Dell is currently offering two stackable specials.  Thanks to reader Dee Tee for alerting me to this deal:

1. Buy $350 worth of gift cards for $300

This offer ends tomorrow.  Buy a $300 eGift card and get a $50 eGift card.  Note that the $50 card is only valid for 90 days, so do this only if you have a purchase in mind.

2. Buy select PCs over $699 and get a $200 promo eGift card

You do need to provide evidence that you are a student or that you’re buying this for a student, but it appears to be very easy to do.

Here are a couple of laptops that qualify and are only $700:

3. Stack savings and points

Suppose you plan to buy a $700 laptop.  Here are some ways to increase saving and point earnings:

• Buy two $300 eGift cards in order to get $700 worth of eGift cards. That alone will give you approximately 14% savings on a $700 laptop!
• Pay for the two $300 Dell gift cards using Visa or Amex gift cards that you bought for extra points (see, for example, “One card to rule them all”, and “What’s my X?”).  Dell allows up to two credit cards for each purchase so you could use a $100 Visa gift card and a $200 Visa gift card or a prepaid Amex card, etc.  Assuming 5X earnings, you will receive 3500 Ultimate Rewards points.
• Go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall for all purchases.  You probably won’t earn points for buying the gift cards (although it can’t hurt to try), but you should earn points when using the gift cards.  The Terms & Conditions say “Eligible on the redemption, not purchase, of gift cards.”  Currently Dell Home is at 5X in the Ultimate Rewards Mall.  For the laptop purchase, you will earn $700 X 5 = 3500 Ultimate Rewards points.
• If all goes well, you should then receive a $200 eGift card.  Remember to go through the Ultimate Rewards Mall again to use the gift card for whatever you want.  Assuming you make a $200 purchase, you can then expect 1000 Ultimate Rewards points.

4 Add it up

If you manage to buy a laptop for exactly $700 and then something else for exactly $200, here are your total costs and benefits:

• Total cost: $600
• Total merchandise value: $900
• Total savings: 33.3%
• Total Ultimate Rewards points: 8000 (worth over $100 according to the Fair Trading Price).

Will it work?

One question I have is whether you can really apply two regular eGift cards and two promotional eGift cards to the purchase of a $700 laptop.  The terms and conditions have this to say about using multiple promotional gift cards:

Using Multiple Cards

10. Dell will only accept a limited number of Cards per purchase. If you would like to use more than one Card, you can merge funds from multiple Cards onto one Card by calling Dell’s Customer Service department at 1-800-624-9897. Your Card can only be merged with other non-expiring Cards issued by Dell or through its retailers and affiliates. When you call you will be asked to fax photo copies of the Cards to verify possession. Gift cards that were not originally purchased but were distributed by Dell or its partners for free may not be merged with purchased Cards. Dell reserves the right to reject request for consolidation of any Cards at its own discretion for any reason.

Thanks Dell, but this doesn’t answer the question.  Specifically, how many is a “limited number of Cards per purchase”?  If anyone tries, please let us know!

After reading my earlier post “One card to rule them all” many people ran out to their local Office Depot stores to buy Vanilla Reload cards with their Ink Bold credit cards.  This is a brief follow up…

Cash or credit?

So far, most people (with a couple of exceptions) have reported success in buying reload cards with their credit cards (I’ve done it 3 times now). However, many people have mentioned the fact that the reload website (vanillareload.com) is pretty specific about using cash.  Here’s a screenshot for example (the same image is on the back of each reload card):

I haven’t found any place that specifically says “credit is not allowed”, but that is a reasonable assumption given the text on both this site and the American Express Prepaid site.

So, one question now is whether “cash only” is really a rule, or more of a recommendation.  It’s possible that it is up to each merchant (like Office Depot) to determine the rules.  I was able to find out that InComm (the company behind the reload cards) specifically supplies technology to merchants that supports credit card processing (see this page, for example).  So, it’s safe to say that InComm specifically allows credit card purchasing of some of their products, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the rules for this one product.

When I first purchased one of these cards using my Ink Bold, I was sure it was a fluke.  However, I then talked to an industry insider who promised me that these cards are different from others (Green Dot MoneyPaks, for example) and that the ability to use credit cards won’t go away.  Was he right?  We’ll see.  A number of commenters on my previous posts are betting against him.

Say no to taxes!

A couple of people have reported being charged sales tax for purchases of these reload cards (and for Vanilla Visa cards).  Don’t do it!  Sales tax should not be charged.  If you do pay sales tax, it will wipe out the benefit of using these cards.  Argue or walk away… just don’t pay.

