Today, Plastic Jungle shut down their shop.  They sent an email to all of their customers announcing that they would no longer buy and sell discount gift cards directly from and to consumers.  Instead of doing business directly with consumers, Plastic Jungle will continue to offer gift card exchange services through their partners (United MileagePlus, FlexPerks, BestBuy, CVS, and Zeevex).  This means that, instead of selling your used gift cards to Plastic Jungle for cash, you can trade them in for miles or points instead. 

Of course, if you want cash for your gift cards, there remain several other options.  Cardpool, GiftCards.com, and ABC Gift Cards are a few examples of services that currently compete with Plastic Jungle and will presumably continue to offer the services that Plastic Jungle is giving up.

Since I began blogging as Frequent Miler in September 2011, many deals I’ve written about have involved Plastic Jungle one way or another.  For example, on September 22 2011, I published “Buy American Airlines Miles for less than 1.6 cents each. No limit.”  In that post I showed how to effectively buy AA miles by buying Sears gift cards via the AAdvantage eShopping portal and then selling the gift cards to Plastic Jungle.  This was back when miles earned from any source counted towards AA lifetime status.

More recently, I wrote often about how to take advantage of TopCashBack’s 4% rebate for Plastic Jungle purchases and sales (which later dropped to 2.5%, then recently to 1%).  Thanks to that extra cash back, it was sometimes possible to buy discount gift cards from Plastic Jungle and to sell them back at a profit.  It wasn’t easy, though.  Plastic Jungle was able to detect if you tried to sell the same card back to them, so it was necessary to “launder” the gift card first by using it to buy a new gift card (stores like Walmart and Target allow this) before selling it back to Plastic Jungle. 

In case you’re interested, here is the text of the email that was sent out today from Plastic Jungle:

The team at Plastic Jungle would like to thank you for your participation in our gift card programs over the past seven years. Since 2006, Plastic Jungle has been a leader in providing you with great deals on gift cards in a secure marketplace.

 

As our business has grown and evolved, we have seen that the greatest potential for Plastic Jungle’s long-term success is in working directly with our business partners. As a result, we will no longer be buying and selling gift cards at www.plasticjungle.com. This change is taking place effective today.

With this transition, there are a few important things you should know. First, all orders currently being processed will be honored with the same guarantee of service and safety that we have upheld for seven years. Second, our website will be available to allow you to access your account and retrieve gift cards until November 1, 2013. Third, Plastic Jungle will continue to offer gift card exchange services to customers through our partners. Finally, our customer service desk will remain open during this period to answer inquiries and resolve any concerns. If you have any questions, we encourage you to visit our FAQs page or contact Plastic Jungle Customer Success at customersuccess@plasticjungle.com.

Thank you again for being an important part of the Plastic Jungle family over the past seven years. We appreciate all of your support as we begin this exciting new mission as a company.

All the best,
The Plastic Jungle Team

Last week I outlined ways to earn hundreds of thousands of points and miles through gift card churning (see “The art of gift card churning @ #chicagoseminars“).  Today, I have a number of specific updates for people who have taken gift card churning to heart…

Kohl’s triple dip not working

In my recent post “How to maximize your Freedom 5X purchases” I suggested that it might be possible to earn 25 points per dollar at Kohl’s by going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall to Kohl’s to buy Kohl’s gift cards with your Freedom card, and then go through the mall again to use the gift cards.  However, a reader reported on Saturday that this trick didn’t work for them.  They received points for using a gift card at Kohl’s, but not for buying a gift card.  One reader experience doesn’t prove that the triple dip won’t work for everyone, but its probably not worth the risk.

