“), it is just now living up to its promise of becoming a full fledged checking account alternative.

In my first ever post about American Express’ Bluebird card (see “Bluebird is coming. The sky isn’t falling“), I quoted American Express’ promise to add check writing capabilities:

In the first quarter of 2013, Bluebird will be adding additional features, such as more options to deposit money and check-writing capabilities.

And, true to their word, with a few days remaining in the first quarter, American Express did indeed add check-writing capabilities to Bluebird.  Additionally, they added Check by Mail deposits, and FDIC insurance.  They also raised the total account balance limit to $100,000 (but only for funds added through Direct Deposit and Check by Mail deposits).

Feature-wise, Bluebird now really does have all of the pieces needed to be a good alternative to a checking account.  The best part is that American Express charges no fees (except for ATM fees, which can be avoided by setting up direct deposit and using MoneyPass ATMs).  On the other hand, many readers have complained about Bluebird (often due to customer service issues) so they may still have a way to go to earn the average person’s business.

For points collectors, Bluebird has become incrementally better.  You can still buy Vanilla Reload cards at certain various stores (using a credit card in order to earn points), and then load the funds to Bluebird.  You can still access those funds through Bluebird’s Bill Pay feature, or by transferring money to another bank account.  And, now, you have the additional option to write a paper check.  Nice!

Checks are free until August (for your first order).  Here are details from the press release:

Bluebird Members have access to one free checkbook until August 2013. Thereafter, Bluebird Members enrolled in direct deposit can receive their first checkbook of 50 checks at no charge, otherwise direct deposit and non-direct deposit users can order a book of 50 checks for $26 (including shipping).

To get your free checks, log into your Bluebird account then go to “My Account… order Bluebird Checks”.  You will be given the option to order 50 or 100 checks.  Since the first order is free, I’d recommend going with 100.

Also see:

• View from the Wing: American Express Bluebird Becomes a Real Checking Account (Get Your Limited Time Free Checks Now)
• NerdWallet: Amex Bluebird Now Offers Check-Writing, FDIC Insurance. It’s a BFD.
• The official press release from American Express: American Express and Walmart Announce the Addition of FDIC Insurance and Worry-Free Check Writing to Bluebird®