Chase fear away

I do want to remind people about my post “Why Chase cancels accounts (and how to protect yourself).”  This will probably scare you.  Good.  Read the post and specifically read the “do” and “don’t” section for some help in how best to proceed.

Wow, great stuff is happening for Chase Ink fans!  Yesterday I showed how to earn 5X on all purchases without the hassle of gift cards.  I also reported that Staples has increased their Ultimate Rewards Mall bonus for Staples to 5X when you log in with your Ink card.  What does it all mean?

First, if you plan to buy any gift cards, check staples.com to see if they have what you need.  By going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall and using your Ink card you will earn 5X from the mall and 5X from your card’s office supply category bonus to earn a true total of 10X!  Yes, this means you can get 10X for Starbucks, Marriott, and Southwest to name just a few!

If, instead, your goal is to get Visa or Amex gift cards (or prepaid cards), there are some fantastic options if you use your Ink card:

• Option 1: Go through UR Mall to Staples.com and buy $100 Visa for $105.95
• Option 2: Go through TopCashBack to Staples.com and buy $100 Visa for $105.95 (you will get 5.5% back)
• Option 3: Go in person to an office supply store (OfficeMax, for example) to buy a $200 Visa gift card for $206.95. 
• Option 4: Go in person to Office Depot to buy a $500 Visa prepaid debit card (non refillable) for $504.95.
• Option 5: Go in person to Office Depot to buy $500 reload packs for reloading Amex Prepaid cards.  The cost for each is $503.95.

The first option sort of gives you 10X points, but with a hefty 6% fee.  The second option comes very close to true 5X thanks to the cash back.  The third option starts at 5X, but with 3.5% in fees.  The fourth and fifth options have much lower fees as a percentage of the face value.

But, what are the exact numbers?  Which option is best?  The answer depends a bit on how much you value Ultimate Rewards points.  The table below computes the true “X” for each option depending on whether you value points at 1 cent each, 1.31 cents (the Fair Trading Price amount), or 2 cents each.  The idea is that some of the points earned are used to reimburse you for the card fee.  The points remaining make up the true “X”:

As you can see in the table above, buying through the Ultimate Rewards Mall is almost always the best “X” unless you assign low value to points, in which case TopCashBack is the winner.  Of course, with both of these options the largest denominations available are $100, which can be a hassle to spend.

To get larger denomination cards, the best option is to go in-store and you’ll get over 4X when loading $500 at a time, regardless of the approach you take.  For convenience, I much prefer the reloadable American Express card option (for more on that card, see “One card to rule them all”).  However, sometimes you do need a Visa or Mastercard so luckily that option works well too!  For more about that option, see “Almost too good to be true.”

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I’ve written many posts showing how to earn points or cash back when buying bank gift cards (e.g. Visa, Mastercard, or Amex gift cards).  For some examples, see (“5X everywhere!,” “Turn your Amex into Visa and Save $,” and “Almost too good to be true”).  Buying gift cards can be a great way to earn extra points and to meet minimum spend requirements.  The problem is that even though these gift cards are like money, they cannot be deposited into your bank account, and cannot be used to pay your credit card bill.

Below I’ve listed some ideas for how to turn gift cards into cash.  Before using any gift cards online, be sure to register them with your home address.  Some gift cards only allow registration of your zip code.  In those cases, you’ll find that not all online options work.  With one such card, I was successful in using it to pay my State Farm insurance online, but I was unsuccessful in using it at Amazon.com or Walmart.com.

Spending

The best way to deal with bank gift cards is to spend them in daily use.  That way, you get 100% of their value.  Of course, using gift cards this way can be a big headache, but it is a reasonable option.  One good way to spend them is by paying your insurance bill.  I’ve done this successfully multiple times with State Farm.  Some people have also reported success in using $500 debit gift cards to pay taxes.

Amazon Payments

Amazon Payments is a service that allows you to send payments to friends and family members using credit cards.  You’re allowed to pay friends up to $1000 per month.  As long as you have a gift card that lets you register your full name and address, Amazon Payments should work.  Caution: do not send money back and forth between two people with this service.  Amazon Payments will shut you down if they see that pattern.

PayDivvy

This service is just like Amazon Payments but without the $1000 limit and without the “free” feature.  It costs 3.5% to send money using a credit card with this service, so factor that in if you’re thinking of doing this.  To try this out, I sent $193.24 to my wife.  With the 3.5% fee, the charge came to exactly $200.  This was just the right amount to liquidate a $200 Visa I had bought at OfficeMax.

