Over the weekend there was a 4x fuel points promotion for Kroger stores which usually causes BestBuy volume to crank up to an 11, but that didn’t happen this time. Sure, there was some BestBuy buying capacity to go around in select circles, but only at roughly 15% capacity of what would normally be available. What happened? Two things:
First, January is always really slow for gift card reselling and this year it’s even slower than normal, likely due to supply chain issues that mean retailers aren’t holding major sales.
Second, BestBuy stopped giving refunds on lost and destroyed packages to accounts of suspected resellers starting sometime around Christmas. With approximately three percent of packages lost, this means that less-crafty BestBuy resellers need to factor another loss into their cost of goods sold.
With somewhere around a third to a half of those resellers not yet figuring out how to work around the reseller flag, BestBuy rates were reduced by about 1.5%. Yay efficient market, but boo for gift card resellers.
Of course I have no idea how the BestBuy gift card market will actually look in the future, but based on watching BestBuy’s growing disdain toward resellers, I think the outlook for 2022 BestBuy gift card resale rates isn’t as rosy as it looked in 2021. Go ahead BestBuy, prove me wrong. I dare you.
BestBuy’s Kitty Sanchez to resellers: “Say goodbye to these, Michael”
This is absolutely the slowest time of the year for gift card reselling, and 2022 has started out even slower than normal. Kroger is doing its best to change that with a Friday through Sunday 4x fuel points sale, but even that isn’t going to revive the market with meaningful volume given the backlog that aggregators currently have. Here’s what I’m seeing out there, and it’s a bleak January:
Tier 1 Cards
Resale rates (without fuel points) are weak and capacity to buy is currently small:
BestBuy: 95.5%
Home Depot: 93.5%
Apple: 93.5%
Nike: 93%
Lowe’s: 91%
If you’re really good at fuel points and can use them for yourself, they’re worth $35 per 1,000 which will easily make up for any loss you have when reselling Tier 1 cards. If you’re less good at them, their value is closer to the $15-18 range which can still make these deals worthwhile, provided you find a gift card buyer with capacity of course.
Tier 2 Cards
Tier 2 cards cards like Adidas, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Gap just aren’t moving right now but I expect that to change by the end of the month. That said, even when these cards start moving it typically only make sense to buy when there a good deal on them, and those deals are likely to be non-existent other than perhaps for MLK weekend, so don’t get your hopes up for any volume.
Tier 3 Cards
Lower tier cards like Domino’s and Bath and Body Works are also at a stand-still, but unlike the tier above, I don’t really expect them to start moving until February and I’m not expecting any major deals on them until then either. So if you got some of these over the holidays, it may be best to order what Domino’s calls a “pizza”, but the rest of the world calls “cheap cheese, red paste, and grease bread”.
How MEAB is Playing It
I’ll be using Kroger’s 4x fuel points sale to offset the loss in selling Tier 1 cards this weekend, but it’s not going to be any sizable volume. Instead I’m focusing on non-gift card reselling techniques to keep the my spend up, and I suggest you do the same.
Good luck out there!
Special thanks to Travel With a Point for noting a grammar error in the original version of this post.
Pizza purchased with your holiday gift card: a bargain rip-off at twice half the price!
I noticed it’s busy out this week, anyone know why? Anyway:
1. You may remember that Chase gave a year of DashPass to cardholders starting in January 2021, and for many of you that year is almost up. You can get another year as long as you do the following before January 1, 2022:
Deactivate your DashPass membership
Remove all your Chase cards from DoorDash (I had to do this from the website, I couldn’t figure out how in the app)
Wait one day
Add a new (different from the one you used in January) Chase card to DoorDash
2. A helpful tip courtesy of discussion at Flyertalk, and it’s definitely applicable to some of the fares I’ve already booked — in today’s pandemic-era airline environment:
Almost all fares are changeable with no fee
Almost all fares can be cancelled and held as expiring travel vouchers
Paying for a First Class upgrade with cash or miles has gotten more expensive
So, if you’re considering paying for a seat up front with a ticket you’ve already booked, check the original cost of the ticket paired with the cost of an upgrade and compare that to the cost of a new ticket booked directly into First Class. If it’s cheaper to book directly (right now it usually is), cancel your existing ticket, take the voucher, then use the funds to book into a proper First Class fare.
3.VanillaGift.com has fee-free e-gift cards through this evening with code EGIFT2021. I’m praying to the holiday gods that this one sticks around post expiration exactly the way that FLASH2021 didn’t, though being e-gift cards makes these slightly less useful so my prayer voice is more of a whisper.