PlasticJungle / TopCashBack drops to 2.5%

PlasticJungle is a gift card buyer / reseller.  They’re a great resource if you have unused gift cards you’d like to sell (at less than face value).  And, they’re a great resource if you want to buy gift cards at a discount (which is a great way to save money almost anywhere).  Until recently, a cash back portal (TopCashBack) offered 4% cash back at PlasticJungle if you started from their site.  Cash back is awarded whether you buy gift cards from Plastic Jungle, or sell them.  Recently, TopCashBack reduced the payout to 2.5% cash back.  Accordingly, I’ve updated the post “Gift cards: buy low, sell high, get cash back” which can always be found on my Resources tab:

Walmart gift cards cheaper than usual

Lately, $500 Walmart gift cards have been on sale on EBay for about 5% off of face value (e.g. $475).  That’s pretty good, especially considering that purchases of merchant gift cards on EBay earn EBay bucks, which means you get an additional 1.9% rebate (2% of $475 = $9.5, which equals 1.9% of $500).  The catch is that the sellers don’t ship the cards for a month or more.

One reason that discount Walmart gift cards are interesting is that Walmart sells Visa gift cards online and will let you pay with gift cards.  The best value, currently, is to buy $200 Visa or MasterCard gift cards for $206.88 each.  This amounts to a 3.44% fee.  However, if you pay with a Walmart gift card that you bought at a 6.9% discount, you are still well ahead!

OfficeMax tightens up

In the posts “10% off everything and 7% off everything else” and “How to buy points for free” I described a few great ways to leverage the American Express OPEN Savings program now that those savings apply only to online orders at OfficeMax.  The trick involves buying OfficeMax gift cards online (for 10% cash back) and then upgrading them in-store (e.g. use them to buy better gift cards).  I haven’t had any trouble upgrading at my local OfficeMax, but a number of readers have reported that their OfficeMax stores don’t allow it.  In fact, fellow blogger Delta Points tells me that his OfficeMax used to allow it, but has recently cracked down.  If you’re thinking of trying this technique, consider starting very small to check whether your local OfficeMax store is upgrade-friendly.

This is a trick for advanced gift card churners.  The trick can be used to help meet minimum spend requirements, earn points, and even earn some money.  I’ve hinted about this in previous posts, but I’ll bring it all together today. 

The Trick

At a high level, the trick is to use an Amex business credit card to buy OfficeMax gift cards for 10% off, then upgrade those cards to more valuable cards before selling them.  Through this process it’s possible to increase credit card spend (and therefore earn points), and even make some money.

What you need

• Amex Business card: In order to pull off this trick, you need an American Express business card with OPEN Savings.  Most American Express credit cards have both personal and business variants.  If you get the business version, you will automatically be enrolled in their OPEN Savings program in which you get cash back automatically (applied to your statement) when shopping at certain merchants.  You don’t have to have an official business to get a business card: if you ever sell items via yard sales or online, you have a business; if you do consulting, you have a business; if you rent out property, you have a business; etc.  If you’re in that situation, when filling out a credit card application put the business type as “sole proprietor” and use your own Social Security number as the Tax ID.  See “Best credit card offers” to find some Amex business card options with good signup bonuses.  Note that the SPG card will soon increase the signup bonus to 30K so you may want to wait a week or two for that one.
• Nice OfficeMax: People have reported mixed success in using gift cards at OfficeMax to buy other gift cards.  You need to make sure your local OfficeMax is nice about this before you risk too much!

Step By Step

Step 1: Buy OfficeMax gift cards

Browse to OfficeMax.com and buy more than $250 worth of OfficeMax gift cards.  The largest cards they sell are for $100 each so I’d recommend buying at least 3 $100 cards at a time.  Make sure to pay with your Amex business card.  In order to receive 10% back, you must make the purchase online and the purchase must total more than $250.

Caution: OPEN Savings are only from purchases made at OfficeMax.com.  You will not get cash back for similar purchases at Office Depot or Staples.

Step 2: Upgrade to Visa gift cards

Once you receive your OfficeMax gift cards, rub off the gummy stuff on the back to expose the PIN numbers and then take the cards in-person to an OfficeMax store.  There, you should be able to find $200 Visa gift cards.  Buy them with your OfficeMax gift cards.  The Visa cards come with a $6.95 fee, but you’re still way ahead since you got 10% back from the purchase of the OfficeMax gift cards.

