Category: Gift Cards

1. Apparently several Chase credit cards are being approved regardless of 5/24 status (all links are affiliate-free). Reported cards that are currently ignoring 5/24:

I’m currently on a half-hearted mission to drop below 5/24 (which is a year away best case), but man I’m tempted to make that drop below 5/24 even longer with a Southwest Premier card and its 100,000 Rapid Rewards points bonus. Story developing. (DPs: 1, 2, 3, DoC)

2. The Point debit card is giving 10x at Whole Foods and 10x at Costco through Sunday, up to $500 spend each. Obviously both stores sell gift cards, so there’s that. As usual with this super-weird debit card, use a referral if you sign-up because the referral bonus of $100 is bigger than the regular, publicly available bonus.

3. United has targeted more people with this round of MilePlay, and this time I actually got an offer. Check yours at this link. Mine was “book two trips of at least $300 each and get a bonus 2,700 miles” — strong pass, I like flying on CRJ-200s a whole lot less than I like 2,700 miles, and I’d honestly pay $300 to not fly on a United CRJ-200. Hopefully your offer is quite a bit better.

4. There’s a great $500 bonus offer at the Tastyworks online brokerage after transferring $10,000 in and ostensibly waiting 90 days. Early reports suggested that the bonus posts in one to three days, and I can confirm the same for me (two business days, surprise!) If ten minutes of time is worth $500 for you, I’d suggest you jump on it while it’s still around.

5. Stockpile’s Thanksgiving surprise is that they’re allowing gift card purchases with a credit card, fee-free. If you run into limits, I bet you can find more email addresses and/or IP addresses, right? I knew you could.

It’s too bad this isn’t like black Friday from two years ago, when you could buy $10,000 per day in gift cards fee free, and the maximum value was $5,000 and not $500.

Thanksgiving Surprise from Nana. Yummy, I guess?

1. Meijer surprises with another 10% back on gift-cards as $5 in rewards for each $50 in gift card purchases, but it’s not like last week’s book-a-last-minute-ticket-to-the-Midwest sort of deal because: it’s not a straight cash discount, you’ll need to buy groceries to redeem, and the rewards expire. What you should know about this one:

  • You get the discount back as Meijer rewards to buy groceries
  • You can buy a single $500 gift card to max out the deal on an account
  • Some gift cards are excluded, but BestBuy isn’t one of them
  • You can (and should) have multiple Meijer accounts
  • The deal runs through December 11

2. Office Depot / OfficeMax doesn’t surprise with its $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift cards deal. As with other iterations:

  • Link your credit card to Dosh for an extra $10 back per transaction — I use a new Dosh account for each Chase Ink card that I have
  • Try and get multiple transactions in a single trip
  • Buy the “everywhere” variety of cards for lower fees if you have a liquidation channel

(Thanks to DoC)

3. Arizona friends: How does a credit card with no-annual fee and $2,000 back as a sign-up bonus sound? Zions bank has got it. The catch? You have to spend $50,000 within six months to earn it. Did I look into registering a business in Arizona to take advantage of this? You better believe it. Why do I keep asking questions? No idea.

4. The Point debit card has changed their referral sign-up bonus: Under the new structure you get the annual-fee back after spending $200, which isn’t as high as the bonus was in the early summer, but it’s a lower spending threshold then I’ve ever seen. This card is effectively a 2% cash back debit card through the end of the year (once you get the Visa version in the mail) and it’s easy to game. They also occasionally have boosted earnings at selected retailers.

Under the new program, the referrer gets to a code for a free-suitcase after five referrals, which is possibly the lamest bonus for the referrer that I’ve ever seen. My normal position is that you should use a friend’s referral link rather than one from some rando on the internet, but because your friend isn’t likely to earn a suitcase, the public sign-up offer is lower, and because I don’t want a suitcase, I’m willing to post my referral here in case you want to sign-up: Point debit card $99 back after spending $200.

Pictured: Your prize for pushing the Point debit card on unsuspecting friends.

State of the Union

I’m not burying the lead this time: gift card reselling has gone plaid in the last week. A few vitals:

  • BestBuy $500 card rates crept above 99% for a day, and held at or above 98% for most of the week
  • Kroger Fuel Points spot prices are higher than I’ve ever seen, reaching north of $18 per 1,000 points
  • There have been more profitable non-BestBuy gift card reselling deals in the last two weeks than there were all summer long
  • Bulk gift card buyer demand seems to be larger this year than it was last year (or the year before)
  • More brands are becoming profitable when combined with grocery rewards: Apple, Home Depot, Nike, and Marshalls to name a few. More diversity means more opportunity

Honestly, The last week was so good that I knocked out a few big-spend sign-up bonuses on new credit cards using nothing but third party gift card resale deals over the past weekend.

