A couple of days ago, GiftCardMall suddenly disappeared from cash back portals.  I had listed GiftCardMall as one of the best ways to buy $500 Visa cards in the post “Best options for buying $500 Visa gift cards,” but they pulled out of their affiliate channels the same day I posted.  Luckily, they’re back!

FatWallet:

1% cash back, but terms exclude Visa gift cards:

TopCashBack:

2% cash back for regular gift cards. 1% cash back for Visa gift cards:

Sign Up Links

You can find links to sign up for the above cash back portals and others on my “Sign-Up Links” page (which can also be found under the Resources menu of any page on the Frequent Miler site).

Recently, Visa and MasterCard gift cards became great tools for earning points and miles thanks to the new ability to assign PINs (see “Gift card PINs“).  It’s now possible to buy gift cards and cash them out easily by loading them to your Bluebird card or other means.  In other words, buying debit gift cards is now like buying cash and paying with a credit card.  One can earn points and miles and pay only the fee associated with the gift card (if any).

Size Matters:  When buying gift cards in order to earn points & miles, the best cards are those with the lowest net cost as a percentage of card value.  High value gift cards tend to have the lowest fees (as a percentage of their value) and they are easier to deal with.  For example, a Bluebird card can be loaded up to $1000 per day at Walmart (via “Swipe Reloads”) for free.  With $100 gift cards, you would have to do 10 swipes to get to $1000.  With $500 gift cards, it takes only 2 swipes.  And, while $1000 gift cards exist (at least, they used to!), they’re very hard to find.  So, currently, $500 gift cards are the sweet spot to look for.

Visa vs. MasterCard: While it is now possible to set PINs with both Visa and MasterCard gift cards, people have reported more issues in trying to use MasterCards with PINs than Visa gift cards.  Until that changes, I’d recommend favoring Visa gift cards whenever you have the choice.

Here is a roundup of the best options I know of for buying $500 gift cards:

Grocery store gift cards with fuel points

Some grocery stores have rewards programs in which they give fuel points that can be used to get a discount when filling up your car at a participating gas station.  Of those stores, some will give fuel points for the purchase of variable load gift cards.  For example, I’ve had success buying $500 Visa gift cards at Kroger and I earned 500 fuel points each time.  The value of fuel points is directly proportional to how much fuel you pump at one time (see “What is a fuel point worth?“).  Since I drive a car with a fairly small tank and I don’t try to game the system, fuel points are worth just over a penny each to me.  If you have a large fuel tank and/or practice tricks to increase how much you pump at one time, fuel points can be worth much more to you.  At the minimum, though, I’d say that the fuel points earned are worth at least the fee associated with the gift card ($5.95, for example).  So, with this approach you can basically buy $500 gift cards with no net fee (as long as you actually use the earned fuel points).  The $500 gift cards I’ve found at Kroger are issued by U.S. Bank and do require that you call in the number on the back of the packaging to set the PIN.  When I’ve setup the PIN this way, I’ve had no problem using the cards, but when I tried other approaches (such as trying to use the last four digits of the card # as the PIN without calling first), it not only didn’t work, but the card still didn’t work for debit purchases after I called to set the PIN.

Pros:

• Pay with any credit card accepted by the grocery store (including those that give bonus points or cash back for grocery purchases).  I’ve also had success paying with American Express gift cards.
• Banks will generally treat these purchases as grocery store purchases so you do not have to fear the purchase counting as a cash advance.
• Fee free or even a money maker depending on how you use the earned fuel points.

Cons:

• Debit PIN feature on U.S. Bank gift cards is finicky and may not work if you don’t set the PIN properly before attempting to use the card.
• Requires extra step of calling to set the PIN.
• Your local grocery store might not award fuel points for these purchases (so, experiment!).
• There is probably a limit to how many fuel points you can realistically use.

Chase Gift Cards

Currently, Chase is offering their Visa gift cards fee-free.  You can order the cards online at chase.com/gift-cards.  The current message on the website says:

We apologize that we are temporarily unable to offer Chase Gift Cards through the branch. Due to the inconvenience, our standard shipping fee of $4.95 for online gift card orders is temporarily waived.

This is a great way to buy gift cards up to $500 each, but Chase only accepts Visa or MasterCard for payment.

Pros:

• Fee free!

Cons:

• They only accept Chase credit cards for payment
• Gift cards are not available to residents of the following States: AR, CT, HI, ME, NH, NJ, RI, VT (Hat Tip Scott)
• It’s possible that some banks will treat these purchases as cash advances.

GiftCardMall.com

Until recently, GiftCardMall offered $1000 Visa gift cards which were perfect for loading to Bluebird.  Sadly, they recently lowered the top Visa gift card amount to $500 and they raised their fees slightly.  Even with those changes, though, GiftCardMall can be a good deal, especially when you start your purchase from a cash back portal.