Step 3: Use Visa gift cards to buy resell-able gift cards

Even though Visa gift cards are like cash, they’re not easy to turn into cash.  Instead, use the gift cards to buy easily sold gift cards.  Currently, Plastic Jungle will buy all of these gift cards for 92% of their value: Exxon, Phillips 66, Safeway, Sams Club, Target, and Walmart.  You can find current sell prices at GiftCardGranny.com. 

I find it easier to buy gift cards in-person than online when using Visa gift cards to pay.  When using them online, you first need to register your name and address with the Visa gift card company.  This can be a bit of a hassle if you’re doing this often.  Here’s a better bet:

• Find a local grocery store that offers fuel points for buying gift cards
• See if any high value gift cards are sold at that grocery store (for example, obviously Safeway would sell Safeway gift cards).
• Use your Visa gift cards to pay.

If you don’t have a grocery store that meets the above criteria, then simply visit Target, Walmart, etc. and buy the gift cards there.

Step 4: Sell the gift cards

Now that you have gift cards from Target, Walmart, or wherever, log into TopCashBack and click through to PlasticJungle to sell your gift cards.  You should get 92% back from PlasticJungle and another 4% of 92% = 3.68% from TopCashBack.

Add it up

Let’s suppose we start with $1450 worth of OfficeMax gift cards.  Here’s how the math works out:

• Spend $1450
• Receive $145 back from OPEN Savings
• Use $1450 in gift cards to buy 7 $200 gift cards.  7 * $206.95 = $1448.65.  Use the extra $1.35 to buy a pack of gum or something.
• use the 7 $200 gift cards to buy 14 $100 Target gift cards (for example).  This should be an even trade since no tax or service fees are charged when buying merchant gift cards at most stores.
• Go through TopCashBack to PlasticJungle and sell the Target gift cards to Plastic Jungle (you may have to do so in multiple separate smaller batches).  You will receive $1288 from PlasticJungle and $51.52 from TopCashBack.
• Totals: -$1450 (spent at OfficeMax) + $145 (OPEN Savings) + $1,288 (PlasticJungle) + $51.52 (TopCashBack) = $34.52 profit

Overall, you will have increased credit card spend (for points and/or to meet minimum spend requirements), earned a small profit, received a free pack of gum, and potentially saved a lot of money on gas (which you’ll need for driving back and forth to OfficeMax).

Does it really work?

So far I’ve done the entire cycle one complete time and yes every step worked.  There are some real risks though:

• Your local OfficeMax may not allow you to buy gift cards with gift cards
• PlasticJungle may reduce the price they’re willing to pay for whatever gift cards you buy
• Your gift cards could get lost in the mail or otherwise misplaced on the way to PlasticJungle
• Your TopCashBack transaction might not track appropriately

Who’s In?

Obviously this trick takes a serious time commitment and comes with some real risks.  Is it worth it to you?

Earlier this week, the Southwest Airlines shopping portal (Rapid Rewards Shopping) offered 15 points per dollar when shopping at Sears.com.  In the post “Sears 15X: Leveraging the deal” I showed a number of ways one could capitalize on the opportunity.  In the post “Sears 15X: Free Southwest Companion Pass” I showed how one could (theoretically) earn a Southwest companion pass by buying and selling gift cards.  And, in the post “Sears 15X: Shopping for 110,000 points” I showed how one could earn 110,000 Southwest points by double-dipping: buy gift cards for 15X and then use them to buy merchandise for another 15X.  It’s not easy, but it is possible to find merchandise that can be resold at an acceptable loss.

The 15X deal is no longer available, but let’s take a look at what we’ve learned so far:

The double dip worked!

A number of people who bought eGift cards and then used them to buy merchandise have reported that their points have already posted within the portal!  My points showed up this morning:

Reports from those who have shopped this portal before suggest that it will be a while before the points become real.  We will likely see these points post to our actual Southwest accounts by early July.

Purchases of physical gift cards worked!

There was some concern that physical gift cards wouldn’t get 15X because of a message that said they were sold and shipped by KMart (not Sears).  At least one reader, though, has reported getting all 15X points from their purchase!

