One of my favorite tricks for saving money while increasing credit card spend is to buy gift cards at OfficeMax using one of my American Express business cards.  Amex business cards come with a perk called OPEN Savings.  With this program, you automatically receive rebates in the form of statement credits when using your card at certain merchants.  With OfficeMax, you currently get back 5% of any purchases of $100 or more (see image).

I regularly stop by my local OfficeMax to buy gift cards totaling $100 or more. If you can find gift cards you can really use, this can be a big win.  Even $200 Visa gift cards with $6.95 fees are a decent deal: After 5% cash back, you end up with 1.7% in savings.

Sadly, though, this deal is coming to an end.  A friend who goes by the handle greek2me sent me this notice that he received in the mail with his SPG card bill:

Starting June 15th, in store purchases won’t count!  Since OfficeMax doesn’t sell gift cards online (other than their own), this will effectively kill the gift card gravy train.

On the other hand, they will start giving 10% back for purchases greater than $250 made online.  This could be quite lucrative if/when OfficeMax carries Free After Rebate products, especially if we stack this discount with points or cash back from a shopping portal.  Also, OfficeMax frequently sells items with 100% back in rewards.  Any time they have enough of these to total $250, I’ll let you know! 

I also wonder what would happen if we bought OfficeMax gift cards online and then used them in store.  Would they allow purchase of other gift cards using their gift card?  It’s unlikely, but you never know.  I guess it’s time to add new experiments to the Frequent Miler Laboratory to-do list!

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If you’re looking to meet minimum spend on a new credit card, or increase spend on a card with bonuses for high spenders, here’s a neat little trick.  For this to work, you need either a Chase Ink card which gives 5X points for office supplies, or an Amex business card with OPEN savings which gives 5% back on purchases at OfficeMax of $100 or more.  See Preparing for Miles for more info about these cards.

Here it is in a nutshell:

• Go to OfficeMax and buy EBay gift cards.  Spend at least $100 each time to ensure you get 5% back with Amex cards.  If you’re using an Ink card, you can optionally go to Staples or Office Depot to see if they carry EBay cards.
• Watch EBay for $500 Walmart gift cards.  These usually sell for $485, which is a 3% discount.  When available, use your EBay gift cards to buy the Walmart cards.  You will get an additional 2% back in EBay bucks.
• When your Walmart cards arrive, go through Walmart.com to buy smaller denomination physical cards using your $500 card.  See Washing Walmart for more info.
• Go through MyDealsAndCoupons to PlasticJungle. Sell your Walmart gift cards to PlasticJungle for 92 cents on the dollar.  In other words, in exchange for your $500 worth of gift cards, Plastic Jungle will give you a check for $460.  Through MyDealsAndCoupons you will earn 3% of the sale price (3% of $460 = $13.80).  This comes to 2.76% of $500.

When you add up your costs and savings, you see that you lose 8% value when selling to PlasticJungle, but you gain 5% from Amex OPEN (or 5X from Ink) and 2.76% from MyDealsAndCoupons.  In other words, cash-wise, you end up very close to even.  Once you add in the 2% back in EBay bucks, though, you actually come out ahead!

Why only $10K?

EBay has a posted limit to how many gift cards can be used per 180 day period.  Supposedly you are limited to $500 in gift cards per purchase, and no more than $5000 in purchases in any 180 day period.  I say “supposedly” because a person on MilePoint reported buying a mutli-thousand dollar ring with gift cards.  It appears likely that EBay doesn’t enforce these limits, but I don’t yet have personal experience to prove it one way or another.

EBay gift card terms & conditions:

No more than a total of $500 in Gift Cards may be used per eBay purchase. Further, unverified PayPal accounts are limited to a total of $500 in Gift Card purchases in any 30-day period and verified PayPal accounts are limited to $5,000 in Gift Card purchases in any 180-day period.