4.SoFi is giving $20 for checking your interest rate on a personal loan, and it only requires a soft-credit pull. It took me about 60 seconds to run through the motions, but a SoFi rep called my voicemail twice afterword so keep that in mind. By the way, this deal barely made the cut I’m still trying to figure out exactly where that line is ($20 for one minute is above the line, but the phone calls almost pulled it below).
Happy holidays to you and your families!
Pictured: American Airlines’ First Class “holiday ham cake”, which thanks to this post, you can get for even less.
I’m sure you’ve already figured this out, but travel hacking slows down this time of year because reasons. As a result, we have just a single item for today:
Giftcards.com has 5% off of virtual Visa Gift Cards through the end of the year with promo code VV5T216. The maximum face value is $250, and the promo code only works for up to $750 total in purchases. Buying $750 in cards will cost $730.35, and should earn cash back or miles when purchased through a portal. A few notes:
These are Metabank gift cards, have a liquidation (cash-out) plan in-mind
If your order gets cancelled, your email address is probably burned — just create a new account with a new email
These will earn rewards on American Express cards
Because this is the only item today, let’s talk liquidation (cashing-out gift cards). There are a few options that aren’t exactly secrets but aren’t well published either; most of them involve a fee of some sort, and the loan options carry a risk of default that you can largely mitigate but not eliminate. They are:
Of course there are other options too, but they’re more closely guarded. You can find them with some digging. Check bill payment services, fintech companies, and payment processors.
Waiting for deals this week is like waiting for coffee at Dutch Bros on a day that ends in ‘y’.
There’s a triple for today, but first let’s talk some blog meta: A week from Friday it’s time for the MEAB annual Travel Hacking as told by GIFs post, and frankly that post is a ton of fun but also a bunch of work. The biggest part of the work is deciding which travel hacking events or changes for the year were significant, and while I’ve come up with a dozen or two, I could use your help. Drop me a line and let me know from your perspective which events in 2021 should be addressed. Thanks in advance!
Back to our regular programming:
1. Delta is having an award sale to Cancun and Los Cabos from various US Cities. Sale prices depend on the city, but range between 11,000 miles round trip and 22,000 miles round trip. Use Delta’s flexible calendar search for the quickest results. (Thanks to DDG)
2. In a move that surprised absolutely positively no-one, Office Depot/OfficeMax has $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift cards running through Saturday evening (or likely Friday evening, because, you know, reasons). To maximize the deal:
Buy the “Everywhere” variety of gift cards for lower fees, but make sure you have a way to liquidate (Bravo is still a higher fee way)
Try and get at least two and perhaps more transactions through back-to-back with the cashier
A caveat on the Rakuten card-linked program: Every time you use an offer you have to go back to the site and activate it again.
3. Stockpile has increased their fee-free gift card purchase when using a credit card to $1,000 per-transaction. According to DoC, the annual gift card limit has moved from $1,000 to $2,000, but I don’t think either of those limits were or are true. I was able to get more even before the change. For best success though:
Get a new IP address every couple of transactions
Use a new email address every couple of transactions
Use private mode in your browser
Use a credit card like the Chase Freedom Unlimited, Citi Double Cash, or American Express Blue Business Preffered that earns 2x on these transactions (or the US Bank Altitude Reserve for true hackers). Update: Chaim from HelpMeBuildCredit wrote in to remind me that Stockpile doesn’t take American Express
Apropos of nothing, I’d like to share this here because no-one else would understand. This morning, my P2 said to me: “You’re the worst to shop for. All I can come up with is to buy you $1,000 in BestBuy gift cards and let you turn those into points or something.” 😂
A machine that shreds BestBuy plastic gift-cards and turns them into showers of points. (Patent pending)
2. A follow-up from a week ago: my application for the US Bank Business Triple Cash card was approved with a ginormous credit line. How I’m going to play it: Hit the minimum spend to earn $500, lower all of my US Bank credit lines, then apply for three or four more of these before the offer goes away.
3.Rakuten’s card-linked cash back program has added BestBuy, Walmart, Gamestop, and Walgreens cash back at 5%, which blows the Staples 2.5% that we discussed in early December out of the water. Each of these stores sells one or more valuable gift cards, and each of them will let you buy those gift cards with a credit card (like perhaps an Amex that has an 99 employee card for 1.8 million points offer and a +4x offer attached?) Just don’t forget to link your cards to Rakuten and click “Link Offer” in your account.