TopCashBack offers 1% cash back for GiftCardMall Visa purchases.  If you click through from TopCashBack to GiftCardMall and buy two $500 Visa cards with standard non-trackable delivery, your credit card will be charged $1,015.38.  If all goes well, you’ll get back $10 from TopCashBack, so your net cost will be $5.38 which is a very reasonable net fee of .54% (and if you follow the Frequent Miler Laboratory closely, you can do even better…)

Note that GiftCardMall sends the Visa gift cards in one envelope and sends activation codes in another.  I think that this helps make delivery of the cards more secure and so I would be willing to accept non-trackable delivery.  If you prefer trackable delivery, the total price goes up only $2.

Pros:

• Pay with any credit card accepted by GiftCardMall. 
• With GiftCardMall gift cards, you do not need to set the PIN in advance.  Simply use the last four digits of the card number a the PIN.

Cons:

• Your purchase through TopCashBack (or any portal) may not track correctly, so you might not get paid.
• GiftCardMall often holds up orders as they investigate them.  This can be a hassle.
• It’s not hard, but you do need to activate the cards online once you receive them.
• It’s unclear whether any credit card companies would treat these purchases as cash advances.  I’ve never heard of this happening with GiftCardMall, but the possibility does exist (especially with Citibank cards).

OneVanilla Prepaid Cards

Certain OneVanilla cards can be loaded up to $500 with only a $4.95 fee each.  This is $1 cheaper than most competitors.  $500 OneVanilla cards can be found at certain gas stations, drug stores, and grocery stores.  In my experience you can use these cards without ever setting up a PIN. The card simply uses the first PIN you type in.

Pros:

• Pay with any credit card accepted by the store.  If your credit card earns bonus points at the store visited, then you should earn bonus points for these purchases as well.
• Banks will generally treat these purchases as store purchases so you do not have to fear the purchase counting as a cash advance.
• No need to set the PIN in advance.

Cons:

• The $4.95 fee amounts to approximately 1% of the card’s value. This is not a bad price, but it is more than the options presented above.

Reader Experiences

Have you found any better deals than those listed above for $500 gift cards?  Have you had any experiences to add to (or contradict) what I wrote?  Please comment below.

UPDATE: During the day, GiftCardMall changed the upper limit of their gift cards from $1000 to $500.  This can still be a money maker at 2%, but it’s not as good of a deal as it was.

Today only (Monday, April 29 2013), the cash back portal, TopCashback, is offering 2% cash back when buying gift cards after clicking through to GiftCardMall.  TopCashback usually offers 1.5% cash back for GiftCardMall, but the rate is going to dip down to 1% as of Thursday, May 2nd.  So, the expected cash back schedule for buying Visa gift cards at GiftCardMall via TopCashback is:

• Monday, April 29: 2% cash back
• Tuesday & Wednesday: 1.5% cash back
• Thursday and thereafter: 1% cash back

PINs

Now that Visa gift cards can be setup with PINs, they have become more interesting since they can now be loaded to Bluebird (see “Gift card PINs” and “Bluebird swipe reloads via ATM” and “Better than free manufactured spend“).

I’ve tested Visa gift cards from GiftCardMall and I found that, once activated, it is possible to simply use the last 4 digits of the gift card as its PIN (you can also set your own PIN online if you prefer).  Using the last 4 digits as the PIN, I successfully loaded my Bluebird card at Walmart.

Buy with Amex gift card

If you want to buy these gift cards with an Amex gift card, please read this post: How to use Amex gift cards to buy GiftCardMall gift cards and earn a profit.  Many questions you may have are (hopefully) already answered there.

TopCashback Notes

The following information was sent to me by TopCashback.  If you’re interested in their business model and how it affects promotions like these, here you go:

TCb makes money through the Google Ads that are dotted around its pages (and clearly marked as non-cashback earning) and by selling on-site advertising space to merchants. In the latter’s case, the merchant *must* also offer an increased rate of cashback – so members are gaining a little bit extra as well.

Cashback rates are always at least 100% (where allowed) of what TCb’s paid. If a cashback rate increases for a period of time, that’s either because a) the merchant has bought advertising space so has had to increase its cashback rate to be in line with the TCb advertising rules or b) there’s some spare TCb marketing budget that can be put towards offering members a higher rate of cashback with a particular merchant for a small period of time.

If a cashback rate decreases, it’s because c) TCb’s spare marketing budget has been removed from the rate; d) the advertising period for a merchant has finished, so the rate’s dropping back to its standard amount or e) the merchant has said it is lowering what it is prepared to pay TCb as standard. Nonetheless, regardless of which reason, the cashback rate displayed will be 100% of what TCb is paid.