Notes

• When purchasing more than $100 worth of gift cards at a time at OfficeMax, the cashier will need a manager’s override.
• EBay gift cards at OfficeMax usually are available in $25 and $50 denominations.  Yes, it is a bit painful to type in 10 gift card numbers when buying a Walmart card through EBay.  Often the cards start with the same sequence, so copy that sequence to the clipboard and paste in each time to save a little trouble.

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Last month I bought a $500 Walmart gift card on EBay.  When it arrived, I was afraid I had been scammed.  Read on to see why I bought the card, why I feared trouble, and how I protected my purchase…

To buy the $500 card, I spent $485 worth of EBay gift cards that I had purchased at Kmart using Sears gift cards.  The Sears gift cards had been purchased at Sears.com through the Ultimate Rewards mall for 10 points per dollar.  Are you with me so far?  When I purchased the $500 gift card on EBay for $485 I earned $9.70 in EBay bucks that can be used for future purchases.  My goal now is to turn the Walmart gift card into about $470 cash.  In the end, I will have spent $30 in exchange for $24.70 in EBay credit ($15 left over from the gift card and $9.70 in EBay bucks) and 5000 Ultimate Rewards points (worth $65.50 in Fair Trading Prices).  Since I’m sure I’ll use the EBay credit soon, my final tally will be to have spent $5.30 in exchange for 5000 Ultimate Rewards points.  That’s an excellent return, but arguably more trouble than it’s worth.  Anyway, you now know why I bought the Walmart card.

The card took almost a month to arrive.  I have no idea why the seller took so long, but be prepared if you make similar purchases!  Worse, when it arrived it looked weathered and used.  The rectangle on the back that hides the pin code had already been scratched off.  I was worried, of course, that I had been cheated.  Had the seller spent all the money on the card already?  I went to Walmart.com to check the gift card balance and was relieved to see that it had the full $500 amount on the card.  

I was still worried, though.  An unethical gift card seller could keep a copy of the card number and pin and, over time, drain the card of its value without the buyer knowing.  I was worried that if I sold the card to a gift card re-seller, as I had planned, they might receive the card with less value than when I shipped it.

Luckily, Walmart is one of the few online merchants that will let you buy gift cards using gift cards.  So, I used the questionable gift card to buy $500 worth of brand spanking new gift cards.  I picked out cute ones, just because I could:

I could have bought one $500 card, but I bought 5 $100 cards instead.  This way I can test out different card re-sellers to see who gives the best cash back and service when selling to them.  Also, some won’t buy cards with more than $300 value, so the smaller denominations are better in that way.  

The cards arrived promptly and in perfect condition.  I’ve sold two already and hope to report back the results soon.

So, there you have it: gift card laundering at its finest.

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Yesterday I described how it may be possible to buy and sell items from Nordstrom in order to effectively buy British Airways Avios miles for as low as half a cent each.  Please see this post for details.  I also promised to write a post describing how I went about finding the best items for resale.  This is that post.

WARNING: I am not an expert at this.  I’m barely even a novice at this!  I have one and only one experience in buying and selling multiple items for the purpose of earning miles (see Mileage run shopping results).  So, while I will describe my process, you should not think of this as expert advice!  It is just one guy’s approach.  Hopefully some readers who are better at this than me will chime in with better advice in the comments below.

The Goal

The goal, for me, is to find items that will resell easily for as little loss as possible.  I think of the total loss as the total price paid for miles.  For example, if I buy $1000 worth of merchandise at Nordstrom for 36 miles per dollar, I will receive 36,000 miles.  If, after selling this merchandise, I have a total loss of $180, then $180 is the price I paid for those 36,000 miles.  In order to calculate cost per mile, I divide the total loss by the total miles earned:  $180 / 36,000 = $.005 = .5 cents per mile.