Not all went well

Here are some issues that have been reported by readers:

• A few people received messages from Sears that the ordered merchandise was out of stock.  These messages arrived too late to get 15X by buying something else.
• Sears outright cancelled some orders without explanation.
• One reader reported trouble from PlasticJungle.  When he tried to sell his gift cards, PlasticJungle canceled the order.
• One reader received less than 15X for a part of their order.

As a result of some of the issues listed here, some of you are stuck with lots of Sears’ gift cards.  I’ll follow up later with suggestions for how to get the most out of them.

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15 Southwest points per dollar is a fantastic return for Sears purchases.  In this post I’ll list numerous ways to leverage this deal including some opportunities for people who don’t like to fly Southwest.  I may write a series of posts on this subject today, but this will be the master post.  Please return to this post for updates and comments.

Background

The Southwest Airlines shopping portal (Rapid Rewards Shopping) is offering 15 points per dollar when shopping at Sears.com (hat tip to Ford Prefect). The deal is only good through 5/23 (Wednesday).

Leveraging the Deal

There are many ways to capitalize on this opportunity.  In this post I’ll give highlights of a number of ideas and then I’ll follow up with in depth posts to flesh out some of the ideas.  When I do so, I’ll update this post with links to the new ones.

Shop
This is almost too obvious to write down, but I need to put it here for completeness.  If you have Sears’ purchases you were going to make anyway, shop through the Rapid Rewards Shopping portal before the end of day tomorrow.

To get free shipping, you can get a free 3 month Shop Your Way Max Membership with the promo code MAXFREE4.  Make sure to cancel before 3 months are up to avoid potentially getting charged $79 for the membership.  Great tip, thanks Nikki O!

Buy gift cards
If you do not currently have a need to buy stuff from Sears, consider buying Sears gift cards instead.  The beauty of this is that you will get 15X now and have plenty of time to make purchases later.  The other big advantage is that Sears’ gift cards can be used in a variety of additional shops: Lands’ End, KMart, Sears outlet, My Gofer, etc. 

Does the purchase of gift cards count for 15X?  I believe the answer is yes.  See the accompanying post “Sears 15X: do gift cards count?”

Buy gift cards and upgrade
I have used Sears gift cards many times in Kmart and Sears to buy other gift cards.  In the past I’ve bought BP cards and EBay cards, although I noticed recently that my local Kmart no longer carries those.  Kmart does still carry Marriott and Southwest cards though…

Double Dip for 30X
This is one of my favorite tricks which I’ve done successfully at Sears.com many times (but not previously with the Rapid Rewards Shopping portal).  The idea is to go through the portal once to buy eGift cards, then go through the portal again to use the gift cards for buying merchandise (no, you can’t buy gift cards with gift cards online).  The net effect is that you end up earning 30 points per dollar for your purchases!  The downside is that you won’t get purchase protection or extended warranty coverage that is given by some credit cards.

Buy points for less than a penny
Southwest points are worth a penny each when used for anytime fares and are worth 1.67 cents each for highly discounted “Wanna Get Away?” fares.  So, any opportunity to buy points for less than a penny each is a good deal if you fly Southwest.

There are two primary ways to buy points for less than a penny with this deal:

1. Buy and sell gift cards.  Buy physical (not electronic) gift cards for 15X, then go through TopCashBack to PlasticJungle to sell the cards.  Plastic Jungle currently offers 83% cash for Sears gift cards (physical cards only) and TopCashBack will add 4% of 83% = 3.32%.  Your total cash back will come to 86.32%.  Your cost per point earned will be .912 cents.  And, that doesn’t count points earned from your credit card!  If you use a basic 1X rewards card, your cost per point goes down to .855 cents.  If you use a trick to get 5 points per dollar, your cost per point goes down to .684 cents!
2. Double dip, buy and sell merchandise.  By finding deals at Sears.com for merchandise that can be easily resold via EBay, Amazon Marketplace, or Craigslist, you can potentially do even better than buying and selling gift cards.  The idea is to first double dip (buy gift cards for 15X), then buy re-sellable merchandise with the gift cards (for another 15X).  When Sears was last at 10X in the Ultimate Rewards Mall, I earned almost 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points by doing this trick.  See “Mileage Run Shopping: Buying 162,000 Miles for $500” and “Mileage Run Shopping Results.”  In that escapade, due to the costs of buying and selling (taxes, merchant fees, shipping, etc.) I lost 17% of the money spent, but the points earned more than made up for that.  With this 15X deal, even a loss of 25% will result in such a large number of points that you will have effectively purchased points for .83 cents each.  Again, your take will be even better if you use a valuable rewards credit card for the initial purchase.  Also, if you are a member of Sears’ Shop Your Way Rewards program, you’ll earn 1% back in the form of Sears credit!