Where to Start

The number one question I get lately is “Where do I find resale rates like these? I checked Raise and GiftCardWiki, and the gift card rates aren’t anywhere near what you post.” Well, I’ll share three for the moment (two for beginners and one once you’ve done a little bit of volume):

There are others too, but I think to use them effectively you should cut your teeth with the above. As you get bigger volume and better at the processes, you’ll get better rates and ultimately probably network your way into advanced aggregators and ultimately private buyers who will pay the highest rates. My best suggestion is to walk before you run on this one!

I know this isn’t what people mean when they say “cutting your teeth”, but it’s where my mind goes. Also, it’s probably where yours will go now too. Sorry, not sorry.

I had a “Weekend Wisdom” post scheduled for today, but late breaking news preempted it. I’ll let you guess which item caused the shake-up:

1. Meijer MPerks has 10% off on gift card purchases running today and tomorrow with a maximum of $50 back on a $500 purchase per account. Don’t sleep on this one, it isn’t the snooze fest you might think it is. I know of people that literally fly to Meijer territory from other parts of the country and hang out in stores, buying two $500 cards every 10 minutes for an entire day; then they wake up and do it again the next day.

Some gift cards are excluded, but BestBuy isn’t one of them (resale rates are currently in the 96-98% range, which makes this a 6-8% money maker even before your credit card spend).

2. Kroger has been running a 4x fuel point event for online gift card purchases since Monday. I haven’t written about it until this point because it’s been spotty and finicky with cancelled orders all over the place, but that seems to be mostly fixed. With fuel points selling at all-time highs you can come out ahead and never leave home. Your best options:

  • Apple gift cards: Resale rate of 94.5%+
  • Cheers-to-you Happy cards (swap to Home Depot): Resale rate of 94.5%+

The limits are $1,002 per transaction, and $1,002 per rolling 24-30 hour period. Buy the $500 cards for the best bang for your buck, and seasoned accounts work better. Don’t have any seasoned accounts? No time like the present to get ready for the next round, buddy!

3. The Staples fee-free $200 Visa gift card purchase promotion has been extended for another week, running through Saturday, November 13. As before, it’s still limit 5 per transaction. If you do this one, have a good liquidation channel and use a card that bonuses at office supply stores. (Thanks to GC Galore)

Did you guess which item messed things up? Hint, it wasn’t Staples.

Waiting for 10 minutes to pass at a Meijer grocery store.

Gift card sales are picking up in just about every way right now, but let’s narrow today’s discussion to a few fun Visa/Mastercard deals (and don’t forget the current Office Depot / OfficeMax deal going through Saturday):

1. GiftCards.com has a Halloween sale for three $250 virtual Visa gift cards with $75 off using code TRICKORTREAT, for a total cost of about $693 for $750 worth of cards. To make this even better, Citi has a targeted merchant offer for 1.5x at GiftCards.com, you can add it to your card at this link. (Thanks to GC Galore)

Make sure you go through a shopping portal to get to this deal. As of this writing, Alaska is at 4x which would payout at around 2,770 miles. In theory the deal runs through Halloween, but it will probably sell out sooner so jump on it while you can.

2. Simon Mall has 50% off of purchase fees using promo code OCTSCARY50. These are great for their large denominations (up to $1,000), and especially great for running up balances on a Citi Double Cash. Just don’t use an American Express card, they don’t pay out points on Simon purchases.

3. Kroger has $3 back on purchases of Visa or Mastercard gift cards via digital coupon. This one is unique because it reportedly works with variable load and fixed load cards, but only if the face value is over $50. Kroger sells US Bank Visa and Mastercard gift cards which tend to work better in many places than the alternatives.

You have a few Kroger accounts, right? You can create a new one in less than two minutes.

Virtual gift cards in action, but watch out: I have a sneaking suspicion that the printout probably won’t work at a Walmart register.

Background

Bravo is a great platform for sending person-to-person payments with both credit and debit cards. I first heard about Bravo in early 2019 from the now defunct Middle Age Miles blog. It’s never been the lowest fee liquidation option, but if you are earning 5-15x when buying gift cards and you’ve filled up other channels or run out of lower-fee liquidation, it can make sense.