Expenses

When planning to resell items, it is important to factor in all of the expenses you will incur:

• Sales taxwhen buying items (unless you are lucky enough to live in a no tax state!)
• Resale discount.  In order to sell your items, you will most likely need to heavily discount it from the amount you paid.
• Selling fees.  If you sell via EBay or Amazon, for example, they will take a hefty cut of your resale price.
• Shipping costs.  Unless you pass along the shipping costs to your buyers, or you sell locally, you will have to cover shipping to them.

If you Google for “eBay seller calculator”, “Amazon seller calculator”, etc., you’ll find web sites that can help you calculate your total profit (in this case, total loss).  Use these tools to estimate your loss and make sure that the final cost per mile is something you can live with.  If you don’t think you can end up with a final cost of less than 1 cent per mile you probably shouldn’t do it.

Items I look for

I look for items that meet the following criteria:

• Lightweight and small:  I like to offer free shipping and I don’t want to pay a fortune for shipping to my buyers.  Cameras, headphones, tablet computers, jewelry, watches, etc. are examples that fit this criteria.
• Good price: I look for items that sell for the same price (or less) on Amazon.com.  If an item is readily available through Amazon at a much lower price then there is little possibility that I can resell the item without taking a huge hit.  As I learned from DeltaGOLDflyer, in many cases it is possible to force a good price by using a merchant’s price match guarantee.  I haven’t ever done this, though.
• Consumer Electronics: I prefer to buy consumer electronics because both EBay and Amazon charge lower selling fees for items in this category (for fixed price sales).
• Ratings.  I look for items that get very good ratings/reviews: 4 stars or higher.
• Popularity: I want items that will resell easily.  Luckily Amazon.com has lists of best sellers in each of their departments.  For example, here is an example of Amazon’s best seller list for computers & add-ons.  I try to make sure that things I buy are in the appropriate best seller list.
• Resale value: This one is key.  I look for items that resell for as close to the purchase price as possible.  One way to do that is to search for the item on EBay and then filter the results to items that are “new” and to “completed listings”.  The results will show in green the items that sold and for how much.  In red are the items that did not sell.  Ideally most of the items in green sold in the ballpark of what I was hoping for, and hopefully the items in red were way overpriced.
• Competition: Uncheck the “completed listings” box on EBay to see how many people are selling the same item.  If there are too many, the market may be too competitive to be successful.

So, that’s about it.  I spend a lot of time surfing the merchant’s web site looking for items that might fit the criteria listed above.  I grab model numbers and search for them in Amazon and EBay to research their popularity, resale value, and competition.  Then, finally, I go with my gut: does it make sense to me that people would buy this from me?  Is this a cool/desirable product?  In the end, I take a deep breath, take out my credit card, and spend.

If you have other strategies for finding good items for resale, please comment below!

Win a Nook!

Reminder: Until Feb 14th, you can win a Barnes & Noble Nook Color simply by adding a comment to our ever growing story. Visit this page to participate!

As I reported in earlier posts, on December 9th I bought several items from Sears and received over 20 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.  I then sold those items on EBay for a small loss.  In the end I was out a total of $391.43, but I gained over 49,600 Ultimate Rewards points.  My cost per point came to .79 cents each.  I consider anything less than the Fair Trading Price of 1.31 cents to be a win, and anything less than 1 cent per point to be a big win.  For details about these exploits see the following posts:

• Mileage Run Shopping: Buying 162,000 Miles for $500
• Mileage Run Shopping Results

That wasn’t the whole story though.  Along the way I made mistakes, I made a friend, and I ended up with an extra Barnes & Noble Nook.  Read on.

The Auctions

I listed my items on EBay with free USPS Priority Mail shipping (e.g. I would pay for shipping) and I timed the auctions to end early enough before Christmas to ensure that anyone ordering a Christmas present would receive it in time.  In general, this strategy worked well, with one hiccup.  All of the items sold for a decent price.  With one item, the buyer immediately contacted me to say they didn’t really want the item.  I could have forced the issue, but instead I relisted it and it sold again, but without a problem the second time.