Buy a Southwest Companion Pass
Southwest has a fantastic program in which a designated companion can fly free on all flights you take.  To qualify for a companion pass, you must earn 110,000 points within a calendar year.  Once you qualify, you designate a companion and that person then can fly free anywhere you go on Southwest for the rest of that calendar year and the next calendar year.  You may change your companion up to 3 times during the validity period of the pass.  Full details of the pass can be found here: rapid_rewards_program_terms_and_conditions_faq.

Million Mile Secrets has written about how to earn a Companion Pass through credit card sign-ups.  However, if you are already maxed out on Chase sign-ups (who isn’t?), don’t want to blow your valuable Chase sign-ups on Southwest credit cards, or have other reasons not to sign-up, then this 15X deal may be the way to go.

To earn the pass, you need to earn 110,000 points.  To get that many points through this deal, you will need to make $7334 worth of Sears’ purchases or $3667 of double-dip purchases.

Do points earned in the Rapid Rewards Shopping portal really count towards the Companion Pass?  Yes!

For details of how to buy a Companion Pass for free, see “Sears 15X: Free Southwest Companion Pass.”

Using points

If you’re thinking of amassing huge numbers of points with this deal, you might want to know ways to use them first…

Using points for Southwest flights:

For tips on how to get the most out of your points for flying, see MileValue’s post “How to exploit the Southwest-Airtran Merger.”  If you don’t want anything so complicated, using Southwest points for “Wanna Get Away?” fares is a great option which gives you 1.67 cents per point of value.  If you combine this with a Companion Pass (see above), each point doubles the amount of travel it gives you.  So, 110,000 points can give you $3674 worth of flights!  If you buy 110,000 points for as much as .91 cents each, your total cost will be barely over $1000.  In other words, $1000 can result in almost $4000 worth of flights!

Using points for other stuff:

Southwest lets use use points for international flights (any carrier), hotels, gift cards, and a few other options.  I examined a few of these options:

• Using points for International flights: Using points for international flights looks to be an OK option.  In a few examples I looked at, I would have received about .93 cents value per point.  Not great, but not horrible.
• Using points for hotels:  I looked at a couple of hotel bookings to see if I could get good value when using points in this way.  Unfortunately, the answer was clearly no.  Points were worth less than .7 cents each in the two options I looked at.  Your mileage may vary.
• Gift cards: Southwest has a surprisingly complete selection of gift cards you can buy with points and in most cases points are worth exactly a penny each when used this way.  That’s pretty good!  It’s not nearly as good of a deal as using points for “Wanna Get Away” fares on Southwest, but it’s just as good as using points for their “Anytime” fares.  Gift cards available include Alamo, Avis, Hertz, Amazon, Best Buy, Carnival Cruise lines, Lowes, Marriott, Sears, Starbucks, Walmart, and many more.

Cashing out points:

If you just want your money back, you can do that too!  Use your points to buy Walmart gift cards.  110,000 points would get you 22 $50 Walmart gift cards.  Plastic Jungle will currently buy them for 92% of their value.  By going through TopCashBack, you will get another 3.68% of their value for a total of 95.68%.  In other words, 110,000 points will translate into $1052.48.