The problem with Bravo though is that the fees started out relatively high and they’ve continued to creep higher, just like ancillaries on Frontier airlines. The evolution:

  • The fees started out at a flat 2%
  • They capped the flat 2% to payments of $499.99 or less
  • Around September 2020 they raised the fees for payments above $10 to be 2.9% + $0.31 per payment (or more)
  • Sometime in the last several weeks, they raised the fee to 3.6% + 0.31 per payment above $30.01

At this point, it’s really, really hard to justify the use of Bravo. That said, I suppose it could still make sense for some of you.

Forcing the Old Fee Structure

Here’s the kicker with the fees though: Until the last couple of weeks you could still send payments under the old 2% flat fee structure. How? By using an old version of the app and jumping through a few other (small) hoops.

Why did this happen? Well, I can tell you in general even though I don’t have any special inside information: a golden rule in mobile app and web development is that the server should validate everything, and the server should be responsible for “business logic” like the fees charged on a transaction. You can never trust a users device to be above board. Bravo’s team clearly didn’t follow this rule. The fees were hard coded into the application itself, so using an older application would give you an older fee structure. It took their team years to finally plug this hole.

Lessons Learned

  • Older apps can unlock functionality that’s been removed or changed, and that can even affect the way you’re charged for a service
  • Backing up your applications on iOS or having quick access to apkmirror on Android will often be useful for future tinkering
  • Sometimes you’ll need multiple versions of an application to accomplish a task

And of course the most important lesson for the software developers out there: Always validate on the server side. Always. (Unless you’re trying to help us out, in which case, thanks.)

Pictured: Bravo’s fix for the “2% in perpetuity” hole.

1. Office Depot / OfficeMax has $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift cards running through Saturday. As usual, to maximize the deal:

  • Link your credit card with Dosh before buying
  • Check your Chase Offers for 5% back or 10% back at Office Depot (and activate the offer if you have it)
  • Buy the “Everywhere” variety of cards for lower fees
  • Make sure you have a liquidation channel, especially for the Everywhere variety
  • Try and get at least two transactions per trip to save you time and energy

(Thanks to GC Galore)

2. There’s a new American Express targeted 20,000 points bonus floating around the community for turning on “Pay Over Time”. Check your charge cards at this link. Note that for me it leads to an offer for 20,000 points for adding an Authorized User which obviously has nothing to do with Pay Over Time. Either way I’m happy to take 20,000 points. (Thanks to DDG)

3.A new link has surfaced for one of my favorite cards (for its churnability and upgradability), the “no lifetime language / NLL” American Express Business Gold card with a 90,000 Membership Rewards sign up bonus after spending $10,000 in three months. It has another 30,000 points for drawing from an American Express Kabbage line of credit within the same three months of opening. (Thanks to blackfishfilet)

The 90,000 for the Business Gold is a great bonus, especially because you can probably get a six figure Membership Rewards Platinum upgrade bonus on the card after holding it for a few months. As far as Kabbage goes? You can do it, but you’ll almost certainly have to fight to get the account opened and linked, and then fight again to get your 30,000 extra Membership Rewards. Personally, I’d just consider this a 90,000 point bonus rather than 120,000, but that’s just because I value my time and stuff.

Pictured: American Express Kabbage if it were a bedroom.

Gift card resale rates have been creeping up toward yearly highs. This isn’t unexpected, Q4 is traditionally the best time of year for rates in the same way that it’s the best time of year to sell tinsel and foam Santa-esque figurines. Here’s what I’ve seen this week:

  • BestBuy gift card rates crept up to 98.75% yesterday. If you combine these with grocery store reward you’re looking at a decent profit even without your credit card spend factored in.
  • Apple gift card rates hit 94.5%. With the new MacBook M1-Pro announcement I expect there’s still room for growth here so start scouting potential buying spots. With Kroger in particular and the 4x promotion that ended yesterday, these rates made Apple gift card reselling rather profitable without considering credit card rewards.
  • Kroger Fuel Point resale rates have crept above $16/1,000 points. Honestly I’ve never seen them this high, and unfortunately I don’t expect it to last. A few back to back 4x general promotions tend to kill high rates, and a couple of those will probably come soon.
  • Home Depot gift card resale rates went to 94.5%. Yesterday’s Kroger 4x promotion could also work with these via Happy cards.

Other gift card brands have followed this trend. The only real exceptions I’ve noted are Gap and Express, which seem to have a flooded supply left over from the summer.

It’s time to dust off your gift card reselling skills and reach out for new buyers. There’s a lot of capacity waiting to be filled out there.

You know it’s Q4 when these beauties start showing up in stores.