The Mix-up

The real fun occurred the Wednesday before Christmas.  I received a message from one of the buyers who said that she had ordered a Nook Color, but had received a Canon T3i DSLR camera instead!  She was very unhappy because the Nook was intended to be a Christmas present for her mom! 

Oh man.  I had accidentally swapped the Nook and the camera!  A look at the shipment tracking of the other package showed that it had not yet been delivered, but it was close.  I contacted the camera buyer to see if they too needed it by Christmas, but never heard back.

The Solutions

For the Nook buyer, I found a Sears within a few miles from her house.  Using extra Sears gift cards I had, I ordered a second Nook (through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, of course) and scheduled it for her to pickup at her local Sears.  She was so happy with this solution that she offered to overnight the camera to my other buyer!  I offered to pay her for this, of course, but she refused payment.  I couldn’t believe how generous she was!

So, now most of the problems were solved except that a Nook Color was still headed toward the camera buyer.  I had never heard back from him so I didn’t know if he would be willing to mail it back to me.  Instead, I found a USPS package recall form.  I filled it out and brought it to my local post office.  They were supposed to fax it to the delivery post office and call them as well.  I was told that a package recall had a pretty slim chance of success so I didn’t expect much, but when I checked the tracking info the next day, it showed that the package was set to “return to sender”!  Awesome!  All problems were solved!

It turned out that I had some money left on a Barnes and Noble e-gift card.  So, to thank the Nook Color buyer, I sent her the card.  I hope she or her mom got good value from it!  And, if you’re out there reading this, please once again accept my huge thanks for your help!

The Original Nook

Apparently items marked “return to sender” are not considered rush items by the post office.  It took nearly a month for me to get the package back!  I do have it, though, and that’s what counts.  Thanks USPS!

So, what should I do with the Nook?  I could sell it and make a decent profit as before.  With only one item to sell it is much less likely that I’ll mix it up and send it the wrong way.  But, no.  I have a better idea.  I’m going to give away the Nook!  I have an idea for a contest that I think will be a lot of fun.  So, if you have your eyes on a Nook Color, check back soon!

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December 9th 2011 was a big day!  It was the day in which Sears brought back 10 points per dollar in the Ultimate Rewards Mall and it was the day in which I did my first true mileage run which resulted in Platinum status on Delta and 54,000 Delta miles!  Many of you followed along as I flew from city to city using Delta’s in-flight internet to buy gift cards and electronics at Sears.com.  I finished selling everything off on EBay and now have the results.

Purchases

I bought three DSLR cameras: the Canon T3, the Canon T3i, and the Nikon D5100.  I also bought a Canon lens (in order to qualify for a $100 off deal for buying both a camera and lens), and a Barnes and Noble Nook Color e-reader.

Sales

I listed all of the items on EBay, each with a starting price of only $.99, free shipping, and no reserve fee.  In other words, I gambled – all in.  Most items sold at close to the original price except for the T3i which sold for slightly higher.

Expenses

I had to pay sales tax on each item that I purchased from Sears.  I also had to pay EBay closing fees, PayPal transaction fees, and USPS shipping.

Net Loss

Before accounting for the value of the points gained, I lost a total of $391.43.  With purchases that totaled $2277, that comes to a loss of about 17%.  I had hoped for a loss of only about 10%, but I still came out ahead:

Gains

Not counting points earned from personal purchases, I gained over 49,600 Ultimate Rewards points from these purchases.  I also gained 1% in Sears’ Shop Your Way Rewards (which can be used for future Sears’ purchases).  If I wanted to, I could completely cover my losses by trading in 39,100 points for cash and keep the rest as profit.  However, I value Ultimate Rewards points more than that!  At the fair trading price of 1.31 cents each, the points gained are worth $650 plus about $22 in Shop Your Way rewards.  Not bad!  Even better, I was able to put significant spend on my credit card towards meeting minimum spend requirements.