Meet minimum spend and cash out bank gift cards

Another twist on this deal is that you can combine opportunities listed above to meet credit card minimum spend requirements and get all of your money back AND get a companion pass!  If you have Visa or Amex gift cards you bought in the past, you can also use these opportunities to cash them out!  See the sections above: “Buy points for less than a penny”; and then “Cashing out points”.  By doing both of those things, you could theoretically spend lots of money on your credit card, get it all back (eventually), and earn a companion pass.  How sweet is that?

Cautions and Risks

Everything written in this post carries some risks.  Don’t do this unless you are prepared for the worst.  Here are a few obvious risks:

1. You shop through the portal, but don’t get any points.  To minimize the chance of this, please see my post “How to ensure your portal points”.
2. Purchases of gift cards don’t receive points.  I think this is unlikely, but it is possible since I’ve never tested this portal.
3. Southwest may devalue their points at any time.
4. Southwest may change the redemption rates for gift cards.
5. If selling gift cards, Plastic Jungle may reduce the payout amount, or TopCashBack may reduce the cash back amount.
6. If selling gift cards, cards might get lost in the mail or improperly cataloged by Plastic Jungle.
7. If selling merchandise, you may have trouble finding buyers, you may find merchant fees and other costs to be higher than expected, etc.

Reactions

OK, so that’s an overview.  As I mentioned, I expect to dive into a few of the options above with detailed posts.  What do you think: will you jump into this deal?  Did I miss any big opportunities?

I’m not a Southwest flyer, but I’m strongly considering the double-dip, buy and sell merchandise play…

Related Posts and Links

• Sears 15X: do gift cards count?
• Sears 15X: Free Southwest Companion Pass
• Sears 15X: Shopping for 110,000 points
• How to ensure your portal points
• Sign up for TopCashBack (referral link): www.topcashback.com/ref/frequentmiler
• Sign up for PlasticJungle (referral link): plasticjungle.extole.com/a/clk/4bHsml

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TopCashBack has just increased the cash back rate for PlasticJungle.  Now, you will receive 4% cash back for both purchases of gift cards and sales of gift cards! 4% might not sound like a huge number, but if your goal is to increase credit card spend without losing (much) money, this is big news.  With the new rates, there should be plenty of opportunities to buy discounted gift cards, resell them, and get all of your money back! 

As always, take a look at the charts on this page: Gift cards: buy low, sell high, get cash back for the latest and greatest gift card options.

Once this crazy weekend is over, I’ll spend time researching ways to leverage these new rates.  In the meantime, if you find some good opportunities, please consider sharing them in the comments below.

Yesterday I published “Gift card churning gone wrong” in which I whined about a couple of misadventures I’ve had recently in buying and selling gift cards.  Well, my friend Natasha at TopCashBack just emailed me with some brighter news:

• TopCashBack has brought back GiftCards.com.  Earn 4% cash back for buying or selling gift cards!
• TopCashBack has added GiftCertificates.com.  Earn 6% cash back for buying gift cards!  Unfortunately, GiftCertificates.com sells cards at face value (that is, they do not sell discounted cards) and they do not appear to sell high value cards such as Walmart, Target, or gas cards.  But still, 6% back is a good start.

The bad news?  PlasticJungle has stopped giving cash back via TopCashBack.  You can still get 2% cash back from ShopAtHome when buying gift cards, but I don’t know if there are any good cash back options for selling gift cards to PlasticJungle.

I’ve written a few posts about how to buy and sell discounted gift cards in order to add spend to your credit cards.  In general, you won’t make much money from doing this, but if you’re trying to meet minimum spend it’s a great idea.  Or so I thought.  Life has not been good for me in gift card buy/sell land lately:

• TopCashBack used to give 4% cash back for selling gift cards to PlasticJungle, but that dropped to 1%.
• A reader tipped me off about a situation in which one could apparently make money by buying and selling Applebee’s gift cards.  I jumped in and bought a bunch of “paper” gift cards at CardPool.  I thought paper was just a strange name for physical plastic cards.  Instead, when they arrived they were electronic gift cards that had been printed out one page each.  I couldn’t sell these to PlasticJungle so I returned the lot (luckily I got all of my money back).
• In another adventure, I found a money making buy/sell opportunity based upon GiftCardGranny.com stated buy/sell prices.  Well, the buy prices were correct, but when I went to sell the cards I discovered that the sell prices were 5% off.  I lost a few bucks on that deal!  The lesson I learned was to use PlasticJungle’s spreadsheet to look up re-sell prices rather than the GiftCardGranny prices.
• That brings us to today where I proudly announced the availability of a buy/sell opportunity that would lose only 2% from each transaction.  For those looking to meet minimum spend requirements, a 2% loss isn’t that bad.  And, once again, I was able to buy gift cards at the expected rate, but when I went to sell them I discovered the prices were wrong again!  This time it was the spreadsheet that was wrong! I contacted PlasticJungle and got this helpful response:

We would like to inform you that we have a gift card pricing engine that determines what we can pay based on factors such as merchant popularity, resale velocity, seasonality and more.

Please access the link https://www.plasticjungle.com/sell-gift-cards, you will be able to check the offers once you entered your card information.

Anyone want a bunch of JC Penney e-gift cards?  Now, on to new ideas…

I just received an email from CardPool telling me:

For the next 48 hours, you can get JCPenney Gift Cards for 25% off!

This is a great deal if you’re interested in buying things from JC Penney.

 Otherwise, If you’re interested in working off a credit card minimum spend, it looks to me that you can buy and sell these for a fixed 2% loss as follows:

UPDATE: CURRENTLY PLASTIC JUNGLE IS ONLY OFFERING 65% PAYMENT DESPITE THEIR SPREADSHEET CLAIMING 70%.  HOLD OFF ON THIS DEAL UNLESS YOU WANT TO USE JC PENNEY GIFT CARDS!

Step 1: TopCashBack

TopCashBack gives 2% back for purchases made at CardPool (up to $1000 in cash back lifetime)

Step 2: Buy at Cardpool

Buy a bunch of discounted JC Penney gift cards.  My apologies if you find them sold out by the time you get there!

Note that I tried to use both a visa and an Amex gift card purchased at Office Depot, but neither worked.  You may have to use a real credit card here.

Step 3: Wait for gift cards to arrive

Electronic gift cards are usually delivered in a few hours.  Expect to wait at least a few days for paper ones.

Step 4: ShopAtHome

ShopAtHome offers 2% cash back on sales to PlasticJungle.  Note that this is 2% of the amount PlasticJungle will pay (70% currently), not 2% of face value.

Step 5: Sell at Plastic Jungle

Currently, Plastic Jungle offers 70% of face value for JC Penney cards.  One nice thing is that they have an option to sell the gift cards electronically (for select cards, including JC Penney) so that you don’t have to mail anything.  You can check Plastic Jungle’s current rates here. 

GiftCardGranny.com, if you’re reading this, note that your current listed sell price is incorrect.

Add it up

If I did my math correctly, the total loss from this whole procedure is 2%.  If you use a credit card that awards points worth 2% or more (SPG, for example), then you come out even or slightly ahead.  If you’re working on meeting minimum spend requirements on a credit card, this could be a good opportunity.

I’ve reported before that it is possible to increase credit card spend by buying and selling discount gift cards.  You can see more in the post “Gift cards: buy low, sell high, get cash back.”  To make many of these deals work, you need to get extra cash back when buying and selling gift cards.  One of the best options has been to go through TopCashBack to PlasticJungle.  Currently, TopCashBack gives 2% back for gift cards bought at PlasticJungle and 4% back for gift cards sold to PlasticJungle.  Another good option is ShopAtHome which offers a flat 2% cash back rate.  These cash back options often go a long way in bridging the difference between buy and sell prices, so that you can come out even and sometimes ahead by doing this.

Now for the bad news.  I received a tip today from a person who wishes to remain anonymous: As of midnight April 12th (Thursday night) PlasticJungle will lower their payout to cash back sites to 1% across the board.  It will be interesting to see if TopCashBack and ShopAtHome instantly lower their rates as well.  I expect they will.

So, if you have gift cards to sell, you might want to hurry!

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