Related posts and links

• Sign up for TopCashback: Sign-Up Links
• Read more:
  • How to use Amex gift cards to buy GiftCardMall gift cards and earn a profit
  • 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

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

I don’t know how long it will last, but as of the time of this writing it is possible to manufacture credit card spend for free (see “Better than free manufactured spend“).  This means that you can collect points and miles for free.  You can meet minimum spend requirements for free.  You can earn high spend bonuses for free (see “Best Big Spend Bonuses“).  Sometimes you can even make a profit while collecting points this way. 

In the past I’ve often compared various manufactured spend techniques by calculating the cost per point of each technique.  Now, though, the cost per point is zero or less.  It’s time to look for a new comparative metric.

Bluebird as a limited resource

Currently, I’d argue that American Express’ Bluebird product is the single best and easiest way to turn Visa gift cards and Vanilla Reload cards into cash.  Vanilla Reload cards can be loaded to your Bluebird account online via the site vanillareload.com.  Visa gift cards can be loaded to your Bluebird account at Walmart stores via “swipe reloads” (see “Gift card PINs“).  Both techniques for unloading the cards are free. 

Importantly, Bluebird limits reloads to $5000/month per person (swipe reloads and Vanilla reloads combined).  So, I think that a useful new metric is to compare techniques with Bluebird’s $5000/month limit in mind.  Which combination of credit card, gift card, portal, and gift card merchant results in the most value for $5000 per month in spend?

The Bluebird Metric

Here’s how the Bluebird Metric works:

For each technique, calculate the following for $5K of manufactured spend:

• Calculate out of pocket cost.  For example:
• If you buy 10 $500 Visa gift cards, each with a $5.95 fee then out of pocket cost = 10 x $5.95 = $59.50
• Estimate the cost of your time, gas to drive to/from Walmart, and car wear and tear.
• Calculate credit card value
• # Points earned via credit card (or cash back earned)
• Value of points earned via credit card
• Estimated cash value of other benefits earned (e.g. “Travel Together ticket”, elite status, etc.)
• Calculate value of other rewards
• # Points earned via other means (e.g. fuel points from grocery store, points from online portal, etc.)
• Value of points earned via other means
• Cash earned via non-credit card means (cash back portals, for example)
• Add up all of the above benefits and subtract all of the costs.

In the end, you should have an estimate of the total value of $5000 worth of manufactured spend.  This value can be compared across multiple manufactured spend techniques to help decide which is best.

To help calculate all of this, I created a Google Docs spreadsheet and entered in a number of different scenarios.  Here is what I found:

Grocery 2X vs. 5X

The example below shows two similar scenarios.  In both cases, the idea is to manufacture spend by buying $500 Visa gift cards at a grocery store and then liquidate them through Bluebird at Walmart.  The biggest difference between the two scenarios is that one uses a credit card that earns 2X at grocery stores and the other earns 5X. 

The samples above show an estimated value of manufacturing $5000 in spend.  In my experience, Kroger awards fuel points for gift card purchases.  For me, fuel points are worth about 1 cent each, but the value for you would depend completely on how much you fill your gas tank (and/or friend’s gas tanks) each time (see “What is a fuel point worth?“).  Next to “Estimate other costs” I entered “$50″ to cover the cost/time/pain of visiting Walmart several times in a month.  Everyone has different circumstances that would warrant very different values here. 

The two columns above vary by credit card: The Amex PRG (Premier Rewards Gold) card (which earns 2X at gas and grocery stores) vs. the Citibank ThankYou Preferred card (the one that earns 5X at groceries, drug stores, and gas stations for the first year).  For the PRG card, I entered a very conservative value of 1.29 cents per point (based on the estimated Fair Trading Price). For the Citi card, I entered a value of 1.33 cents per point (see “ThankYou!“).  The PRG card earns a big spend bonus of 15,000 points after $30K spend, so I entered that in as well.  Note that the calculations assume that once the big spend bonus is achieved, the card will no longer be used in the same calendar year.

Overall, you can see that the net estimated benefit of manufacturing $5K of spend in this way would be $101 for the PRG card vs. a whopping $273 for the Citi card. 

Let’s look at other examples…

Vanilla Reload cards 1X vs. 1.1X vs. 5X

In this scenario, I compared three cards:

The American Express SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) card earns only one point per dollar.  My Chase Freedom card earns 1.1 points per dollar thanks to the annual 10% bonus I get for having a Chase checking account (see “The new king of the Ultimate Rewards Mall“).  And, my Citi ThankYou Preferred card earns 5X at drug stores for the first year (Details here).  With the estimated values I plugged in, you can see that only the 5X scenario results in much gain.