Buying Points and Miles

Since I don’t plan to trade in my points for cash, I prefer to think of this whole transaction as a complicated way to buy points.  Since I spent a total of $391.43 and gained over 49,600 points, my cost per point came to .79 cents each.  I consider anything less than the fair trading price of 1.31 cents to be a win, and anything less than 1 cent per point to be a big win.  So, yes, despite the $391 in losses, I think I won big!

How did you do?

I know that a number of you did your own version of this gift card churn.  How did you do?

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This Perpetual Point Machine is best with two people working together.

In previous posts (such as this one), I defined the Perpetual Point Machine (PPM) as “a scheme in which, after a little push, hotel points and/or airline miles are accrued over and over again, forever, with little or no additional work or money.” We have yet to identify a perfect PPM, but it has been fun and rewarding pursuing it. Today I’ll describe a PPM that requires a little team work.

Gift Card Harvesting

Yesterday, I showed how it is possible to grow the value of gift cards over time (see Gift Card Harvesting). The idea is to buy Sears gift cards, use them to buy EBay gift cards at Kmart, and then use the EBay gift cards to buy discounted Sears gift cards. With the addition of 2% back in EBay Bucks, you will end up with more money than you started with! There are a few problems with this technique, though: 1) Not all Kmart stores / cashiers allow buying gift cards with gift cards; 2) Not all EBay gift sellers are honest (they can sell you a gift card with $0 balance, for example); and 3) There is no guarantee that Sears gift cards will be available to buy on EBay (especially if a lot of people start doing this trick!). I will explain soon how these issues can be overcome, but first let me remind you of another scheme:

Buying Miles

Last week, I wrote a post about how to buy miles cheaply (see Buy Miles for 1.2 Cents or Less). The idea there was to buy Sears gift cards for 6 to 10 extra points per dollar through the Ultimate Rewards Mall, then use them to buy more valuable gas cards (BP, for example) at Kmart, and then sell them through a service like PlasticJungle. As with Gift Card Harvesting, there are a few problems with this technique: 1) Not all Kmart stores / cashiers allow buying gift cards with gift cards; 2) From reader comments, it seems that not all Kmarts carry gas cards; and 3) Some people have reported having very bad luck with PlasticJungle. Now let’s see a way to overcome these issues:

Working Together

To make this PPM viable, you need two people: a gift card harvester and a mile buyer. The gift card harvester needs to live or work near a Kmart that carries EBay gift cards and is willing to let you buy them with Sears gift cards (Kmart is owned by Sears and their gift cards are interchangeable). So, this PPM doesn’t avoid the problem of finding a way to buy gift cards with gift cards, but only one person in the scheme needs to be able to do so. Both people need EBay accounts (you must be at least 18 years old to have one).

Here is what to do:

Step 1: Both Buy Sears Gift Cards through the Ultimate Rewards Mall

On December 9^th, all Sears’ purchases through the Ultimate Rewards Mall are awarded 10 points per dollar. This is the day to buy them! The mile buyer, in particular, must make sure to buy the highest $ value cards allowed ($500 each).

Step 2: Gift Card Harvester (GC Harvester) upgrades Sears gift cards to EBay cards at Kmart

See this post for more details about this step.

Step 3: Mile Buyer lists a $500 Sears Gift Card for sale on EBay

Set the “Buy it Now” price at $490 (or whatever amount both of you agree to).

Step 4: GC harvester buys the gift card through EBay

The gift card harvester needs to be ready to go as soon as the Sears card is listed because you don’t want anyone else to snatch it up! By selling a high dollar value item at a fixed price, the seller saves a bit on EBay seller fees. In this example, if the card is sold for $490, the buyer will get $442.59 after EBay and Paypal fees are factored in. This is 90.3% of the selling price or 88.5% of the card’s face value. Remember though, that the Sears cards were bought through the UR Mall and with a rewards credit card (ideally the Chase Sapphire Preferred). This way, the buyer receives 11.49 points per dollar spent on Sears gift cards. Since points are worth more than a penny each, the mile buyer comes out ahead. Meanwhile, the gift card harvester has just increased the value of the gift card by $19.80 ($10 by buying at a discount and $9.80 in EBay Bucks).