The last time Rakuten had great partners with their card linked program it all went well for a while until they shut down a few accounts doing major volume in gift card purchases. So, add a kombucha, a banana, and a usb cable to your purchase to mask what you’re doing. At 5% cash-back, you can afford to treat yourself to America’s favorite fruit.
4. I think that Staples has had more weeks with a gift card sale going than weeks without one in 2021. Maybe next year I’ll post only if they’re not running a promo to save everyone time. That said, it isn’t next year yet, so… Staples is having a $200 fee-free sale on Visa gift cards issued by Metabank running through Saturday, limit five per transaction. (Thanks to GC Galore)
Liquidation? Try bill-pay services and try grocery stores that aren’t Kroger or Safeway/Albertsons; also, maybe look at the Western Union agent locator. Remember, the velociraptors in the documentary Jurassic Park found weaknesses in the electric fence that separated them from the money order terminals by probing. Be a velociraptor.
5. American Express has a 20% transfer bonus to Singapore Krisflyer, and Gary pointed out that this stacks with a promotion that Singapore Airlines is running through the end of February for Star Alliance Gold status. I’m calling this out because if you fly United a lot, and I mean a lot, and if you want to redeem a Singapore award for you and P2 (and maybe P3+) in the next couple of months you could get a ton of value because Star Alliance gold status through Singapore will get you into United Clubs when flying United Airlines (and a free checked bag, but if you’re flying United a lot then they’ve already lost your bag so you don’t have one to check, and you didn’t have to pay for them to lose it thanks to your status).
Just do this one on or after January 1 so that you’ve got effectively 25 months of club access (through February 2024).
The victory scene in Jurassic Park when the velociraptors successfully buy a money order.
Hopefully you got in on the Target 10% back on gift cards over the weekend. So far spot rates on Target cards have held surprisingly well during this iteration. I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time at a Target so I maxed out my Discover 5% cash back and left — I probably should have tried harder. Anyway, here are a few things to look at for Monday:
1. US Bank sent me a mailer for a $500 sign-up bonus after spending $4,500 in 150 days on their Triple Cash Rewards no-annual fee business credit card, and it turns out the offer is publicly available without a mailer code (affiliate-free link as always). It’s a great sign-up bonus for a card that won’t show up on your credit report and won’t charge an annual-fee, and the card earns 3% at office supply stores and gas stations (limit $200 per transaction on gas); if you’re locked out of Chase Ink cads or past your office supply 5x capacity it could be a nice card to keep in your wallet, otherwise it’s basically a sock drawer card after the sign-up bonus. A few things to note:
US Bank combines hard pulls in a single day, so apply for multiple cards at once
Historically you can get multiple business cards in the same day with multiple EINs
US Bank Visa cards work in many unexpected places where other credit cards don’t, always probe with them
I would have tested getting multiple cards in the same day with different EINs, but on my first attempt the application went pending, so I didn’t think that applying for more was going to help anything. I currently have three US Bank credit cards with ridiculously large credit lines in my portfolio so maybe I should have done something about that first.
2.Meijer is running a promotion for a $10 Meijer gift card free with every $100 Apple gift card purchase, but you do have to clip the coupon on each of your Meijer accounts first. Assuming you were going to buy groceries anyway, this is a profitable deal with current Apple $100 gift card resale rates hovering at around 91%.
Cyber Monday fared better than Black Friday for MS opportunities, and it looks like it’s going to continue into today and possibly tomorrow. Stay on top of reselling group messages!
In the mean time:
1. There’s a new PayPal offer for $50 back on $250 in spend at BestBuy when you check-out with PayPal. As usual, I’d recommend buying a BestBuy gift card for liquidation but with a special caveat: BestBuy will ban rewards accounts when a gift card purchased under that account is later used for a purchase flagged as a reseller. To protect yourself, don’t login to your BestBuy account and checkout as a guest if you’re going to buy a gift card for resale. UPDATE: The deal is now $25 back, not $50. Thanks to @BlueCat
With Southwest in particular, it’s a good time to book your Spring Break travel because they’ll likely change the schedule anyway and let you switch to any other flight ± 2 weeks from the original booking when that happens.
4. The web framework behind my favorite travel tool, ITA Matrix, is deprecated and going to have to be yanked by Google one day soon. Fortunately for all of us, a dedicated team of Google travel hackers are building a replacement with a modern web framework and they’re making good progress. You can find it here:
At this point it’s less buggy than the primary interface for some of my searches, though others just spin. I’d consider it a rapidly improving work in progress. Now we just need book with matrix to be updated too.