Office Supply Stores

Here are my estimates for the value of buying $200 Visa gift cards at office supply stores with a card that earns 5X:

The only difference between the two columns above is that I used the conservative Fair Trading Price of 1.31 cents per point for the left-hand column, and I used a much higher 2 cent per point estimate for the right-hand column.  With the 1.31 cents per point value, this approach results in $88 of value per month.  The 2 cents per point option results in a whopping $261 of value per month.

Cash Back Portals

In my recent post “Better than free manufactured spend” I showed that it was possible to earn money when manufacturing spend by going through a cash back portal to GiftCardMall to buy $1000 Visa gift cards.  I also pointed out that you could earn even more money by getting cash back buying Amex gift cards, and then get more cash back by using those Amex gift cards to buy Visa gift cards.  The table below shows the value of the first approach (buying $1K Visa cards at GiftCardMall) and just the incremental value of adding on the step of buying American Express gift cards:

Basically what this shows is that there is decent value to be had by manufacturing spend via GiftCardMall, but the incremental benefit of buying Amex gift cards is pretty small.  I don’t think it’s worth the extra hassle. 

Note that the Amex gift card column is just an estimate of the value you would get per $5000.  In reality, you probably wouldn’t buy cards with exactly $2500 in value (a number I used for convenience to fit the spreadsheet).  In fact, that would be an inconvenient amount if the purpose was to use them to buy $1000 Visa gift cards.  In reality, one might buy Amex gift cards each with $3K in value and use them to buy Visa gift cards with values of just under $1K each (in order to account for fees). 

Note also that the Amex gift card approach can be mixed with other manufactured spend approaches.  For example, you can use the Amex gift cards to buy Visa gift cards at grocery stores.  So, you can estimate that the added value of doing this (if you were going to use a 1X card anyway) would be about $39 per month.  Again, its probably not worth the effort for most people.

Your Miles May Will Vary

The estimated value of each manufactured spend approach shown above is highly dependent upon my situation: how much I value different types of points, which credit cards I own, how much I dislike visiting Walmart, etc.  The numbers will be more meaningful if you plug in your own estimates and even add new scenarios.

Here is the Google Docs spreadsheet:

Bluebird Metric Spreadsheet

To make changes, you will need your own copy.  Do the following from the opened spreadsheet:

• Select File… Make a Copy.
• Give the new file a distinctive name so that you can tell it apart from mine.

Note that the blue cells are ones that should be edited to fit your circumstances. Red cells are calculated automatically from the others so its best to leave those alone.

Conclusion

Its interesting to see that manufacturing spend is probably not worth the hassle except under certain circumstances:

• You are working towards a big spend bonus that you find especially valuable.
• You need to meet minimum spend requirements for new credit card sign-ups.
• You can earn a high multiple through category bonuses (e.g. 5X is very good)
• You have specific award redemptions in mind that are worth more than 1 to 2 cents per point

What do you think of the Bluebird Metric?  Is it a good way to evaluate various manufactured spend techniques?  Are there better or simpler options?

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)

Now that it is possible to set PINs on Visa gift cards, my interest in reloading Bluebird at Walmart has been rekindled.  Until now, I’ve found it to easier and more rewarding to load my Bluebird account with Vanilla Reload cards.  Now that giftcards have PINs, though, Walmart swipe reloads have become a fantastic way to turn gift card balances into cash (see “Gift card PINs“).

On Monday, with four gift-cards and two Bluebird cards in-hand, I headed to Walmart.  I wasn’t looking forward to the idea of trying to explain to a cashier what I wanted to do, so I looked for an automated solution.  I decided to try out Walmart’s “MoneyCenter Express” ATM (see photo below).

I couldn’t find an option to reload Bluebird cards, but I remembered that Bluebird was essentially an upgrade to Walmart’s older MoneyCard solution.  So, under the heading “Card Services”, I selected “Walmart MoneyCard”:

The machine prompted me to swipe my MoneyCard.  I swiped my Bluebird card instead.  I then followed the prompts to reload my card.  I selected to pay by debit card and then swiped my gift card and entered my PIN.  The payment was accepted and a receipt printed out showing the old and new balance on my Bluebird account.  Success!  As expected, no fee was charged for the swipe reload.  I then repeated the process with 3 more gift cards across two Bluebird cards (mine and my wife’s).

Keep in mind that swipe reloads are limited to $1000 per day and $5000 per month (across both Vanilla Reloads and swipe reloads).

While I still don’t enjoy driving out of my way to Walmart, the ability to reload Bluebird via Walmart’s special ATMs makes the process quick and easy.

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)