Step 5: Delivery

One of the hidden fees in selling things on Ebay is the cost of shipping whatever you sell. Ideally, the friends working together on this PPM live or work near each other and can simply hand over the purchases. This way, shipping fees are nonexistent and there is no danger of losing things in the mail.

Step 6: Repeat

Steps 2 through 5 can be repeated until the Mile Buyer has sold all of his/her gift cards. Note that EBay only allows you to list one gift card for sale at a time so you really do need to do this sequentially. If you want to go back to step 1 and buy more Sears cards, note that the value of buying gift cards will drop after December 9^th (probably back to 6 points per dollar). I expect (and hope!) that there will be more 10 point promotions in the future, though.

Variations

The mile buyer can do even better with this PPM if he/she becomes a “Top rated seller” on EBay. In this way, they will get discounted fees and so earn more with each transaction. The rules for becoming a top rated seller can be found here: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/top-rated.html

You might be tempted to play both parts of this PPM yourself. You could theoretically open two EBay accounts under different names and do it all. I would advise against that, however. I’m pretty sure it would violate EBay rules and maybe even break a law or two. You really don’t want to risk getting caught with something like this.

Analysis

I think this PPM is viable, but I have to admit I haven’t tried it. I’m new to EBay so there could be additional “gotchas” that I haven’t thought about. I also don’t think the rewards here necessarily justify the effort involved. Most of the risk and work is on the side of the Gift Card Harvester so that person really needs to think about whether it is worth it to them. Let us know in the comments below what you think. Are you going to play this two player PPM?

Ultimate Rewards

Many schemes I have (and will) publish require access to the Ultimate Rewards Mall. In my opinion, the best option for getting access to the mall is the Chase Sapphire^SM Preferred Card. If you don’t already have one, you can sign up with this link. Even if you don’t want to try any Frequent Miler schemes, this is a great card. The signup bonus alone is worth $500 in cash back, or $625 in travel booked through Chase, or more than $1000 in travel if you convert the points to United Airlines miles and/or Hyatt points. That last point is really key to the value of this card: Ultimate Rewards points earned with this card are instantly transferable to a number of airline and hotel programs. So, you can shop around to find the best miles and points redemptions before transferring your points and in that way get some incredible values from these points! I will get a small commission if you use my link, but you’ll get the same best offer available anywhere. I promise I would recommend this card with or without the referral commission. In fact, I have recommended it many times prior to my signing up for a referral network.

With a green gift card thumb, you can grow the value of your gift cards over time.

Buried deep in the comments section of an old, no longer viable Frequent Miler post, a reader tossed out a little nugget of information that I found quite amazing. He had bought Sears gift cards and had found a way to grow their value over time. I didn’t publish his idea right away for a few reasons. First, I wanted to try it out myself to make sure the technique works. I’ve tried it, and yes I can confirm that it works! Second, I was concerned that publishing the idea would destroy it. Fortunately, I believe I have a solution to that issue, which I’ll explain at the end of this post.

Overview

The idea is to buy Sears, Kmart, or Lands’ End gift cards (they are interchangeable) and get bonus miles for the purchase. Next, upgrade the gift cards to EBay gift cards (details below). Then, on EBay, buy discounted Sears, Kmart, or Lands’ End gift cards. Rinse and repeat. Details of each step follow:

Step 1: Buy Sears, Kmart, or Lands’ End Gift cards

Since Kmart and Lands’ End are owned by Sears, their gift cards are all interchangeable. The best way to buy these gift cards is through Chase’s Ultimate Rewards Mall. The UR Mall gives 6 extra points per dollar spent at Sears and Kmart, even for gift card purchases. Even better, on December 9^th, the UR Mall will give 10 extra points per dollar for Sears’ purchases! If you value UR points very conservatively at 1.5 cents each, then this is like a 15% rebate! So, my recommendation is to buy Sears gift cards on December 9^th through the UR Mall.