Square

Square is a little device that attaches to your smart phone and allows you to swipe credit cards for payments.  Over night, the money paid by credit card is deposited into your linked bank account, less a 2.75% transaction fee.  In general this would be a great way to turn gift cards into cash, except for one little hitch: Square terms and conditions prohibit using their service for cash advances.  They will notice (and freeze your account) if you run too many gift cards, especially if the gift cards are registered to yourself!  I listed Square here for completeness, but I do not recommend using it for the purpose of cashing out gift cards.

Buying and Selling Stuff

Finding ways to profit from buying and selling can be a real struggle, especially since services like EBay and Amazon Marketplace take a pretty big percentage of each sale.  However, if you do figure out a way to do this profitably (or at least with minimal loss), it can be a good way to turn gift cards into cash.  One example of how I’ve done this successfully is when I found items on clearance at Kohl’s that cost less than the going rate on Amazon.com.  I used every trick in the book to save a lot more (and earn lots of points), and I bought several hundred dollars worth.  I then turned around and shipped the items to Amazon.com to be sold via their Fulfillment by Amazon service.  Amazon did take a big chunk of each sale, but I was still able to make a modest profit.

Buying and Selling Merchant Gift Cards

This can be tricky and fraught with danger, but the possibilities are certainly there for turning gift cards into cash by buying and selling merchant gift cards (e.g. Walmart cards, gas cards, etc.).  I’m in the process of running some experiments along these lines and I hope to report more soon.  In the meantime, take a look at “Gift cards: buy low, sell high, get cash back.”  Probably the easiest option for cashing in gift cards (but not the most profitable) is to buy high value merchant gift cards at face value, and then sell them by first going through a cash back portal.  By going through TopCashBack to an appropriate gift card reseller and selling gift cards from Target, Walmart, or several gas companies, you can get back as much as 96% of your money.  As, I said, it’s not a profitable route, but it’s pretty easy.

Micro Loans

Kiva.org is a micro loaning organization that allows loans to be funded by credit card.  You do not get paid interest on your loans, but you do help real people when loaning money.  Note that it can take many months to get your money back, but about 99% of all loans do get fully repaid.  For more information see “How to maximize points and virtue through Kiva loans”.

Other Ideas?

Please let me know if you have other strategies for cashing in gift cards.  I’ll keep this post updated as new ideas come along.

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I write a lot about gift cards.  I’ve written about how use gift cards to save money at Amazon.com, Kohl’s, and just about everywhere.  I’ve also written many posts about how to leverage gift cards to earn points and miles.  For just a few examples, see “Gift Card Churning,” “5X everywhere!,” and “Almost too good to be true”

All of these posts don’t change the fact that dealing with gift cards can be a pain in the you know what.  Carrying a big stack of cards is no fun.  Trying to remember how much money is left on each card is worse.  Then, between e-gift cards and physical gift cards, the chance of simply losing or forgetting about your money increases as you get more cards.

Luckily, GoWallet is there to help.  [I realize that sounds a lot like a commercial -- that wasn’t my intent.  I’m not being paid in any way for this review].

Ever since a reader named Anne told me about GoWallet, I’ve been using it to keep track of my gift cards.  GoWallet can be accessed on the web or on your smart phone (I use it on my iPhone).  It’s a simple matter to type in each gift card’s number and PIN, and from then on, use GoWallet to find that information.  Your card numbers are protected both by a login password and a PIN code for extra security.

Registering Cards

When you get bank gift cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex), it’s a good idea to register your name and address.  Often, online purchases are not possible unless your card is registered.  One nice feature of GoWallet is that for some Visa gift cards, you can register your name and address directly within GoWallet.  This feature worked for me with $200 Visa cards I bought at OfficeMax, but did not work with the $500 gift cards I bought at Office Depot. 

Tracking Card Balances

When this works, it is a killer feature.  If you’re about to use a gift card, simply open GoWallet and click the Update Balance button.  Soon, you’ll see exactly how much money is left on your card.  This feature has worked successfully for me with $200 Visa gift cards purchased at OfficeMax, $100 Visa gift cards purchased online at Staples.com, and with Kohl’s gift cards.  The feature has not worked with $500 gift cards purchased at Office Depot, or with Walgreens or Sears gift cards.