Fine print:
1. When shopping through the UR Mall, Sears will give you points for either buying or using gift cards. Kmart will give you points for buying gift cards, but not for using them. Lands’ End claims that it will not award points for gift card purchases, but is silent on whether the use of gift cards qualifies. The bottom line is that I can vouch for the fact that Sears and Kmart will award points for buying gift cards and I can vouch for the fact that using them through Sears will also get you points. Try any other combination at your own risk. Also note that these rules may change at any time.

2. No tax, delivery, or service fees are charged for gift card purchases

3. This technique will work with either physical or e-gift cards, but physical cards are a bit easier to use at Kmart (see step 2).

Step 2: Upgrade to EBay Gift Cards

Take your Sears/Kmart/Lands’ End gift cards to Kmart and search for their gift card rack. Note that Kmart often has multiple gift card racks and they’re not all created equal! Some racks have better selections than others. Your goal is to find the rack that has EBay gift cards. If your local Kmart doesn’t sell these, then you’re out of luck. If you do find them, take them to the checkout counter and pay for them with your Sears/Kmart/Lands’ End gift cards.

Fine print:
1. A number of people have told me that they have called their local Kmart and were told that you can’t buy gift cards with gift cards. All I can do is verify that this has worked at my local Kmart (Ann Arbor, MI), but it depends which cashier I go to!  It’s worth noting two things: Amex gift cards do not work (the register will reject gift cards as payments for them), but others I’ve tried (EBay and BP cards) do work. Also, I once had a clerk say “ooh, I don’t know if this will work”, but when she swiped my gift card in the register, it worked fine. So, if you’re at the register and you are told that you can’t buy gift cards with gift cards, ask them to give it a try just in case.  If they refuse, try again another day with a different cashier.

2. If you use e-gift cards, Kmart requires a manager override for using them at the store. This can cause a long delay which can be especially painful if you have irate customers waiting in line behind you. I highly recommend going to Kmart early in the morning or some other time when few customers are there!

Step 3: Buy Sears / Kmart / Lands’ End Gift Cards at a Discount

Now that you have a pile of EBay gift cards, you can shop online at EBay.com and use the gift cards as payment. The trick here is to find Sears, Kmart, or Lands’ End gift cards being sold at or below face value, and with free shipping. Make sure you are signed up for the “EBay Bucks Rewards Program”. This way, 2% of all of your purchases will be rebated to you in the form of EBay bucks. You can use the EBay bucks to buy more gift cards!

Step 4: Repeat

Go back to Step 2 and do it all again. You can repeat this process indefinitely. With each cycle, your gift card stash will grow by 2% or more. This may seem like a lot of effort for very small gain, but I would estimate that once you get used to this you can earn a minimum of $20 for a half hour of work (harvesting $1000 of gift cards). If you are able to find gift cards through EBay for less than face value, then your half hour income will be considerably more. This could be a great part time job for a teenager if you have a nearby Kmart and if you’re willing to let them use your EBay account (EBay users are required to be at least 18 years old).

Step 5: Cash Out

Once you have grown your gift card stash high enough, you can cash out in many ways. The best is to use the EBay or Sears gift cards directly for purchases you would make anyway. If you would rather get cash, I’ll be writing more about this in the future, but some ideas can be found in this post: Buy Miles for 1.2 Cents or Less.

Supply and Demand

Some of you have already realized a potentially fatal flaw in this whole scheme. The fact that I have published this process means that more people will start doing it and will therefore drive up competition for Sears gift cards on EBay. Pretty soon it will be impossible to find any gift cards at or below face value. So, what is the solution? Tomorrow I will publish a complimentary scheme in which people will profit from selling Sears gift cards on EBay. This way, we will hopefully simultaneously drive up both supply and demand. In fact, it should be possible to team up with a friend or relative to ensure that both a buyer and seller exist. Stay tuned for more!

Ultimate Rewards

Many schemes I have (and will) publish require access to the Ultimate Rewards Mall. In my opinion, the best option for getting access to the mall is the Chase Sapphire^SM Preferred Card. If you don’t already have one, you can sign up with this link. Even if you don’t want to try any Frequent Miler schemes, this is a great card. The signup bonus alone is worth $500 in cash back, or $625 in travel booked through Chase, or more than $1000 in travel if you convert the points to United Airlines miles and/or Hyatt points. That last point is really key to the value of this card: Ultimate Rewards points earned with this card are instantly transferable to a number of airline and hotel programs. So, you can shop around to find the best miles and points redemptions before transferring your points and in that way get some incredible values from these points! I will get a small commission if you use my link, but you’ll get the same best offer available anywhere. I promise I would recommend this card with or without the referral commission. In fact, I have recommended it many times prior to my signing up for a referral network.

In my recent post, Buy Miles for 1.2 Cents or Less, I showed a way to get airline miles by buying Sears gift cards, upgrading them, and then selling them. What I didn’t mention in that post, is that you can get all of those miles for free if you can find ways to use Sears gift cards for things you would buy anyway.  For those new to this: you can buy Sears gift cards through the Chase Ultimate Rewards Mall in order to receive 6 to 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar (see the previously sited post for more information).  Since Ultimate Rewards points are quite valuable, this is a significant rebate off of the cards.  However once you buy the cards, you need to do something with them!   To help you out, below are some ideas for how to spend those gift cards. One thing to note: Sears owns both Kmart and Lands End, so you can use Sears gift cards in both of those stores as well as at Sears.  Another note: you can buy either e-gift cards or physical gift cards, but in my experience the physical cards are a bit easier to redeem at KMart.

Sears

• Shoes
• Clothing
• Jewelry
• TVs and other electronics
• Washer & dryer
• Refrigerator
• Vacuum cleaner
• Tools
• Power tools
• Garage door opener
• Automotive parts
• Tires
• Windows
• Doors
• Gutters
• Roofing

Lands End

• Clothing
• Shoes
• Boots
• Winter gear

Kmart

• Prescription drugs
• Over the counter drugs
• Laundry detergent
• Cleaning supplies
• Sports equipment
• Garden stuff
• Toys
• Holiday stuff

Other Stores

Go to Kmart and find the gift card racks. Use your Sears (or Kmart) gift cards to buy gift cards that you would actually use:

• Gas cards
• Movie cards
• Restaurant cards
• Southwest Airlines
• Marriott

Just About Anything

(This is the infinite part)

• EBay
  (One of the gift cards available to buy at Kmart is the EBay gift card. You can use that card to buy anything available through EBay – including other gift cards!)

Conclusion

If you plan to buy any of the stuff listed above, consider buying Sears (or Kmart) gift cards in order to get airline miles, and then use the gift cards to make the purchases you would have made anyway. You will find details about buying the gift cards here: Buy Miles for 1.2 Cents or Less

If you are interested in getting Ultimate Rewards points for purchasing gift cards, you will need your own Chase Sapphire^SM Preferred Card. If you don’t already have one, you can sign up with this link. Even if you don’t want to buy gift cards, this is a great card. The signup bonus alone is worth $500 in cash back, or $625 in travel booked through Chase, or more than $1000 in travel if you convert the points to United Airlines miles and/or Hyatt points. That last point is really key to the value of this card: Ultimate Rewards points earned with this card are instantly transferable to a number of airline and hotel programs. So, you can shop around to find the best miles and points redemptions before transferring your points and in that way get some incredible values from these points! I will get a small commission if you use my link, but you’ll get the same best offer available anywhere. I promise I would recommend this card with or without the referral commission. In fact, I have recommended it many times prior to my signing up for a referral network and I use it every day as my main go-to credit card.