Pain Reliever / Life Saver

Since I’ve started using GoWallet, I’ve found that gift cards are still a pain in the ass, but less so than before.  I like that when I think a card is empty, I can use GoWallet to double check before tossing the card in the trash.  One time I apparently forgot to do this because GoWallet showed a small balance for a card that I had already discarded.  I would never have known without GoWallet!  Thankfully, I was able to use the card number stored in GoWallet to buy myself an Amazon gift card with the exact remaining balance.

Now that I’m used to GoWallet, I can’t imagine trying to deal with gift cards without an app like this one.  My only frustration is that many merchant gift cards and bank gift cards do not work with GoWallet’s balance checking feature.  In those cases, GoWallet is still useful, but much less so. 

Competitors?

If you use or know about competing products, please let me know.  I’d love to do some comparisons to see which is best.

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This is just a quick note before the tax filing deadline:  A reader reported via FlyerTalk that you can pay your taxes with Visa gift cards purchased from Office Depot.  I reported recently that you can earn 5 points per dollar by buying these gift cards (see Almost too good to be true), so it’s possible to do really well paying your taxes this way!

Here are the instructions that were posted on FlyerTalk.  Note that I have not confirmed this:

1. Go to office depot and buy $500 visa debit cards with Ink card (5 points per $1). Fee $4.95. HT to boardingarea.com/blogs/frequentmiler

2. Add your zip code online.

3. Call 1-888-9-PAY-TAXtm (did not work for me online @ payUSAtax.com) and pay $3.49 fee per transaction.

4. You can do 2 transactions a day. Tom. by noon (per them)considered before deadline.

So, each card fee of $8.44 ($4.95 plus fee of $3.49) = 2500 UR points

They said that IRS will sent automatically check for overpayment, but I would not go wild with it for obvious reasons.

I’ll post a more thorough discussion of paying taxes with gift cards in the future.  For now, here are a few other references:

• Reader Request: Earning Miles & Points on a $1.4 Million Tax Bill? By Million Mile Secrets
• Does it Make Sense to Pay Taxes With a Credit Card? By ThePointsGuy
• Tax Day – Can I pay with a credit card? By DeltaPoints
• See the IRS rate sheet here.

Last week, a reader who goes by Stealph on FlyerTalk (and Bringer on MilePoint) alerted me to a new discovery.  He had found $500 Visa cards for sale at Office Depot, each with only a $4.95 fee.  Later in the week, reader Steve K reported the same finding in the comments of my post titled “The best way to Ink Money (revised).” 

Why is this an amazing discovery?  Office Depot is an office supply store.  So, if you use a Chase Ink credit card which gives 5X for office supplies, you will get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar when buying these gift cards.  Since the fee is only 1%, this means that you can buy these Visa cards and use them for day to day spend and earn the equivalent of over 4X on all of your purchases!

Let’s look at how this compares to previously reported options:

Analysis Table

The table shown here estimates the “X” for each option and each point value. For example, If you buy gift cards at Staples via the Ultimate Rewards Mall (for 2X) and you value points at 1.31 cents each, this table shows that buying $100 Visa gift cards online will give you the equivalent of 2.87X (points per dollar) for spend that you make with that Visa gift card. In other words, while you start with 7 points per dollar in that scenario, just over 4 points per dollar are used to “pay you back” for the card’s $5.95 fee so you are left with 2.87X overall.

An amazing deal

In the table shown above, you can see that buying $500 gift cards at Office Depot is almost always the best option.  You can then use those gift cards for purchases that would ordinarily only give you 1 point per dollar.  Imagine if, over the course of a year, you put $12K of spend on Visa gift cards that were bought with a Chase Ink credit card.  That’s just $1000 per month.  In that case, you would earn 60,600 Ultimate Rewards points by buying and using gift cards, instead of the 12,000 points you would normally earn (within 1X categories).  The extra cost to you over the year would be $4.95 * 24 = $118.80.  That’s a very small price to pay for almost 50,000 extra points!

Be cautious

Yesterday I wrote “Why Chase cancels accounts (and how to protect yourself).”  The key take away is that schemes like this should be done in moderation.  If you max out your credit card each month by buying Visa gift cards, Chase will eventually catch on and shut down all of your accounts.  No one knows exactly how much is too much so err on the side of caution.  See the Dos and Don’ts in yesterday’s post.

If you do not have a Chase Ink card, you can read more about those and other cards on the Preparing for Miles page which can be found as a menu item at the top of every page on the Frequent Miler blog.

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• In case you somehow missed it, today only you can buy a $10 Amazon gift card for only $5!  Hat Tip to RhondasBuzz.com (I would have provided a link, but her site appears to be broken right now).  View the deal here: https://local.amazon.com/palm-beaches (or any other Amazon Local location).
• Reader John W tipped me off about an awesome cash back site called TopCashBack which offers better cash back rates for gift card purchases and resales than ShopAtHome, MyDealsAndCoupons, etc.  As a result, I’ve updated the post Gift cards: buy low, sell high, get cash back.  If anyone is in the process of buying and selling gift cards, you should take a look as the cash back rates are better through TopCashBack.  (disclosure: I’ve used a referral link here which will give me a whopping $5 if you click through, signup, and make a purchase).

Kohl’s doesn’t always have the best prices, but if you stack readily available discounts, it’s hard to beat.  Here’s how to save 32% and get 10 points per dollar on everything at Kohl’s (even clearance items):

Step 1: Estimate your total cost

Find what you want to buy at Kohl’s and note the total price.  This technique will work even for clearance items so look for big markdowns!  When you’re ready, make sure your shopping cart is empty because, later, you’ll want to add the items after going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall.

Step 2: Calculate 20% off from coupon

In a later step, you’ll apply a 20% off coupon to your order.  For now, simply calculate the discounted total:  To do so, take the total from step 1 and multiply by .8.

Step 3: Buy Kohl’s e-gift card for 15% off

Go to Cardpool.com and buy a Kohl’s e-gift card.  They sell Kohl’s gift cards for 15% off.  Ideally you will find a card with a face value close to the 20% off amount you calculated in step 2.  If you plan to make future purchases at Kohl’s you could go ahead and buy a gift card for a larger amount.  Note that it may take several hours for Cardpool to email the gift card.

Optional: you can get an extra .8% cash back by starting at ShopAtHome before clicking through to Cardpool.com.  This will only work for your first $1000 in transactions at Cardpool.com.

Step 4: Go through Ultimate Rewards Mall for 10X

Once you receive your gift card from step 3, go to the Ultimate Rewards Mall, find Kohl’s, and click through to shop at Kohl’s.  Now any purchases you make will return 10 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent!

Step 5: Shop Kohl’s, apply coupon and gift card

Load up your Kohl’s shopping cart.  When you go to check out, make sure to apply a 20% off coupon code.  These are readily available through Google searches.  One that I used successfully recently was SMS6532 (with free shipping too).  Also make sure to apply your gift card to the order.

Add up the savings

Let’s say your total purchase before savings is $100.  The 20% off coupon will reduce the price to $80.  At Cardpool, you can buy a $80 gift card for $68.  So, your total savings on $100 worth of items is $32 or 32%.  Plus, you will get 10 points per dollar based on the $80 spent at Kohl’s, or 800 total points.  The fair trading price of 800 Ultimate Rewards points is $10.48. 

Additional savings:  Kohl’s frequently runs special deals where you can earn $10 in Kohl’s bucks for every $50 spent.  If you spend very close to a multiple of $50, then this becomes nearly a 20% rebate that stacks on top of all of the savings shown above!

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Updated 5/17 to remove GiftCards.com options

In a previous post, I showed that it was possible to increase credit card spend (and thus earn points and miles) by buying and selling discounted merchant gift cards. See “Churning merchant gift cards” for more information. If you’re interested in doing this, it’s helpful to have a “cheat sheet” showing where to go for the best deals. When looking to do gift card arbitration (buy low, sell high), start with GiftCardGranny.com to find the best buy and sell prices. Then, use the table below to figure out your total costs:

Buying gift cards:

Selling gift cards:

* Cash back type: some portals offer cash back as a percentage of the gift card’s face value, others offer cash back as a % of the transaction amount.

NOTE: GiftCardGranny sell prices for PlasticJungle are not always up to date.  To get the latest sell prices for PlasticJungle, view this spreadsheet.  NOTE: I HAVE RUN INTO SITUATIONS WHERE EVEN THE PLASTICJUNGLE SPREADSHEET IS WRONG.

Last month, I tried buying two for one gift cards from a site called Amoozle. 

Yes, I knew it was probably a scam. 

Yes, I knew that a nearly identical deal last year was a scam. 

But, I tried it anyway.  It was research for this blog, after all.  Well, no surprise: I never got my gift cards and now the Amoozle web site is gone.  I imagine it will appear a few months from now with some other name.  Anyway, since I used my Sapphire Preferred card to pay, I’ve filed a dispute with Chase to try to get my $29 back.  If you’re in the same boat, I recommend you do the same.